The National Association of Women Pharmacists has called on community pharmacy employers to publish their 2019-20 gender pay gap reports immediately.
“Gender equality should continue to be treated as important and that there is no need for good employers to delay publishing their 2019-20 gender pay gap report until the new October enforcement deadline,” the women pharmacists' body said.
The Equality and Human rights Commission’s enforcement action was suspended last year due to the pandemic and now employers have set the October 5 deadline to publish their 2019-20 gender report.
The Pharmacists' Defence Association (PDA) has said that employers should not wait until they risk enforcement before publishing this information and they should publish it as soon as possible, preferably by their usual date.
Naina Chotai, president of NAWP, said: “Singling out equality reporting as something that can be delayed gives the message that equality is not as important as other workplace issues. We disagree. Equality isn’t an optional extra, it should be at the core of how organisations work.
“Efforts to remove inequality from the workplace should always be a priority and employers should not delay publishing their reports along with any plans they have to improve equality”.
While current equality pay gap reporting is limited to gender, the PDA has called for ethnicity pay gap reporting to also become a requirement.
“By measuring and reporting differences in how those with different characteristics are rewarded at work, employers can often identify the structural inequalities that shape reward or influence career progression. Employers can then take action to remove those barriers to equality,” the association has said.
