Furniture Village Gender Pay Gap Report 2022

Introduction

At Furniture Village we know that people are our greatest strength and we are fortunate to have a hugely talented and committed workforce, with equal opportunity given to everyone, both in joining our business and prospering thereafter.

Indeed, being able to share in the success of one’s efforts underpins the ethos of the company, and through a program of development, training, recognition, and reward, we strive to ensure that every employee has an opportunity to reach their full potential.

We are absolutely unequivocal in both welcoming diversity of gender into every area and level of our business and ensuring that male and female employees always receive equal pay for equal roles.

Proportion of Male and Female Employees

Our data this year is based on 1,198 employees as of April 2022. Our business continues to encompass a wide range of roles, with our 2022 employee base 71% male and 29% female. This ratio is typical within the furniture retail sector and is in part due to a male bias towards our highly skilled Retail Sales Team, with these positions offering the opportunity to earn large performance related remuneration and these employees often occupying places amongst the top earners within the company.

Whilst these positions have been traditionally biased towards males, in part due to weekend working hours, we have many very successful females in these roles and are actively seeking to understand how we can attract more females into these positions.

In addition, we run our own Warehouse, Distribution and Logistics operation, with this also tending towards a male bias, again influencing the ratios between male and female employees, with 83% of our employee base working in Retail Sales and Distribution roles.

Across our Group functions, more typically known as ‘Head Office’, we have over 56% female representation, and a 36/64% split between female and male roles in the most senior positions.

For the reasons highlighted above, when our employees are ranked in order of total pay and segmented into four groups of an equal number, our male to female ratios are biased towards males.

	Male 2019	Female 2019	Male 2020	Female 2020	Male 2021	Female 2021	Male 2022	Female 2022
Upper Quartile	72%	28%	80%	20%	83%	17%	82%	18%
Upper Middle Quartile	62%	38%	80%	20%	80%	20%	69%	31%
Lower Middle Quartile	77%	23%	58%	42%	49%	51%	62%	38%
Lower Quartile	81%	19%	67%	33%	71%	29%	74%	26%
Overall	73%	27%	71%	29%	71%	29%	71%	29%

The Gender Pay Gap

It is important to know that the Gender Pay Gap is not the same as Equal Pay.

As mentioned above, we are absolutely unequivocal in both welcoming diversity of gender into every area and level of our business and ensuring that male and female employees always receive equal pay for equal roles.

In terms of Gender Pay Gap statistics, the mean pay is the average total pay, expressed as an hourly rate, and the median pay is the pay of the middle person if employees are ranked in order of total pay.

Given a higher proportion of males in the top quartiles than in the lower quartiles, the average total pay for males naturally follows this, with the mean company pay 9.5% lower for females than males which is a sizeable improvement on the 12.5% mean difference in 2021. Due to a high proportion of male retail roles at the mid-point range, the total pay of the middle or median female is 9.2% lower than the male median, which is a significant improvement on the 22.4% median difference 2021.

Bonus and Commission Pay

Of our 1,198 employees, all of them have the opportunity to receive a performance related bonus or commission, the latter relating to Sales Consultant roles. Given that bonus and commission pay is performance related, not everybody had earned a bonus at the reporting date, with 98.2% of females earning a bonus, slightly behind males at 98.5%.

As mentioned earlier, there is a male bias towards the Retail Sales Team, with these positions offering the opportunity to earn large performance related remuneration, though alongside lower basic salaries. As such, the mean or average bonus paid, which includes sales commissions, was 26.5% lower for females compared to 37% last year, with the median 34.9% lower, compared to 51% lower in 2021. It is also important to note that this is purely reflective of the higher proportion of males in the Retail Sales Team, partly due to weekend working hours. Potential commission and bonus earnings are always based on job roles, with equal earnings potential for males and females alike.

Moving forward

We continue to review our recruitment practices and training, and this has resulted in attracting and retaining more females within our business, as we look to offer more flexible working conditions. We also continue to offer both guidance and support to females wishing to progress their career.

Our policy of ‘Retention over Recruitment’ combined with our our ethos of ‘Growing Our Own’, is a commitment to all of our employees, regardless of gender, that they will have the opportunity to be ‘the best they can be’ and reach their full potential.

This will ensure we can continue to offer the highest levels of remuneration at every level in the business and in doing so continue to attract the best talent in the industry.

Nick Hipkiss

Commercial Director
On Behalf of Furniture Village