Associated British Foods : ABF plc Gender Pay Gap Report 2021

Our organisation and the importance of diversity

Associated British Foods (ABF) is a diversified international food, ingredients and retail group with 128,000 employees and operations in 53 countries across Europe, Africa, the Americas, Asia and Australia.

Individual ABF businesses report their gender pay gap analysis separately, and in this report, we share the results of our 2021 gender pay gap analysis for ABF plc, Head Office.

ABF plc, Head Office is a small part of ABF with a relevant headcount for gender pay gap reporting of 255.

The Head Office doesn't fit neatly into established models of central functions. It is a product of the scope and diversity of the ABF businesses, the accountability and defined autonomy those businesses are given. It is made up of small teams across a wide range of functions which include Group Finance, Tax, Treasury, Financial Control, Corporate Development, Legal, Business Performance, BusinessDevelopment, Executive Remuneration, Executive Development, Careers, Inclusion and Talent Management, Group Safety and Security and Pensions. The leaders of these specialist functions typically have long tenure which we value due to their strong relationships with the businesses and their knowledge of the Group.

The Head Office provides standards, structure and guidance to enable our business leaders to make the right decisions and operate autonomously, efficiently and with entrepreneurial flair.

We want our businesses to be workplaces where everyone feels welcome, accepted on equal terms and treated with dignity and respect. We are committed to ensuring that every employee's career is defined only by their ability and ambition and never on the basis of their gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation or religious belief - or by any other factor that makes every individual in our company truly unique.

We confirm the data and information is accurate as of 5th April 2021 and in line with the Gender Pay reporting regulation.

Chief People & Performance Officer

What are the gender pay gap statistics?

Every UK organisation with 250 employees or more must publish gender pay gap data

Employee headcount is taken as at the 'snapshot' date, which for this year is 5th April 2021. Organisations must then calculate, report and publish the following gender pay gap figures:

• • Mean and median gender pay gap using hourly pay

• • Mean and median gender pay gap using bonus pay

• • Percentage of men and women receiving bonus pay

• • Percentage of men and women in each hourly pay quarter

The mean and median figures

The mean (average) is determined by adding the individual hourly rates of pay for all women, and all men separately, and dividing by the number of women and men respectively. The median is determined by ordering the individual hourly rates of pay for all women, and all men separately. The middle number in each range is the median.

For example, the salaries for all seven females in an organisation are:

£31k £32k £33k

Our results

Gender pay gap analysis

Mean

45.9%

The mean female salary is 54.1% of the mean male salary

Median

44.3%

The median female salary is 55.7% of the median male salary

Gender pay gap analysis

Quartiles represent the pay rates from the lowest to the highest for our UK employees

Bonus gap analysis

Mean

27.3%

The mean female bonus is 72.7% of the mean male bonus

Median

57.7%

The median female bonus is 42.3% of the median male bonus

Proportion receiving a bonus

Males

42.9%

42.9% of male employees received a bonus

Females

15.5%

15.5% of female employees received a bonus

All

29.0%

29.0% of all employees received a bonus

Explanation of our results

Why the gap?

The Head Office is made up of a diverse group of employees including UK based CEOs and senior business leaders in key roles across a range of corporate functions.

The pay and bonus gaps, and proportion of males and females receiving a bonus is a result of more males holding senior positions than females, and more females holding administrative positions than males.

The senior positions attract a higher salary, contributing to the pay gap figures, and are incentivised through short and long term incentive plans, contributing to the bonus gap figures.

We develop and take pride in retaining our leaders in key roles as value is placed on tenure to facilitate strong connections and productive relationships within our businesses. The average length of service in our senior team is approximately 14 years. As a result of having a stable senior team with low turnover, gender balance at the top of the organisation changes slowly.

We focus a lot of effort on building a more diverse and inclusive culture, but we recognise there is more to do to address the imbalance.

Gender pay is different to equal pay

The following example illustrates the difference between the gender pay gap and equal pay.

Illustrative example: A function in the organisation employs 5 managers, 4 females and 1 male, and 1 male director

£80k

Manager

£80k

Manager

£80k

Manager

£80k

Manager

Despite paying all managers equally, there is still a significant gender pay gap because the director is male and receives a much higher salary as a result.

We conduct regular reviews and analysis of our practices to ensure they are fair and free from bias, gender or otherwise.

Manager

Director

Closing the gapBuilding a more diverse and inclusive culture

We have a focus on building a truly diverse and inclusive workforce, grounded in a commitment to treat everyone equally, and we have made good progress on this.

Our senior leaders have diversity, equity and inclusion elements included within their objectives.

We will always appoint the best person into every role, regardless of gender or any other characteristic but we recognise there is still work to do on improving the proportion of female talent in more senior roles in ABF plc, Head Office which currently impacts our gender pay gap.

We work with our recruitment partners to set clear expectations with regard to attracting and presenting a diverse shortlist of candidates, challenging our recruitment processes and using tools and methods to support our selection decisions. Within the past 12 months, at the most senior levels in the organisation, we have recruited two senior leaders; one female and one male. Prior to this but within the past 24 months we recruited three senior leaders; two females and one male.

In partnership with other ABF businesses, we participate in an initiative called 'Women in ABF' which has been running since 2012. Employees are invited to meet three times a year to provide opportunities to connect with colleagues, grow networks, learn and obtain support for personal career development.

In addition, a two way ABF mentoring scheme provides colleagues with the opportunity to work with a senior leader to support their development, deal with challenges in the workplace and to broaden their business understanding. This has been running since 2013.

We continue to offer unconscious bias training to all colleagues at the Head Office and to date our attendance rate is 95% of our UK offices. During the training we share our DEI aspiration for the Head Office, talk about the importance of creating an inclusive culture at the Head Office, and raise awareness of unconscious bias.

In 2021, we launched a Parents Network following one of our DEI employee surveys. We identified that a significant number of colleagues at the Head Office are the primary carers for children and so the purpose of the Parents Network was to offer support to colleagues who were balancing work and home schooling through the Covid lockdown to share experiences, resources and advice.

We celebrated International Women's Day and Pride month at the Head Office. We invited women from across our offices to take part in interviews and networking events to raise the profile of women working across the Head Office and provide an opportunity to share advice and build networks. We also invited an LGBT+ education charity to run a session to raise awareness of gay rights in the UK and internationally, to help colleagues better understand how to support our LGBT+ community within the Head Office and outside.

Individual functions within the Head Office are driving their own DEI agenda. An example of this is in our Commercial Legal team, who are partnering with the Social Mobility Foundation to recruit trainee legal apprentices.

In addition to the gender pay gap analysis, we monitor gender and diversity throughout our processes. Our mid-year and annual grade/pay review analysis monitors a range of gender and diversity statistics to ensure fairness across our Head Office.