Gender Pay Gap / March 2019 Report

The Cohens Group – Gender Pay Gap Report – March 2019

Cohens Pharmacy is 8th largest independent Pharmacy chain, in the UK. With over 2000 colleagues supporting 221 stores nationwide, our mission is to offer a friendly and trusted pharmacy service through our network of branches to our local communities and deliver exceptional customer care.

Below shows our gender pay gap report for 2018, in line with our statutory requirement, which The Cohens Group supports as part of our wider diversity and inclusion agenda.

The report represents 2368 employees as of 5th April 2018, of which 30 % were male and 70% were female. Of the male population 23% received a bonus whilst 17% of the female population received a bonus.

The male median pay is less that than of the female median pay with the distribution of male employees showing 43% of all male employees to be in the ‘Lower’ quartile ( Warehousing, Driver) and ‘Upper’quartile ( IT, Finance, Trade) whereas the female distribution across the quartiles is much more evenly spread

The mean pay shows a skewed position in favour of male employees due to the underrepresentation of male employees in the ‘Middle’ quartiles

With a female workforce roughly 2.3 times that of men but roughly a 45:55 male/female representation for Pharmacists and Managers, the mean female hourly pay is lower than that of men due to the vast majority of lower paid work being performed by female employees

Each quartile is comprised of 452 or 453 employees. In the ‘Upper’ quartile the Pharmacists and Head Office Managers only make up approximately 200 staff with 54% of this population being female

The remainder of the ‘Upper’ quartile is predominantly senior branch staff, with 78% of those employees being female, who will typically be on a lower rate than the Pharmacist and Manager employees

The retail pharmacy industry is an industry where the majority of employees at branch level are female. As such roughly 80 % of the ‘Lower Middle’ and ‘Upper Middle’ quartiles are female employees

The employees in the ‘Lower’ quartile are roughly 50:50 male/female. The majority of the male employees in the Lower Quartile work in driver or warehousing roles, whereas the majority of female in the Lower Quartile work with the retail branches

Bonuses

• There is a lower percentage of female employees receiving a bonus. A point of note is that bonuses are at set amounts based upon job roles and are performance based, if certain targets are hit then the bonus is achieved.
• Because male employees include many driver or warehousing roles which were not eligible for a bonus, along with 45% of the roles earning the higher bonuses eligible for Pharmacy managers the mean bonus for male employees is considerably higher than for females.
• Female employees are evenly spread across all earning quartiles and are predominantly eligible for a bonus. Therefore, there is a large number of female branch staff who receive lower bonuses than the managers, which is bringing the female mean down.

Gorgemead Limited is committed to the principle of equal opportunities and equal treatment for all. We are committed to fulfilling our regulatory obligation to review and report on the gender pay. This is reflective in the company policies and procedures and how we operate as a business.

• What we do:
• ensure that we provide equal opportunity to internal colleagues and external candidates for opportunities within the organisation, through our advertising, recruitment and selection processes
• our provision of training and development programmes for colleagues and apprentices
• our annual salary review and benchmarking process
• our flexible working policies
• Action Planning:
• Review of our advertising, recruitment and selection to ensure they continue to drive equality and inclusivity
• Work with our managers and colleagues to ensure they there is a forum available to inform our thinking and continue to make improvements to support an equal gender pay culture

Andrew John

Managing Director, Gorgemead Limited t/a The Cohens Group

26th March 2019