Sodexo Releases First Ethnicity Pay Gap Report

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01 June 2021

Sodexo UK is the first company in the FM industry to voluntarily publish its ethnicity pay gap data for 2020.

Unlike gender pay gap reporting, there is no legal requirement to provide ethnicity pay gap data, but in 2019 Sodexo publicly pledged, through the Business in the Community’s Race to Work charter, to publish its ethnicity pay gap.

Sodexo’s 2020 pay gap report reveals its mean ethnicity pay gap, which is the difference between the average hourly pay between BAME and non-BAME staff, was 5 per cent. In 2020, the mean ethnicity pay gap in the UK was 29.3 per cent.

What is the Ethnicity Pay Gap?

Sodexo's data is based on 75 per cent of its workforce who have shared their ethnicity information, and the gap is defined as the difference in average hourly pay between all White and all BAME employees.

In the report, Sodexo has included pay gap data for three different ethnic groups: Black, Asian and Mixed Ethnic backgrounds, as it recognises that publishing the combined pay data for these groups may hide disparities between the different groups.

Sean Haley, Region Chair for Sodexo UK & Ireland said: “We feel strongly that the first steps towards achieving our diversity and inclusion goals are transparency and holding ourselves publicly accountable.

“There is a lot of work to do to improve parity in both gender and ethnicity, but only with this level of clarity and the impetus to have more open conversations, can we put measures in place to move our organisation in the right direction and to do better by our colleagues and the communities in which we operate.”

Pay Parity Action Plan

Sodexo's action plan to achieve ethnicity pay parity includes:

1. Establishing targets to increase ethnicity representation in senior leadership positions
2. Continuing to monitor pay practices
3. Creating more sponsorship and development programmes for unrepresented ethnic groups
4. Undertaking a diagnostic review into attraction and progression strategies
5. Conduct an employee census to increase ethnicity data, and improve the quality of the data they hold

Additionally, Sodexo’s Head of Digital and Promotions, Harpreet Cheema, was listed on the EMpower 2021 Ethnic Minority Future Leader Role Model list.

Picture: a photograph of two Sodexo employees wearing high-vis jackets, protective helmets and facial coverings

Article written by Ella Tansley | Published 01 June 2021

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