“At Barchester Healthcare we have always recognised the benefits of a diverse and gender balanced workforce. 2022 remained a challenging time for many. We continued to narrow our focus to ensure the best quality of care for our residents and patients, and safe working conditions for our staff. However, we also wanted to recognise and thank our hard-working staff for all that they have done, and continue to do, to care for our residents and patients as we continue to recover from the Covid-19 pandemic. This has included investing additional money into our pay and bonus structure, which is set out in more detail in this report.

We compare very favourably with the national average for the gender pay gap, we have seen a decline in our Gender pay gap since last year, however we remain committed to reducing this further and will continue to build on the initiatives we have implemented in recent years to help promote gender diversity.

Our gender pay gap figures have been calculated in line with the regulations set out in the gender pay gap reporting legislation. I confirm that these figures have been verified and are accurate.“

Dr Pete Calveley
CEO

Gender Pay Reporting

The gender pay gap looks at the difference in average earnings received by men and women across the company, regardless of their role or seniority. It is distinct from equal pay, which looks at whether men and women are paid equally for doing work of equal value.

Whilst we still have a small gender pay gap, we continue to take positive steps to address this.

The statistics in this report are based on a snapshot of data taken on 5 April 2022 for Barchester Healthcare Homes Limited.

Barchester Healthcare Homes Limited

Mean and Median Pay Gap

The mean pay gap is the difference between average hourly pay of men and women. The mean pay gap is the difference between average hourly pay of men and women. The median pay gap is the difference between the midpoints in the ranges of hourly pay of men and women. It takes all earnings in the sample, lines them up in order from lowest to highest and the median is the mid-point.

Mean 4.6%
Median 3.1%
National average 14.9% (ONS 2022)

The main reasons underlying our small mean and median gender pay gaps are that there are generally more women than men in our caring, support work and administrative roles, which tend to be lower paid roles, consistent with our industry. There are nonetheless more women than men at all leadership levels in Barchester, including on the Executive Team.

Whilst both our mean and median pay gaps are below the national average of 14.9%, we will continue to build on the initiatives we have introduced to promote gender diversity at Barchester.

Mean and Median Gender Bonus Gap

Mean 10.4%
Median 13.4%

We are pleased to report that we have reduced the gap since last year and will continue to take positive steps to reduce this further. A limited number of individuals, coupled with the bonus schemes we offer, affects our bonus pay gap.

83% of females and 77% of males received a bonus in 2021/2022 which is due to the payment of three Covid related bonuses and a loyalty bonus to eligible employees.

We already have a great foundation of reward and recognition bonuses and we recognise the important contribution that our colleagues make to Barchester. We are committed to continue to build on these initiatives.

Proportion of Males and Females in Pay Quartiles

he table below shows the gender split when we order hourly rate of pay from highest to lowest and group the workforce into four equal pay quartiles. This is also illustrated by the pie charts.

In line with most care home providers, the majority of our workforce is female throughout all four quartiles.

We are therefore keen to ensure that men are given the same access as women to care worker roles, which is the largest populated role in the organisation and middle management roles (92% of our Regional Directors are female), whilst also ensuring women have equal access to more senior roles.

How we are addressing the gender pay gap

While our gender pay gap is significantly better than the national average, we have continued to build on the following initiatives to promote gender diversity at Barchester:

1. We offer a wide range of leadership development opportunities including our STEPS (First Steps, Step In and Step Up) programme which currently offers up to 100 places. We are also about to launch an Advanced Leadership Programme (ALP) partnering with the Chartered Managers Institute to accredit our internal programmes, make available CMI’s own bite-sized learning library and offer routes so managers can gain chartered status as part of their internal development.
2. The company continues to promote flexible working for men and women. This creates an accessible and inclusive environment for those with caring and other responsibilities. Barchester has 4,563 employees working part time (which we classify as anyone working 30 hours per week or less) with 10,086 working full time. Of the part time employees, 4,037 are female and 526 are male. We will continue to promote flexible working for men and women through our recruitment processes and facilitate requests via our flexible working policy and procedures.
3. Through the rollout of our new Time & Attendance system we have visibility of working patterns and can promote and allow our teams to work more flexibly at all levels within Barchester. We are keen to create an accessible and inclusive environment for those with caring and other responsibilities. Barchester has 5,351 employees that currently work part time (classified as anyone working 30 hours per week or less) of which, 4,585 are female and 766 are male. There are 8,823 employees working on a full time basis. Since the last reporting period we have seen an increase in employees working more flexibly.
4. an increase in employees working more flexibly. When recruiting into our homes and hospitals, we undertake local benchmarking to ensure we are paying competitively in that geographical area. As of 1 April 2022, we have been paying all our employees above National Living Wage and will continue to invest in this to retain this position. Since 2021 we have paid the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) PIN for all our nurses on an annual basis.
5. Creating an inclusive environment for our residents, patients and colleagues is key to the delivery of excellent care and a workplace that attracts and retains a diverse workforce. In recognition of this we’ve set up an ED&I Working Group to develop and implement a plan to ensure that we create inclusive cultures in all Barchester workspaces and realise all the benefits of a diverse workforce.
6. We are focussing on our Digital Transformation Agenda through various technology platforms to ensure that we have great breadth and insight into our people data which will help us to ensure that we provide greater flexible working options, career pathways and opportunities for development for everyone. We will continue to develop our approach around strategic workforce planning to achieve this aim.
7. We continue to progress with our people strategy, “Together, People Make Barchester” which was launched to the company on 14 March 2019. The focus of the strategy is on Barchester becoming an employer of choice in the healthcare sector. We have made positive progress across a number of areas in the employee lifecycle and we are proud to have achieved 2* star (outstanding employee engagement) Best Companies accreditation in 2021. We will continue to invest to ensure that we understand how our employees feel about working for Barchester.