VML Commerce believes that all employees should be treated equally regardless of gender, ethnicity, age, religion, sexual orientation, or disability.

As a company with a high proportion of specialised technical roles, we naturally encounter more challenges in recruiting. We employ more men than women, and with fewer women in more senior roles, this results in a gender pay gap, as reflected in our gender pay data.

We are committed to closing the gender pay gap with long-term solutions that are both impactful and sustainable, with a focus on creating a gender-balanced talent pipeline and ensuring we support more women into senior roles.

The Gender Pay Gap regulatory reporting provides details of the gender and remuneration distribution across our organisation. The figure measures the difference between the hourly rate of pay (median and mean) of all male and female employees, irrespective of their role or seniority within the organisation at the snapshot date of 5 April 2022.

This is different from equal pay, which is the difference in pay between men and women who carry out the same or similar jobs and is a legal requirement. The statistics contained in this report do not represent equal pay.

2022 results:

Gender pay gap 2022

We are continuing to see a reduction in the gender bonus gaps year-on-year and has decreased from 46.3% in 2021 to 32.4% in 2022 for mean bonus pay. The median bonus gender pay gap has decreased to 0% from 23.5% in 2021 due to majority of employees receiving a flat rate bonus during the relevant period.

There is a marginal increase between 2021 and 2022 of 1.6% increase in the mean gender pay gap and 0.4% in the median gender pay gap. The strategies and initiatives we are putting in place or continuing to build on will ensure we continue to reduce the gap across both areas consistently.

Whilst the male to female ratio of employees across Quartiles 1,2 and 3 have remained relatively static there has been a slight increase in the percentage of females in quartile 1 and 2. Quartile 4 demonstrates the most significant gap between men and women in the roles which fall into this quartile. Therefore, more work needs to be done to improve our attraction, hiring and retention strategy for women across the more senior roles in the organisation. There are new initiatives which are mentioned below which will look to tackle this issue.

In 2021 as part of our Diversity and Inclusion Strategy we launched Aspire, our Women’s Leadership Programme, focusing on topics such as personal branding and the impact of gender at work, the programme has received great feedback from the participants, who will use their learnings to support their ongoing career development and have gained a new network across the business. We have since had two cohorts which has enabled more women to be promoted. 20% of women were promoted from the first cohort in 2021 and 15% from the second cohort in 2022. This programme will continue to be in place to promote female progression.

Future Objectives

Continuing to build on our objectives we remain committed to our five-year diversity and inclusion strategy, which places D&I at the heart of our company culture. We will be working on and launching the below initiatives to further support women in the workplace and improve the gender pay gap:

  • We will be launching business employee resource groups to provide a space of community, fellowship and partnering amongst women and other individuals with common self-identities, interests or goals. These groups will function as a support group and a positive forum for development and solutions. This should enable us to identify where the issues and concerns are and implement solutions.
  • Launching and embedding our career architecture so that career pathways, opportunities and the skills needed to progress are more transparent. This will provide a clear framework to support women in the business of how they can progress through the different levels.
  • Ensuring all HR teams and managers and complete mandatory diversity and inclusion training for interviewing and managing employees.
  • Embedding regular D&I updates at the staff summit and business reviews.

We understand that driving and maintaining real change can take time, but we are confident with the planned initiatives and collaborating with a wider network we will see further improvements in our gender pay gap results over time.

Gender Pay Gap Statement

We confirm that the information in this report is accurate and prepared in accordance with the Equality Act 2010 (Gender Pay Gap Information) Regulations 2017.

Hannah Woodward

Chief People Officer

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