2018 UK Gender Pay Gap Report

Oliver Wyman is dedicated to maintaining an inclusive culture where exceptional people can thrive and reach their full potential. Inclusion and diversity is a way of life at Oliver Wyman; we celebrate our individuality and differences together. We embrace fairness not only in our culture, but also in our approach to compensation. Oliver Wyman applies the same standards to women and men: salary and bonus reflect one’s role and level.

The gender pay gap shows the difference in average UK pay between all men and all women across the entire company (including Partners). We are not satisfied with our current outcome. It is important to remember that the gender pay gap and bonus pay gap looks at the mean and median across the entire company for women and men.

Our gender pay gap reflects the fact that in the UK there are more men than women in the most senior positions – positions that are paid the most. This is different from equal pay, which relates to any difference in individual pay between women and men within specific roles and levels. We have rigorous processes for reviewing and monitoring pay as a fundamental part of our annual compensation process and, as a result, employees in the same roles and levels receive comparable levels of pay.

We understand that diverse teams enable us to create the greatest impact with our clients and industries, and for UK society. We have been working hard to build a diverse firm that will result in, among other things, more women in senior leadership positions.

In this report, we proudly describe our initiatives to improve the diversity in Oliver Wyman and beyond. In the UK, we have been achieving a gender ratio of approximately 50:50 among our entry-level consultant hires since 2015, and in addition to improving gender diversity internally we are also engaged in efforts to create meaningful change in this area for our clients and societies.

As leaders of Oliver Wyman in the UK, we confirm that the data reported below is accurate.

Dr. Rebecca Emerson, Head of UK & Ireland

Davide Taliente, Head of EMEA

 

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The Gender Pay Gap At Oliver Wyman

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The “gender pay gap” is the percentage difference in average earnings between all men and all women (including Partners) across the entire company; this is not the same as “equal pay,” which is the principle of equal pay for equal work.

Improving Gender Balance At Oliver Wyman

Achieving greater gender balance at all career levels and in all roles is essential to narrowing the gender pay gap. We want Oliver Wyman to be a place where people come to work for the long term, where they can grow professionally and always feel welcome. This requires both a strong pipeline of talent and the ability to retain that talent.

Thanks to the initiatives described below, we continue to make progress: our UK entry-level consultant intake has been approximately 50 percent women since 2015.

We recognise that simply drawing in junior talent is not enough. We need to retain women in greater numbers and attract more women into senior roles. Oliver Wyman is committed to reaching a target of 20% female Partners, 30% of candidates for Partner promotions to be women and gender parity within senior support professionals by 2023. With this as our goal, we have much more to do. The following are highlights of the approaches we’re taking.

Leading From The Top

Oliver Wyman’s senior leaders are committed to ensuring that women and other diverse, talented people realise their full potential within our organisation. For the past ten years, our firm leaders have undergone and facilitated extensive inclusion coaching and reverse mentoring to understand different perspectives and empathise with the changing needs of their colleagues. This reflects their commitment to inclusion and diversity at all levels of our organisation.

The firm has set internal targets on gender representation at all levels of the business and we are working hard to ensure these targets are met. We are looking to introduce internal targets for racial and ethnic diversity.

To drive our diversity and inclusion strategy, we have a Global Inclusion Council comprising four Executive Committee members and chaired by Terry Stone, Managing Partner of our health and life sciences practice and co-author of Women in Healthcare Leadership 2019. The Global Inclusion Council is focused on improving diversity, influencing leadership, and inspiring change across the organisation.

Senior leaders Ana Kreacic, Chief Knowledge Officer, and Christian Edelmann, EMEA co-head of financial services, serve as executive sponsors of our Women at Oliver Wyman (WOW) network and also sit on the Inclusion Council.

Celebrating Female Leaders

Female leaders are examples of what women can achieve at Oliver Wyman, by being their authentic selves. In the UK, our female leaders include: Rebecca Emerson, Head of the UK & Ireland since 2015, and an award-winning diversity advocate; Deborah O’Neill, UK Head of Digital, who has received numerous accolades including being named a semi-finalist in the Inspirational Women In Tech award and a Young Leader finalist in the Women in IT Awards; and Lisa Quest, a Partner specialising in organisational effectiveness and public policy, who is UK Head of our Women at Oliver Wyman (WOW) network.

In our video Transforming Business and Society: Women at Oliver Wyman, we profile several of our senior female Partners and describe the impact they have had for our clients.

Being An Employer Of Choice

We endeavor to be an employer of choice for talented individuals with a diverse range of backgrounds, experiences, and ways of thinking.

Between 2013 and 2015, we increased the proportion of our female entry-level consultant appointments from 30 percent to approximately 50 percent and are proud to have maintained this gender parity since. This step-change is due to the success of numerous ongoing initiatives: rebalancing evaluation criteria; training interviewers to recognise and minimise unconscious biases; ensuring a diverse team of colleagues assess our candidates; hosting on-campus recruitment events targeted at women and intersectional minorities, such as lesbian, bi, and trans women and women of colour; and our Women at Oliver Wyman (WOW) network supporting applicants through the recruiting process.

In 2019, our commitment to inclusion has been recognised by Stonewall, who placed Oliver Wyman as a top 100 organisation in their LGBT+ Workplace Equality Index. This is the UK’s leading benchmarking tool for LGBT+ inclusion in the workplace, allowing businesses to voluntarily measure, verify, and improve their inclusion practices.

Empowering Diverse Talent

Through ‘Inspiring Leaders’, which has been in place since 2013, we are investing in our next generation of leaders by providing internal sponsors to high performers who identify with diversity characteristics under-represented at the senior level. In our consultants’ performance reviews, we train ‘inclusion and diversity challengers’ to help identify and correct any unconscious biases.

Beyond sponsorship, we are implementing a series of initiatives in the UK as an early intervention to help with retention and to support women’s career development. This is giving female UK consultants access to a female career advisor or mentor, and an ongoing schedule of quarterly events focussing on career development at Oliver Wyman.

In 2019, we are launching a new programme: Men for Change. The initiative, originated by male colleagues and coordinated through our women’s network, will use dialogue and action to better engage men in supporting gender equality.

Encouraging Full Lives

We pride ourselves on accommodating a variety of personal circumstances and preferences. All employees are asked to complete monthly surveys on work–life quality so that we can quickly respond to any areas of concern.

Through our flexible working program, FlexOW, we offer reduced working weeks, sabbaticals, leaves of absence, additional time off, flexible hours, and the ability to work a 10- or 11-month year.

We also run ‘Boost’, a sponsorship programme that matches colleagues to colleagues more senior who will help guide them through their journey at Oliver Wyman before, during, and after parental leave. This programme gives structured support, ensuring colleagues’ experience of parental leave is as straightforward as possible.

Our efforts were recognised by Working Families, the UK’s leading work-life balance organisation, which named Oliver Wyman a Top 30 Family Friendly Employer in 2017 and 2018.

Creating An Inclusive Workplace For All

Respecting that gender is only one aspect of identity, we have several employee-led groups focussed on different diversity characteristics and their intersections. These groups educate, inform, engage, and advocate for colleagues across the business to create an inclusive culture. Currently, our diversity network community comprises of:

• WOW: Focuses on attracting, developing, and retaining talented women
• EMPOWERED: Fosters racial, ethnic, and cultural inclusion
• GLOW: Champions and advocates for LGBT+ colleagues and recruits
• FLOW: Drives improvement at the intersections of work and family life
• IntrOW: Educates colleagues about introversion and facilitates cognitive diversity

Since our last report, we have held over 225 inclusion and diversity events and expanded our networks by over 150 members. Our newest network, FLOW (Family Life at Oliver Wyman), has become global with the opening of 13 new chapters.

To ensure an inclusive experience for all colleagues, we regularly review and amend our policies.

Increasing Gender Balance Beyond Oliver Wyman

The gender pay gaps being reported across UK industries are a symptom of larger social forces. We believe that Oliver Wyman has a responsibility to help address gender pay gap-related issues and facilitate change beyond our firm. Therefore, we have dedicated time, effort, and resources to the following initiatives:

MissionINCLUDE

We are co-founders of MissionINCLUDE, a diversity programme open to any self-identified diversity characteristic, including gender but also extending to introversion, past experiences, and communication style. For individual participants it offers one-on-one mentoring, and for companies it offers reverse mentoring of senior leaders and safe spaces to share best practices.

The “Women in Healthcare Leadership 2019” Report

In this inaugural report on the healthcare industry we use our data and leadership interviews to provide a detailed action plan to address the issue of gender diversification in leadership. The research was a major undertaking that profiled the leadership and boards of 134 companies (more than 3,000 executives) to better understand differentiation in female leadership in healthcare. It analysed the paths of 112 CEOs to leadership in traditional healthcare organisations; and interviewed more than 75 men and women in the industry – from directors to CEOs – to understand the visible and invisible dynamics at play for both men and women.

The “Women in Financial Services” Reports

We have released two reports that analysed gender equality in the financial services industry and provided practical solutions to help organisations create meaningful change in their businesses. The reports are informed by examinations of nearly 400 financial service organisations in 32 countries, including surveys of 850 financial services professionals around the world, and interviews with more than 100 senior leaders. With this scope and scale, our work is a leading resource for understanding and addressing gender equality and diversity in financial services. We continue to lead dialogues and generate improvements within this sector.

Global Digital Women

Global Digital Women is an international network of women working in the digital sector. It provides opportunities for networking and visibility. This year, we worked with Global Digital Women to launch their first London Chapter at an event discussing hyper connectivity, women’s digital power, and wellbeing. Additionally, in an Instagram takeover we profiled the working day of a female digital influencer in our marketing team.  

The 30% Club

Oliver Wyman Partners act as senior mentors to women in other companies by partnering with the 30% Club. The organisation’s goal is to have a minimum of 30 percent women on FTSE-350 boards by 2020. It looks to achieve this by providing cross-company, cross-sector mentoring to women at every stage of their careers.

How We Calculated The UK Gender Pay Gap

The gender pay gap shows the gap between the mean and median earnings of women and the mean and median earnings of men within Oliver Wyman’s UK offices; the bonus pay gap shows the gap between the mean and median bonus paid to women and the mean and median bonus paid to men. The mean is calculated by adding up the total pay of all employees at all levels in the relevant group and dividing that figure by the number of employees in that group. The median is the number in the middle of a pay ranking, from lowest to highest.

In other words, the gender pay gap and the bonus pay gap look at the mean and median across the entire company, for women and men in the UK. This is different from “equal pay,” which refers to the difference in individual pay between women and men within specific jobs.