Literature Review of Tesco Business Issues

        The systematic pay gap has a long history, women have been paid less than men for many years even being associated with the similar occupation that has high pay and requires high skills (Ashton, 2014). In order to achieve the objective of equal gender pay, organizations must publish the information on the major underlying causes of gender pay gap. This information facilitates employees, organizations, and other stakeholders in understanding the factors involved in the pay gap (TUC, 2015, p.3). The potential influencers impacting the gender pay-gap are social norms and social pressure. These norms often decide the choice of careers and future occupations that men and women will adopt in their future. Similarly, based on these norms and pressures, their levels of pay are influenced. Due to social pressures, inclusive of familial reasons, women tend to engage in part-time works which becomes a significant cause in creating differences in their wages (Brynin, 2017, p.7). Moreover, as documented in the research report of Equality and Human Rights Commission on “The Gender Pay Gap” review of researchers on gender differences across several organizations have found differences in rewards, salary, promotions, and bonuses due to gender differences (Brynin, 2017, p.22). Emphasizing the advantages of eliminating the gender pay-gap it is found that it could help in improving the overall growth of the business. Moreover, the reduction in gender pay-gap helps in retaining the best staff, while avoiding any situation that could impact organisational reputation (CIPD, 2017, p.5).

Factors Leading towards Gender Pay-Gap

        Gender pay-gap may be a result of multi-faceted reasons. According to McElhaney and Smith (2017, p.4), in order to explore the factors of gender pay gap, the average salaries of men and women should be compared at all levels within an organization. According to the report of CIPD (2017, p.3), the disparity in wages is based on six aspects. These aspects entail part-time working, occupational segregation, pay discrimination, undervaluing the work of women, and perceived differences in skills. Furthermore, the specific factors that underpin the complex phenomenon of gender pay-gap includes discrimination in the workplace, absence of women in senior managing and leading positions, unconscious bias where females are recruited on the same job description as males, but with different pay scale, non-transparent pay structures in the business practices of organization contribute towards increasing the gap in pays (Gender Equality Division, 2017, p.4). According to the report of World Economic Forum (2016, p.4), unconscious bias is the major barrier to gender parity among managers. However, the discrimination in pay is not observable in organizations, but it reinforces the stereotypes that result in an unconscious gender bias (Wagner, 2015, p.16).

Trends in the UK over gender pay-gap

        In April 2017, the trends of gender pay-gap among full-time employees in the UK, women are paid less per hour in comparison to men. Median hourly pay for full-time employees was 9.1% less for women. However, among part-time employees, the median hourly pay was 5.1% higher for women. Though, women make a larger share in part-time employment and part-time employees earn less per hour as compared to full-time workers. Therefore, the overall gender pay-gap among these employees is substantially larger than part-time and full-time pay-gaps. In April 2017, the median pay was 18.4% higher for men in comparison to women (McGuinness and Pyper, 2018, p.3). Lately, the government of UK has made it mandatory for UK employers to publish their gender pay gaps by the end of April 2018 (Brassil, 2018).

        Emphasizing the issue of gender pay-gap in Tesco PLC, legal action has been launched by a Leigh Day and approximately 100 shop assistants claims that they earn £3 an hour less in similar roles, being played by the male warehouse workers. This claim could affect around 200,000 shop floor staff that could cost Tesco up to £20,000 per worker (Butler, 2018). Moreover, one of the workers in Tesco store, Kim Element due to cut in her pay, had claimed over pay inequality. She stated that male workers, for their Sunday shifts, receive double pay. On the other hand, female workers are forced to take low wages, besides serving for long working hours.

        Moreover, the Equality and Human Rights Commission has enforced laws on companies employing more than 250 people for the provision of data on pay-gap. This legislation will help in reducing the gender pay-gap in the UK (Topping, 2017). In this account, the present research is expected to help HR in devising effective strategies to resolve the issue of pay disparity in business activities of Tesco.

References of Tesco Business Issues

Brassil, M., 2018. UK Organisations Publish Gender Pay Gap Figures. McCann FitzGerald. Retrieved from https://www.mccannfitzgerald.com/knowledge/employment/uk-organisations-publish-gender-pay-gap-figures

Bryman, A. and Bell, E., 2015. Business research methods. Oxford University Press, USA.

Brynin, M., 2017.  The gender pay gap. Equality and Human Rights Commission. Retrieved from https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/sites/default/files/research-report-109-the-gender-pay-gap.pdf

Butler, S., 2018. Tesco equal pay claim could cost supermarket up to £4bn. The Guardian. Accessed from https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/feb/07/tesco-equal-pay-claim-could-cost-supermarket-up-to-4bn

Topping, A., 2017. Gender pay gap law could have significant impact, say experts. The Guardian. Accessed from https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/apr/06/gender-pay-gap-law-could-have-significant-impact-say-experts

Wagner, B., 2015. The Complex Causes of the Gender Pay Gap. Montana Business Quarterly, 53(3), p.16. Accessed from https://dli.mt.gov/Portals/57/Publications/dli-com-ep001.pdf