Gender pay gap communications for a FTSE100 pharmaceutical

With new legislation requiring employers to publish figures comparing men and women’s average pay across an organisation, we were approached by a top biopharmaceutical company to help publish their results and create some gender pay gap communications for their employees.

Here’s what we did in a nutshell:

  • Designed a visual infographic used to publish the company’s results, both internally and externally
  • Created a simple and informative employee guide and jargon buster
  • Produced a manager reference guide to support the company’s positioning around the gender pay gap and ensure consistent messaging
  • Wrote all copy and worked with the client’s lawyers on positioning and strategy

The brief

The client came to us with four main objectives for their communications. They wanted them to:

  • Maintain transparency and explain their results clearly and simply
  • Educate employees so that they had a good understand of the gender pay gap
  • Support the company’s positioning as an excellent employer
  • Assist managers in communicating the company’s results and strategy

The challenge

With gender pay reporting new to everyone this year, the client wanted us to help them come up with an approach that was sensitive enough so as not to catapult them into the headlines for the wrong reasons, but progressive enough to maintain their reputation as an excellent employer.

The solution 

Our job was to produce a campaign that tackled the gender pay gap head on and reassured employees that they were at the heart of any actions their company were taking as a result of the reporting:

  • Their results: As the main communication channel to publish the results, this piece needed to be crystal clear and have the flexibility to be used both internally and externally. The result was a dynamic infographic that steered clear of any creative clichés and leaned heavily on graphics to illustrate the key facts and figures.
  • Jargon buster: From our experience, we know how much confusion surrounds gender pay v equal pay. We spend a lot of time stressing  the importance of maintaining a narrative around this to our clients. Enter the jargon buster, a comparative piece that lays out the straights facts in an easy to digest, employee-focused tone.
  • Manager FAQs: The client knew employees would want to know more about what the figures mean for the company and their place within it so we produced an FAQ-style piece that targeted managers in their support to the wider teams. It served to pre-empt a wide range of questions that could arise, from how the calculations were made, raising concerns with HR and where to go to find out more.

Outcome?

A very happy client, who truly committed to explaining this difficult topic to employees with no compromises. Their new gender pay gap communications were just one part of a very large effort to keep employees engaged and informed in the business. We’re pleased to have done our part!

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