Report on the Gender Pay Gap at National Co-operative Farm Relief Services Limited

We are pleased to share National Co-operative Farm Relief Services Limited’s first Gender Pay Gap Report. 

Gender Pay Gap legislation requires employers with 250 or more employees to publish statutory calculations every year showing the difference between the average earnings of men and women within our business. Organisations are asked to select a ‘snapshot’ date in the month of June 2022, with reporting based on the employees they have on this date. Our snapshot date was 30th June 2022.

The gender pay gap is the difference in the average hourly wage of men and women, it compares the pay of all working men and all working women; not just those in same jobs, with the same working patterns or the same competencies, qualifications or experience.

It is different from an equal pay comparison, which involves a direct comparison of two people (or groups of people) carrying out the same work or work of equal value. A gender pay gap does not indicate discrimination or an absence of equal pay for equal value work – instead, it is designed to highlight the extent to which women are evenly represented across an organisation

A gender pay gap which is positive indicates that, on average across the employed population, women are in a less favourable position than men. Where the gender pay gap is negative, this indicates the reverse – that, on average, men are in a less favourable position than women.

Understanding the Gap

On the snapshot date of 30th of June 2022, 22% of our total staff are in administration, support and managerial roles and 88% of our staff are farming operatives. Eleven percent of our farming operatives are female.  Farm Services has traditionally seen higher participation by men and while we have taken steps to encourage inclusivity, we believe that the lack of representation of female staff in the farming sector is the main driver of our pay gap reporting results.

National Co-operative Farm Relief Services Limited is successful in attracting female applicants for roles in its support functions with 49.5% of our administration, support and managerial roles being held by women.  However, the proportion of women applying for farming operative roles is relatively small

Addressing the Gap

FRS is committed to the principle of equal opportunities and equal treatment for all employees and is fully committed to promoting gender diversity in all areas of its workforce.  We are committed to promoting National Co-operative FRS Ltd, as an attractive career prospect regardless of gender and will continue to encourage females to apply for various positions with FRS

We are currently reviewing and developing our people related policies to ensure that we create a positive, diverse and inclusive work environment for all our staff.

We will review our recruitment practices and we will together with our female employees show-case their success and experience in the farming sector while also looking at how we can attract more females to this sector.