Gender Pay Gap Report

December 2022

Laya healthcare recognises that its team members, like its 650,000+ members, come from diverse backgrounds, with varying experiences and needs. We are committed to ensuring that diversity and inclusion are embedded into our working practices and conditions.

Laya healthcare actively promotes fairness, respect, equality, diversity, inclusion and engagement. Through our policies and in our day-to-day working culture, laya healthcare is committed to promoting equality and fairness and combating discrimination. This applies to everyone, regardless of gender, civil status, family status, sexual orientation, religion, age, disability, race or membership of the Traveling Community. We are happy to say that our employees, in our 2022 engagement survey, have in overwhelming numbers (93%) agreed that ours is an organisation with a healthy approach to equality, diversity and inclusion.

We have reason to be proud of our achievements in creating an exceptionally family-friendly workplace. Our team at laya healthcare benefits from the distinctively broad flexibility that we offer on specific hours of work and on the accommodations we provide to balance work commitments with family needs. As of time of writing in 2022, we are one of only 27 employers in Ireland to hold ‘Best Workplaces for Women’ accreditation. While we provide a great environment to work in for anybody of any gender or background, the gender breakdown of our employees shows employment at laya healthcare to be particularly attractive to women. Almost three in four of our team (73%) are women.

We would like to see a world where family responsibilities are equally shared between women and men – but until such time as this is a reality, the flexible and family friendly workplace culture and benefits that we provide continue to make us a desirable place to work for women in particular.

Gender Pay Gap reporting and equal pay

Laya healthcare applies equal pay principles because it’s the fair and right thing to do by our team. We provide equal pay for equal work.

To protect this, we engage an external independent company to scrutinise our pay provisions at role and individual level on a yearly basis. Allowing for legitimate factors such as experience or qualifications, if an individual is paid too little for the role they occupy, we correct that imbalance. This process is rigorous and it is applied for all of our people regardless of gender. The gender pay gap metrics set out in this report, in keeping with new rules in Ireland, do not measure equal pay. The Gender Pay Gap Information Act 2021 instructs us to calculate our gender pay gap based on broad averages across the organisation, without regard to the different roles that people occupy.

The Gender Pay Gap at laya healthcare

There is a gender pay gap of 28.8% in favour of men at laya healthcare. It’s important to recognise that in laya healthcare women are paid fairly relative to men in the jobs that they occupy. The main cause of our gender pay gap is that our culture and work conditions make jobs at the entry and intermediate levels of our organisation particularly attractive to women with family responsibilities. When we look at the proportions of men and women at the different levels of our organisation, we find the following:

Therefore when broad averages are drawn using the methodology required by government, laya healthcare shows a gender pay gap in favour of men. Our gender pay gap reflects the fact that work and conditions at laya healthcare, especially at our entry and intermediate levels, are particularly attractive to people who need or value flexibility. A majority of the people who most value flexibility are women, for societal reasons beyond our immediate control: it is indicative that of the 70 people who choose to work part-time for our organisation, the overwhelming majority at 68 are women.

We are proud of, and we are committed to safeguarding and promoting, the flexibility that we offer. We know this is hugely valued by our team and it is key to us retaining and attracting talent to our organisation.

We believe that the government wants employers to foster conditions in which women and men can achieve promotion on an equitable basis. At laya healthcare we have created and we nurture those conditions. We are and will remain vigilant against any unconscious bias in hiring or in promotion.

Our gender pay gap metrics

We calculated our gender pay gap metrics in line with the government’s rules. We used a snapshot date of 30 June 2022, with a reference period of 1 July 2021-30 June 2022. We had at this time 611 employees, of whom 448 were women and 163 were men. We had 70 part time employees (of whom 68 were women and 2 were men) and 19 on temporary contracts (of whom 15 were women and 4 were men).

The figures explained

Hourly Remuneration refers to the difference in total earnings between men and women on a mean (average) and median
(middle ranking) basis.
Bonus Recipients sets out the proportion of men and of women who receive any form of bonus. Bonuses for this purpose
includes vouchers and share awards as well as regular performance bonuses.
Bonus Gap refers to the gap between men and women on the value of all bonus items taken together.
The lower quartile sets out, in respect of the lowest paid quarter of our people by hourly remuneration, what percentage are
men and what percentage are women.
The upper quartile sets out, in respect of the highest paid quarter of our people by hourly remuneration, what percentage
are men and what percentage are women. The same logic applies to the lower middle quartile and the upper middle quartile.
Benefits in kind sets out the percentage of our people who are in receipt of non-cash benefits of monetary value – for
example health insurance or gym membership.

It is important to note that the Irish legislative requirements are binary with regard to gender (specifying female compared to male). Whilst we are reporting our statistics in the manner set out by law, at laya healthcare, we recognise and support all gender identities.

Diversity, Inclusion and Our Values

Innovative and Caring in every interaction with our team and our members. We believe that what’s right for our members is right for our business. We know that, in order to reflect those values to our members we must live them internally among our team. It is for this reason that laya healthcare puts a very high value on diversity and on caring for our people. A governance structure guides the initiatives and supports that we have put and are putting in place to help us remain one of the most inclusive places to work in Ireland:

We have had a Diversity & Inclusion Strategy and Action Plan in place for a number of years
The Action Plan is reviewed weekly by our Culture, Diversity & Inclusion Specialist along with our Team Wellbeing Lead
Our Diversity & Inclusion Council meets once a month to oversee progress on the Action Plan
Our Board has Diversity & Inclusion as a specific agenda item at every quarterly meeting
We have a dedicated Diversity & Inclusion Budget

Embedding Fair Treatment

We educate all our people on equality, diversity and inclusion on an ongoing basis. We are especially concerned that there is targeted development on these matters by those involved in management and recruitment. Our management team has benefitted from Inclusive Leadership development incorporating unconscious bias awareness.

We have equipped our human resource team with the tools necessary to recruit and retain a diverse workforce. We have partnered with the Irish Centre for Diversity to conduct an independent and expert review of our recruitment and selection processes to safeguard fairness. Each year we develop a detailed plan which outlines how we are going to continuously deliver on our ED&I Strategy.

Flexibility

A distinctive aspect of what we offer to employees is flexibility, particularly (though not exclusively) where related to family needs. For example, we allow employees to:

Work compressed weeks
Work flexible hours
Take leave outside of term, with provision for pay to be spread over the whole year
Work from home – one third of our team are full remote workers, while the balance are only asked to be in the office one day per week

This list is far from exhaustive. We are one of the most flexible employers in Ireland. We know this is hugely valued by all of our people but perhaps by women in particular.

Special provision for women

Much of what we do around Diversity, Inclusion and Flexibility is attractive to all of our people. However we
recognise that there are issues and opportunities that affect women exclusively. As a result we offer:

Paid maternity leave
Time and facilities for breastfeeding mothers
Places for selected rising female talent each year on female focussed leadership and peer mentoring programmes
Menopause support, including where required paid leave for consultations or procedures
Fertility support, starting from November 2022 – including time off for consultant appointments, webinars on fertility treatment and health cover that extends to fertility benefits.

Validation

Laya healthcare has received external recognition of its commitment to being a great workplace in general, and an organisation committed to Diversity & Inclusion in particular.

We are officially recognised as one of Ireland’s Best Workplaces by Great Place to Work
We are recognised as one of the Best Workplaces for Women, also by Great Place to Work
We hold Bronze, Silver and Gold Accreditation from the Irish Centre for Diversity

“We believe in transparency when it comes to our approach to equal pay for equal work. Through ongoing discussions and education we empower our teams to know their value and to understand that equal pay is a right we are all entitled to.”
Brid Seymour, Director of HR and Team Development

Find out more about our approach to Diversity, Inclusion and Equality

Find out more