TSB publishes its 2019 gender pay gap data

London, TSB has today published its 2019 gender pay gap data, standing firm on its commitment to tackle the root causes of gender imbalance and continue to build a more balanced workforce for the long term.

TSB was one of the first companies in the UK to publish its gender pay gap in July 2017 with the launch of its Gender Balance Matters¹. TSB has a firm commitment to not only publish its gender pay imbalance, but to also examine the root causes of its gender imbalance, clearly set out the signature actions it is taking to tackle it and report on progress made.

As of April 2019², TSB’s median gender pay gap – the number used most often to compare companies – moved 0.4% to 23.7%.  The Bank’s mean gender pay gap remained unchanged at 31%.

Understanding TSB’s gender pay gap

We’re confident that TSB’s gender pay gap is not a pay issue; we know this because our approach to pay is gender neutral by design and our analysis shows that our pay gap is driven by the structure of our workforce.  We also regularly analyse and monitor our pay to make sure our male and female Partners are treated equally.

For many companies, it is a lack of female representation in senior roles that has the biggest impact on their gender pay gap.  But for TSB it’s also the number of women employed in non-senior management, more junior roles that has the biggest impact.

That’s because TSB employs significantly more women (68%) than men (32%) in non-senior management roles. If the Bank achieved a 50:50 gender mix at this level, we estimate the mean pay gap could reduce by around 22 percentage points to 9%.

Catherine Douglas, Executive sponsor for gender balance at TSB, says: “TSB was one of the first companies in the UK to publish its gender pay gap in 2017 with the launch of our Gender Balance Matters report, and since then, our pledge to examine the root causes of gender imbalance has not faltered.  There are no quick fixes and we’re constantly reviewing our initiatives to ensure we are making progress and can reach our commitment of 45-55% of our senior roles held by women by 2025.”

An update on TSB’s signature actions

TSB set an initial target for between 45-55% of its senior roles to be held by women by 2020.  Although we have made progress in some areas, it is not at a rate we aspire to.  We’ve learned a lot about what action will drive lasting change and this is why we have reviewed our policies and adjusted our target. Our revised target is still stretching but is also more realistic.  TSB’s new aim is for between 45-55% of its senior roles to be held by women by 2025.  Internally, we are tracking interim targets to 2025 to keep our programme on track.

Therefore, TSB has revisited its signature actions to see what drives results and revised them in line with our learnings.

1) We are taking steps to get more women into financial services and, more specifically, TSB:

• We want 45-55% of our senior managers (F+) to be women.
• We want to make sure that the recruitment agencies and consultants we work with understand that diverse longlists and shortlists for senior roles are important to us.  This will be supported by unconscious bias training for hiring managers.
• Masculine language can put women off applying for jobs, so all our job adverts will be analysed and assessed using a gender biased tool called RS Adify³. Adify will help us attract a diverse range of applicants to all our senior roles.
• We will continue to partner with Women Returners⁴, an organisation that connects employers with a network of professional women following a career break, for the third year.

2) We will simplify our flexible working policy:

• We will look at repositioning flexible working as an area of focus to aid retention and to ensure working practices are not barriers to progression.
• We will provide training and support to hiring managers on inclusive job designs and make managers accountable for imbedding flexible working polices into the culture of TSB.
• We will launch a flexible working campaign highlighting the benefits of agile working.
• We signed up to Working Families strapline 'Happy to talk flexible working' and we will use this strapline on all our job adverts.

3) We will further support gender balanced progression at TSB:

• We will develop a sponsorship development programme targeted at grade E women to strengthen our talent pipeline and help grade E women transition into grade F (senior manager) roles.  We will pair talented grade E women with influential senior leaders from the Leadership team, including mentoring and broader development opportunities.