Gender Pay Gap 2023

The Hotel Folk is one single legal entity which employs more than 250 employees over 6 Hotels, Golf Cub, Spa, and a Country Club.  We are committed to ensuring equal pay between women and men for equal work, and equality in all contractual terms and benefits.  This is not only our legal obligation in continuing to ensure we comply with the Equality Act 2010, but we also strongly feel this to be our ongoing moral obligation too.  We believe we continue to pay fairly based on the Company’s business performance and market conditions.

What is the gender pay gap?

The gender pay gap is the difference between the average (mean or median) earnings of men and women across a workforce. The figures contained in this report have been calculated using the methodology stipulated by UK legislation.

Equal Pay highlights the pay differences between men and women who carry out the same jobs, similar jobs, or work of equal value. As such, no inference can or should be made about equal pay using gender pay gap information.

The Hotel Folk are required by law to publish an annual gender pay gap report and this report is for 5 April 2023.

Mean Gender Pay Gap

This is a comparison of the average hourly rate of pay for men compared to the average hourly rate of women.  As at this snapshot date, the figure is 10.3% (+1.8%).  This means that the average hourly rate for men is 10.3% higher than the average hourly rate for women. Our Head Chefs, CEO and four of six Hotel Managers are male, along with most chefs, however of the 12 members of our Executive Team (which includes Hotel and other Head Office managers) seven of the 12 members are female. We generally see more women in lower skilled, part time roles with a need to fit working hours around childcare/caring responsibilities.  Men starting in roles on the same hourly rate tend to be able to undertake a variety of working hours and have more opportunity for progression that fits with their work/life balance.

Median Pay Gap

This shows the difference in the middle hourly rate of pay figure when comparing men and women and tends to be a more useful comparator as it removes the skewing effect that significant outliers (both high and low) can have on other data sets, such as the mean (average). Hospitality needs to be an agile industry and as such many people see it as an ideal second job or to top up their income. This means that many of our Folk only work a few hours per week which can impact the range of hourly pay rates we see, especially for our female Folk. Our median Pay Gap is 3.5%. The middle rate for men is 3.5% higher than women.  This means that although there are more men in higher paid roles there is only a difference of 3.5% when comparing men and women in a list from lowest hourly rate to highest hourly rate.

Quartile Distribution 

Men and women who were full-pay relevant employees were sorted using their hourly pay then divided into 4 equal quartiles, the percentage of men and women in each quartile is shown below:  

Lower Quartile 46.9% men / 53.1% women

Lower Middle Quartile 31.2% men / 68.8% women

Upper Middle Quartile 50% men / 50% women

Upper Quartile 57.1% men / 42.9% women

Pay Gap

Since the last report we have changed payroll providers and implemented a new HR system. This has meant that the way data is obtained now is marginally different from how it was previously and may have contributed to the slight increase in mean GPG since that reported in 2022, however it is anticipated that a greater level of consistency should be evident in the reports for future years because of having enhanced oversight and ownership of all our data.

Since last report we have also been awarded Large Business of the Year at the East Anglian Daily Times Business Awards thanks in no small part to our continued investment in and development of our Folk. Our dedicated Training Centre is going from strength to strength offering a variety of training opportunities for all Folk to enhance their skills and build a career in hospitality. We continue to work hard on our recruitment and retention strategies to ensure we attract and retain skilled employees and pay a fair rate to the best available person for the role. 

All our roles have the same pay structure regardless of gender.

The Future

At The Hotel Folk we want to ensure all our colleagues can fully develop their career, regardless of their gender, background or education. We regularly conduct external benchmarking exercises and believe we compare favourably with the national averages for the hotel industry and commit to the aim of reducing our gender pay gap.

We offer where practicable a high level of flexibility is in place to allow varied working patterns and encourage returnees. We believe it is right to ensure our policies and practices for this are fair. We are looking to improve the work life balance for our Folk which in turn would give rise to more flexibility in some areas which have in the past not been able to accommodate this, and as such have often not presented attractive career opportunities for women. We are not complacent about gender pay gap and will be actively reviewing decisions around our annual pay review and considering ways in which we can support more women to reach leadership roles.

Every “Folk Member” has a part to play in contributing to The Hotel Folk success and we believe it is important that everyone is rewarded fairly for the performance of our business.

Actions:

1. Continue to support personal and professional development through our new online appraisal platform.

2. To continue to encourage uptake of apprenticeships and our Chef Development Program for new recruits to the Kitchen and training our current chefs to further their careers.

3. Undertake Hotel Folk engagement surveys and implement findings.

4. Review the working conditions/ work patterns in our kitchens to provide better work/life balance for kitchen folk where practicable.

Bonus Pay Gap

The following results are comparing bonus payments, where a bonus is regarded as any payment related to profit sharing, productivity, performance, incentive, or commission, e.g., employee of the quarter awards, long service etc.

Hotel/General managers and head office employees do not receive a share of any gratuities received by the Company however, some have received long service or performance awards.    

The bonus payment percentages are intended to reflect the distribution of bonus payments made to men and women “relevant employees”, who were paid bonus pay in the 12 months that ended on the 5^th April 2023.  8.8% of male employees received a bonus and 8.9% of women received a bonus.  This reflects the challenging financial climate in which hospitality finds itself and our ability to pay additional incentives.

Comparing the average/mean bonus paid to men and women the figure was 54%, therefore on average men were paid 54% more in bonus payments than women.  The median bonus pay figure is the difference between the median (middle) bonus pay paid to relevant employees who are men, and the median bonus pay paid to relevant employees who are women, ours is 0%, excluding the significant outliers, the amount of bonus paid to male and female employees were the same.

The higher mean figure reflects the challenging financial climate with fewer bonuses overall being paid, and those that were paid related specifically to hotel performance in locations run by male hotel managers.

I can confirm our data is accurate and has been calculated according to the requirements and methodology set out in the Equality Act 2010 (Specific Duties and Public Authorities) Regulations 2017.

Agreed by Mr David Scott, Chief Executive Officer, March 2024