Tyler Grange pay transparency

Do you know how much the person sitting next to you earns?

At Tyler Grange we do.

Why should we make that the norm and what are the advantages of pay transparency? Well, I’ll tell you.

Whilst many of our public sector workers have become familiar with pay bands and publication of their earnings, the private sector has seen little regulation and even less transparency in terms of earnings. It is commonplace for starting salaries to be influenced by the previous employment status or via recruitment consultant negotiations. Supply and demand also influence renumeration as does the sector within which you work. 

In the UK we don’t have pay transparency laws, but the concept of equal pay has been enshrined in law since 1970. Furthermore, the Equality Act 2010 requires employers to pay men and women equally for work of equal value. This means that people should receive the same pay for doing the same or similar work, or work of equal value, regardless of gender. More recently, Labour has announced a draft Equality (Race and Disability) Bill confirming their intention to introduce a mandatory requirement for employers of 250+ employees to publish their disability and ethnicity pay gaps, which at present is selective and sometimes set out within Inclusion, Diversity and Social Equality (IDSE) strategies. 

The newly formed Office for Equality and Opportunity will cover the overall framework of equality legislation in the UK, including disability policy, ethnic disparities, gender equality and LGBT+ rights. Although there is still progress to be made, the government is determined to dismantle any ceiling on people’s ambitions. 

Employers with an EU presence will fall within the scope of the Pay Transparency Directive in each member state where they operate and whilst ‘UK only’ businesses are not directly within scope of the new Directive, inevitably, there will be increased pressure to be transparent on pay. UK employers could be affected if they don’t follow suit and lose out to their EU competitors in the race for talent, particularly given the direction of travel linked to the draft Equality Bill. 

Legislation and mandatory compliance are likely to be slow in my opinion, so as a private business it is time to be proactive. Ignoring pay disparity is going to make it more painful in the long-term.

To improve, we needed to overhaul how we recruited people into the business or how we promoted them. We needed to make our business more inclusive, and we needed to support our team, in terms of flexible working, training, mentoring and the provision of other wellbeing support. With the instigation of our 4-day working week and the high social performance standards expected of us through our B Corp certification, it has seen us achieve a continual progression and reduction in our gender pay gap.  

As set out in our latest Impact Report, based on the UK Government’s official calculation, as of October 2024, Tyler Grange has a 13.6% pay gap (reduced from last year at 14.6%) between men and women. We have employed 19 females this year and promoted 7 more, which has improved the employee ratios within the quartiles. Although we have complete pay transparency and equality within roles, we still have gender gap in average pay which is something we are honest about and continue to work towards improving further. We have less men working for Tyler Grange but proportionately, they are weighted towards more senior roles.   

Next, we looked at our team renumeration with respect to the rising cost of living.  We have significantly increased employee salaries during recent years, to support staff during challenging times, but we wanted that to be tested and accredited, so we sought alignment with the Real Living Wage. 

To establish the Real Living Wage, the Living Wage Foundation independently calculates a minimum rate of pay in line with the cost of living – setting a fair benchmark for employers that’s at a higher rate than the National Minimum Wage and National Living Wage. It’s calculated independently on an annual basis and is based on the best available living standards in the UK. Under the real Living Wage rate, a full-time worker earns over £3,000 more each year, than someone earning the National Living Wage of £11.44. 

With all earning adjusted and with Real Living Wage accreditation achieved, Tyler Grange is now just one of 14,000 UK businesses (from a total of 5.6million) that believes its employees deserve a wage that meets their everyday needs. 

Fairness is also applied for our festive fund, whereby the performance of the company against the business plan for the year and alignment with our values is rewarded with an equal share of the pot of money that is put aside as a percentage of our operating profit. It encourages the team to work as a collective and to uphold our culture. 

Finally, on our journey towards pay transparency, the Board of Directors undertook a full review of salaries. From Field Assistants and Administration (what Tyler Grange calls the ‘Hub’), through to Associates and Board Directors, we needed to check the commercial thresholds against the wider industry, and then critique how each individual sat against those typical salary bands. 

It was a challenging process, as obvious inconsistences in earnings revealed themselves. As already noted, it was often as an inconsequential result of someone joining us from another organisation or because we’d needed to attract a key recruit within a highly competitive market. However, over a 2-3 year period, we were able to gradually align all of the team to broad and consistent salary bands, based on their skills, experience and alignment with our core values and expectations. 

In consultation with the team, the next stage was to introduce a fully transparent pay system, with spot earnings for every role across our business, with clear progression within some roles linked to our internal review process.

The salary spots are reviewed annually and are accessible to everyone.

That’s why we’re going even further with our support at Tyler Grange. We’ve always had a strong approach with regards to mental health and emotional wellbeing support, but we’ve decided it is time to offer free financial wellbeing assistance to our team. This will enable a much better understanding of their own financial circumstances and empower them to make more informed money decisions, wherever they are in their lives and careers. 

Perhaps it’s time you checked that you are being paid fairly for your role? I’d encourage everyone to at least start a conversation about the importance of pay transparency. 

“Secrecy was the problem; transparency the obvious cure.” Robert J. Sawyer