We work hard here at Leasing Solutions to create a diverse and inclusive place to work. We encourage all of our people to be themselves at work. We firmly believe that it is our differences that make us stronger, whether that’s a broad range of individual strengths, different backgrounds or ways of thinking. It’s that huge variety of input which enables us to challenge each other to grow and develop every aspect of our business, but most importantly to ensure we have a motivated and engaged team who can achieve their full potential and delight our customers every single day.
As we’ve worked together to prepare the data for this year’s gender pay gap, our 4th submission, we’ve reflected long and hard on the actions we’ve taken to date and our future plans. I feel confident that we’re making good progress. During the last 12 months we have improved the gender balance within our leadership team. Women now represent in excess of a third of our senior leaders. We’ve also increased the proportion of women on the UK ExCo to 42%. The pipeline of female candidates across the business is strong and indeed more than 53% of our total workforce are women.
The future looks bright but we remain hugely committed to ensuring the actions we take are meaningful, add value and make a lasting difference.
I’m proud of our whole team, all of whom embrace the topics of diversity and inclusion without question, and am very much looking forward to continuing to address the gender imbalance whilst building a positive culture.
– Rachel Appleton, CEO BNP Paribas Leasing Solutions UK
Results
| Mean Pay Gap | ||||
| 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 |
| 31.90% | 33.19% | 31.12% | 30.70% | 31.90% |
|
Median Pay Gap |
||||
| 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 |
| 21.90% | 28.90% | 28.04% | 25.89% | 27.63% |
|
Mean Bonus Gap |
||||
| 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 |
| 50.60% | 52.00% | 48.95% | 53.78% | 48.08% |
|
Median Bonus Gap |
||||
| 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 |
| 20.23% | 37.00% | 32.69% | 33.33% | 44.92% |
WHat do we know about our gap?
A gender pay gap is a measure of the difference between the average earnings of men and women (irrespective of roles or seniority). This differs to ‘Equal Pay’, which is our obligation as an employer to give men and women equal pay for equal work.
Our gender pay gap is not a result of equal pay issues, we have a gender-neutral approach to pay across all levels of the organisation, we regularly benchmark, audit and monitor this to ensure a fair approach.
BNP Paribas Leasing solutions UK Gender pay gap
We understand why we have a gender pay gap. The key drivers both across the financial services industry, and, here at BNP Leasing Solutions is due to low female representation in sales and senior leadership roles, which, relative to other positions, attract higher rates of pay. As we work to address gender balance we are seeing more women enter trainee roles to develop the pipeline for the future, which in the short to medium term can see the gap increase. This is evident in the 2021 figures.
Gender bonus gap
We have seen a deterioration in 2021 in our gender bonus gap, again this is primarily driven by a skilled and experienced predominantly male sales team.
All of our people receive an annual bonus based on two key criteria – eligibility on joining and provided they are not working their notice period at the time of bonus payment. Any variation in 100% payment for either men or women is therefore related to new joiners or leavers. Overall, we have a significantly higher mean bonus gap than hourly pay gap. This is because:
Our bonus gap is a function of greater variable pay at more senior levels (primarily occupied by men), although it is also impacted by the bonus calculation. This does not take into account bonuses for part-time workers (who are mainly women) being pro-rated. Although the part-time working pattern has a negative impact on bonus gap figures, we remain determined to support flexible working.
| Male/Female Receiving Bonus | |||||||||
| 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | |||||
| M | F | M | F | M | F | M | F | M | F |
| 93.00% | 99.00% | 90.40% | 91.00% | 92.06% | 93.38% | 93.69% | 97.43% | 95.65% | 96.67% |
| PAY GAP QUARTILES | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | |||||
| M | F | M | F | M | F | M | F | M | F | |
| LOWER QUARTILE | 34.00% | 66.00% | 32.00% | 68.00% | 31.00% | 69.00% | 31.67% | 68.33% | 31.40% | 68.60% |
Population by quartile
Pay quartiles are calculated by ranking the hourly pay of all staff, then splitting the range into four equal quartiles and calculating the proportion of men and women in each quartile.
The higher proportion of men in the upper quartiles reflects the fact that there are more men than women in senior and sales positions attracting higher rates of pay.
WHAT WE ARE DOING TO ADDRESS THE GENDER PAY GAP
Representation of women in leadership and senior roles has been a challenge for our industry and although it will take time, the collective and sustained efforts from our Senior Leadership Team to address this gives me confidence the barriers to women’s progression can be overcome.”
– Andrea Rix (UK Head of HR)
At Leasing Solutions UK we truly believe that a diverse team is a vital part of our future success. We are really proud of the diverse and inclusive working environment we have already but we are committed to pushing ourselves to developing this further.
Since the pandemic, we have experienced a seismic shift in the approach to flexible working. We are excited by this as the opportunities it brings are potentially greater for women. Remote working helps us travel less, both nationally and internationally, and facilitates a more flexible approach to the working day, better enabling women to make different decisions about their career choices.
Representation of women in leadership and senior roles has been a challenge for our industry and although it will take time, the collective and sustained efforts from our Senior Leadership Team to address this gives me confidence the barriers to women’s progression can be overcome.
Since the summer of 2021 we have increased the % of women on our executive committee from 33% to 42% including our new female CEO. We aim to have at least one female candidate on every shortlist and have a strong gender balance within our current talent pool which is 60% women.
In our most recent people survey, 87% of our team say we are in inclusive and diverse workforce. That’s great to hear but we can do more, and we will remain focused on the gender pay gap topic until it is closed.
BNP paribas Leasing solutions UK ACTION PLAN
The gender pay gap is not caused by unequal pay for men and women in the same levels and roles. It is as a result of there being a greater proportion of men in more senior roles, and in roles that typically attract higher rates of pay (e.g. sales). Women make up a larger percentage of the lower to upper-mid quartile roles. It is when you get to the upper quartile that the percentage of women decreases.
In response to this, our gender equality strategy focuses on three core areas: recruitment, career development and organisational culture. Across these three areas we run a number of initiatives, designed to encourage and support the cultural, and organisational, change needed for gender equality.
Examples of actions we’re taking to close the gap:
Recruitment
- Drive on internal mobility with emphasis of identifying and supporting growth of women into more senior and sales roles.
- In partnership with our Diversity & Inclusion employee networks, we have embedded more inclusive hiring practices such as: unconscious bias training for hiring managers, identifying internal talent for promotion, and spotlight campaigns to promote internal mobility.
- We work with external recruitment partners to submit gender-balanced shortlists for all roles.
- We strive to interview at least one woman for each role, or provide a valid reason why not.
Career
- Our Early Careers Employee Network with Exco level sponsorship, utilising male and female career stories and role models to attract females into traditionally male dominated roles.
- Launch of Local and Corporate mentoring programs to support internal career progression ensuring balanced representation of men and women.
- Our ‘Leaders for Tomorrow’ talent program qualification criteria has been adapted to ensure a balanced talent pool of men and women.
- The ‘RISE’ Programme, a mid-career curriculum for women to address retention and career development.
- Including at least one woman on each succession plan, and supporting the implementation of meaningful development.
Culture
- Awareness training for all managers on supporting teams with managing work and home life balance, recognising stress signals, changing mind set to build confidence in our own abilities.
- Our Diversity & Inclusive networks – moving to virtual events with post event recordings making easier access for all.
- Review and re-launch of Remote Working approach and policies, expanding roll out of optional remote working for portion of the week for all staff.
- Open invitation workshops to discuss gender pay gap results, LSUK strategy re gender balance and identify actions to address.
To view the BNP Paribas Leasing Solutions UK gender pay gap report click here.
*BNP Paribas Leasing Solutions UK gender pay gap data as of April 2021.
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