At Oliver Wyman we recognize that people are our greatest resource, and we are committed to creating a diverse and inclusive workplace in which everyone feels they belong and can thrive. Inclusion and diversity is of paramount importance to us. We recognize that when we lead with inclusion we encourage and empower diverse perspectives and experiences to flourish which drives innovation, and helps us achieve our aim of creating breakthroughs for our clients. When we have diverse representation, we know that we unlock a range of business benefits, enhance our corporate performance and inspire and empower the next generation of leaders.
In 2021, we re-examined our approach to inclusion, diversity and belonging and created a new strategy to take us to 2025. Strategy 25, as it is called, represents a step change for our firm, requiring us to take decisive action to drive change, including achieving gender parity both in terms of representation and the gender pay gap. We know that previously the gap between numbers and narrative has been too wide and we intend to be more transparent about where we are. We also intend to be clearer about what we will do differently to drive change, focusing on the root causes of the gender imbalances within our firm.
In this article, we share our gender pay gap figures and updates on our flagship programs designed to address the gaps. As market leader of Oliver Wyman in the UK, I confirm on behalf of our leadership that the information and data in this report are accurate.
Oliver Wyman's UK gender pay gap report for 2022
Source: Oliver Wyman analysis
The “gender pay gap” is the percentage difference in average earnings between all men in the workforce and all women in the workforce, regardless of role. This is not the same as “equal pay”, which is the principle of equal pay for equal work.
In 2022, our gender pay gap figures showed little change compared to the year before. This is primarily the result of a comparative under-representation of women and the over-representation of men in senior client-facing roles in the firm, and conversely the over-representation of women in our more junior business support roles.
We know we must do much more to address the root causes of this disparity. This is why we are working to adopt better, more sustainable working practices, which we expect will see more women, and men, join us, stay with us and thrive with us.
Steps we are taking to drive gender equity
Our global gender representation targets are a vital strategic tool to help manage accountability and drive progress. We use them across levels, teams, and geographies.
While we are making good progress against the targets for female representation in our firm, we know we need to do more. This is why we are undertaking a wide range of interventions to support gender equality in our firm including providing equalized parental leave of 26 weeks, increasing our flexible working options and boosting the support we give returners to ensure a smoother transition back to work.
We are acutely aware that as a consulting business which works across multiple sectors, we should seek to emulate the best practices of those sectors. With this in mind we have established a global flex program which seeks to mirror the support and opportunities, pay and compensation, offered in our key industries.
We regularly conduct pay audits designed to eliminate historic disparities. As part of this work we operate an approach of identifying the missing voices at the table and recognizing that performance and compensation are connected we also embed inclusion facilitators into our annual processes.
We have come a long way as a firm in pursuit of the goal of gender balance and our wider goals for inclusion, diversity and belonging at Oliver Wyman. But we know that we still have a long way to go to close our gender pay gap and achieve a gender-balanced workforce.
We recognize that this will take all of us working together on a journey of continuous improvement and evolution and we are committed to the path ahead and the continued progress we need to make.