Get moving: Lorna Jane’s 37.1% gender pay gap highlights a bigger problem with retail

Lorna Jane sells high-end activewear to women and promotes health and wellbeing. It declares its workplace is a place to “activate your career” on its career page, talking up a 1000-strong Australian workforce.

At Lorna Jane, they don’t “follow”. They “change the game” as “goal chasers, helping others along the way to hit theirs too”.

But as of yesterday, we know Lorna Jane has a total remuneration gender pay gap of 37.1% and a median base gender pay gap of 36.3%.

This is one of the more shocking surprises from the full list of gender pay gap data published yesterday, with Lorna Jane’s figure being almost double the 18.1% median pay gap in the industry.

The empowered team members at Lorna Jane will be asking many questions following this release, especially as the organisation has previously committed to checking that, “we have no issues of unequal pay between genders”. Lorna Jane had not provided an ‘Employer Statement’ on this pay gap and how they are addressing it to be published alongside the WGEA data as other large employers have done at the time of publishing.

These team members won’t be the only ones with questions.

More than 5,000 employers have had their gender pay gaps published yesterday, alongside the opportunity to share a statement explaining what they are doing about it.

As I wrote previously, the release of these figures comes just as employers are talking up the UN Women’s theme of “Count Her In” for International Women’s Day. This year’s IWD focus on economic empowerment for women couldn’t be more timely and relevant with the release of these figures, with closing gender pay gaps and bringing more women into leadership being one of the first steps to such empowerment.

The published data provides leverage for plenty of conversation starters at IWD events and opportunities for CEOs, boards and senior leaders to explain what they are doing to close such gaps.

In some rare cases, gender pay gaps fall within the five percent range which, to WGEA, indicates there is no issue. In extremely rare cases, there are gender pay gaps that come up in favour of women.

But for many employers, the gender pay gaps are large and indicate widespread problems across the workforce, particularly in getting women into senior leadership and higher-paying roles.

Another retailer predominantly marketing its products and goods to women is Pandora Jewelry, with a massive 52.3% gender pay gap, more than eight times the industry average of 7.1%. Pandora has a stated ambition on its website to see one-third of its leadership female by 2025 and reach full gender parity “no later than 2030”. This target is weak and lacks ambition, especially in a female-dominated industry. Pandora’s career page shares work opportunities and a promise that “original thinking is welcomed”.

Qantas has a long-term commitment to ensuring “merit-based gender diversity in aviation”. But right now staff share in a total remuneration gender pay gap of 37%. At its subsidiary Jetstar Group, things are even worse at 43.7%. Those in aviation seeking an alternative employer will be dismayed to learn that Virgin Australia Airlines has a 41.7% total remuneration gender pay gap. Things are better at REX Airlines, with a 26.8% gap.

Commonwealth Bank has a 29.9% total remuneration gender pay gap, despite women making up the majority of the employee base, at 54.4%. Westpac has the second largest of the big four banks, with a 28.5% pay gap. NAB’s total remuneration figure is 18.8%, while ANZ’s is 10.2%.

Let the awkward “count her in” conversations happen at employers with giant gender pay gaps in the lead-up to International Women’s Day.

And to brands like Lorna Jane that hire a largely female-dominated workforce and market to a mostly female customer base, please remember that women’s health and wellbeing depend on economic empowerment and equal pay. Get moving.

This article was first published by Women’s Agenda.