Gender Pay Gap Report 2018

In compliance with the UK Government’s statutory requirements on gender pay, the GSMA is required to publish data for our employing entities with over 250 staff in the UK. This data has been filed with the UK Government and the following provides further commentary on that information.

The GSMA represents the interests of mobile operators worldwide, uniting nearly 750 operators with more than 350 companies in the broader mobile ecosystem, as well as producing industry-leading events and conferences. To deliver the expectations of our members, the GSMA employs a broad and varied group of professionals with a wide range of differing skills and experience.

Globally the GSMA population is marginally weighted towards female employees. However, a greater proportion of senior positions are held by male employees. With more men in senior positions, this has an impact on our mean and median gender pay gap for hourly rates and bonuses.

The below data represents staff employed only by our UK GSM Association entity in line with statutory reporting requirements.

Gender pay and bonus* gap

*FY18 bonus includes short and long-term incentive payments and commissions

The gap in hourly rate and bonus pay is due to the GSMA having more men than women in senior positions, and more women than men in entry/intermediate level positions. We are committed to ensuring that women and men are paid fairly in comparative roles and have the same opportunity for performance bonuses. We use external benchmarking data related to the relevant industry and specific job role content and take targeted action by reviewing pay for all staff on a bi-annual basis.

Employees receiving bonus in FY18

Employees become eligible for performance bonus after completing three months’ service; more men than women receiving a bonus in FY17 was reflective of having a higher number of women than men join the GSMA in the same period.

Pay quartiles

Proportion of men and women in each quarter of the payroll, each quartile contains 86 employees in 2018

Mean by quartile	11.5%	-1.0%	0.4%	-1.3%
Median by quartile	1.2%	1.4%	1.5%	1.9%

A Mean and Median pay gap still exists within each quartile; this is due to different jobs and responsibilities attracting different salaries depending on market rates e.g. CEO vs CFO both of which would be in the top quartile.

Positive action being taken

• Although the representation of women in the technology industry is lower than men, the GSMA has a strong track record for attracting, retaining and promoting female talent. In FY18, 92% of women returned from maternity and, following their return, 45% were promoted. During FY19 so far:
  • 11% of female staff received a promotion
  • 67% of internal moves have been by female staff
  • 57% of new starters were women

• • We ensure we have representation of men and women on shortlists for all senior roles and run job descriptions through gender bias decoding software.

• • We have active support for employees returning to work following parental leave, allowing for flexible working and check-ins with HR.

• • We have invested in training and coaching programmes to ensure we are developing non-gender biased talent of the future.

• In FY18 we launched two new talent development schemes: Contributor to Manager and Manager to Leader:
  • In FY18 the Contributor to Manager scheme had 58% female, in FY19 female participation has increased to 83%
  • In FY18 the Manager to Leader scheme had 38% female, in FY19 female participation has increased to 58%

We’ve launched an Equality, Diversity & Inclusion Forum called OneGSMA to provide an internal platform for employees to share experiences and ideas; to capture and discuss relevant matters, and the opportunity to network with other related groups externally. All of these actions contribute to a positive environment to build a strong pipeline of female talent able to move into senior roles in the future.

Louise Easterbrook
Chief Financial Officer, GSMA

Click here to view Gender Pay Gap Report 2019
Click here to view Gender Pay Gap Report 2017