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Sodexo UK has published its ethnicity pay gap data for 2020, making it the first company in the hospitality and FM industry to do so.
Sodexo says it has “a long-standing commitment to fairness and equity and is committed to creating a diverse and inclusive workplace” and in 2019 publicly pledged, through Business in the Community’s Race to Work charter and through the INvolve/EMpower ethnicity pay gap mandate framework, to publish its ethnicity pay gap.
In July 2020 Sodexo joined a number of business leaders in signing an open letter spearheaded by Audeliss & INvolve and pledging to take action and report on its progress annually.
Sodexo’s recently published 2020 pay gap report and for the first time has included its ethnicity pay gap data which shows Sodexo’s mean ethnicity pay gap is 5 per cent.
In the report, Sodexo has gone further and included pay gap data for three different ethnic groups: Black, Asian and Mixed Ethnic backgrounds, as it recognises that publishing the combined pay data for these groups may hide disparities between the different groups.
The events of 2020 have encouraged Sodexo to do more and over the last year it has created a strategic task force made up of senior leaders from Black and other ethnic backgrounds to lead on company-wide change programmes, one of which has been the launch of its Be Heard series of listening groups. Developed specifically for Black colleagues to share their lived experiences of working at Sodexo, the first series has resulted in action plans developed for each of its business segments.
With regard to gender, the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on Sodexo’s business and requirement from government to exclude furloughed colleagues receiving less than their regular full pay from the data3 has resulted in a slight increase in Sodexo’s 2020 mean gender pay gap from 14.12 per cent in 2019 to 14.36 per cent in 2020.