Gender Pay Gap Report

December 2023

2023 has been a positive and eventful year for laya healthcare, with the confirmation of our acquisition by AXA Ireland. Joining such a trusted and successful organisation like AXA, who share our commitment to Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion, will strengthen our plans and ambition to be the most inclusive employer in Ireland.

Laya healthcare recognises that its team members come from diverse backgrounds, with varying experiences and needs – much like its 690,000+ members who our team look after, always. We are committed to ensuring that diversity and inclusion are embedded into our everyday working practices and conditions.

Laya healthcare actively promotes fairness, respect, equality, diversity, inclusion, and engagement. Through our policies and in our day-to-day working culture, laya healthcare is committed to promoting equality and fairness while combating discrimination. This applies to everyone, regardless of gender, civil status, family status, sexual orientation, religion, age, disability, race, or membership of the Travelling Community. Our employees continue, in our 2023 engagement survey as in previous years, to agree in overwhelming numbers (93%) that ours is an organisation with a healthy approach to equality, diversity and inclusion.

Most inclusive workplace

Laya healthcare aims to be recognised as the most inclusive health insurance providers in Ireland and one of the most inclusive workplaces in Ireland, with a workforce that is representative of the wider community. Our working environment and culture is warm, friendly, caring, and open. Our core values underpin how we treat each other as a team, our members, and our partners – we aim to be fair, caring, grounded and innovative. Our team members are encouraged to bring their whole selves to work, while treating one another with kindness. 

• Fair - we always do the right thing. We keep our promises, because we believe that what is good for our customer, is good for our business
• Caring - we have a genuine interest in our customers wellbeing, we are compassionate and empathetic, treating people with courtesy and respect
• Grounded – we are a hands-on, approachable business with a team that has empathy for their members and each other. At the heart of what we do is the concept of kinship - we are always there for you
• Innovative - it starts with being curious and asking questions, this brings fresh thinking. We have the courage to disrupt the status quo in our business and our industry to ensure we deliver innovations that really make a positive impact

Flexible working

Laya healthcare is recognised, internally and externally, for the generous benefit it provides its team when it comes to flexible working solutions. This includes our blended working policy, which allows our team the opportunity to work from both the office and a remote location in Ireland where roles and circumstances allow for it. We know we offer an unusual degree of flexibility, and it is greatly appreciated and utilised by a large proportion of our team, and we believe it is particularly helpful to us in the attraction and retention of those with family commitments.

We are pleased in 2023 to retain our position as one of the Best Workplaces for Women. This external accreditation recognises us as an organisation

• that goes above and beyond to ensure that women in the workforce are treated fairly when it comes to pay, recognition, training, and promotion opportunities,
• where women can take the time off, they need to attend to childcare or other family commitments,
• where women are encouraged, empowered, and supported to do their best work. 

We provide a positive work environment for anybody of any gender or background. The gender breakdown of our employees shows employment at laya healthcare to be particularly attractive to women. Almost three in four of our team (73%) are women, the same figure as in 2022. We believe this is because of the flexible, family friendly and inclusive culture that we offer.

Gender Pay Gap reporting and equal pay

Laya healthcare applies equal pay principles because it’s the fair and right thing to do by our team. We provide equal pay for equal work.

To protect this, we engage an external independent company to scrutinise our pay provisions at role and individual level on a yearly basis. Allowing for legitimate factors such as experience or qualifications, if an individual is paid too little for the role they occupy, we correct that imbalance. This process is rigorous, and it is applied for all of our team regardless of gender. 

The gender pay gap metrics set out in this report, in keeping with new rules in Ireland, do not measure equal pay. The Gender Pay Gap Information Act 2021 instructs us to calculate our gender pay gap based on broad averages across the organisation, without regard to the different roles that people occupy.

The Gender Pay Gap at laya healthcare

Based on hourly remuneration, there is a gender pay gap of 26.3% in favour of men at laya healthcare. We are pleased to see that the gap has narrowed by just over 2% since last year.

It’s important to recognise that in laya healthcare women are paid relative to men in the jobs that they occupy. The main cause of our gender pay gap is that our culture and work conditions make jobs at the entry and intermediate levels of our organisation particularly attractive to women with family responsibilities. When we look at the proportions of men and women at the different levels of our organisation, we find the following:

Therefore, when broad averages are drawn using the methodology required by government, laya healthcare shows a gender pay gap in favour of men. Our gender pay gap reflects the fact that work and conditions at laya healthcare, especially at our entry and intermediate levels, are particularly attractive to people who need or value flexibility. A majority of the people who most value flexibility are women, for societal reasons beyond our immediate control.

We are proud of, and we are committed to safeguarding and promoting, the flexibility that we offer. We know this is hugely valued by our team and it is key to us retaining and attracting talent to our organisation.

We believe that the government wants employers to foster conditions in which women and men can achieve promotion on an equitable basis. At laya healthcare we have created, and we nurture those conditions. We are and will remain vigilant against any unconscious bias in hiring or in promotion.

Our gender pay gap metrics

We calculated our gender pay gap metrics in line with the government’s rules. We used a snapshot date of 30 June 2023, with a reference period of 1 July 2022-30 June 2023. We had at this time 660 employees of whom 178 are men and 482 are women. We had 70 part time employees and 28 on temporary contracts.

The figures explained

• Hourly Remuneration refers to the difference in total earnings between men and women on a mean (average) and median (middle ranking) basis.
• The lower quartile sets out, in respect of the lowest paid quarter of our people by hourly remuneration, what percentage are men and what percentage are women.
• The upper quartile sets out, in respect of the highest paid quarter of our people by hourly remuneration, what percentage are men and what percentage are women. The same logic applies to the lower middle quartile and the upper middle quartile.
• Bonus Recipients sets out the proportion of men and of women who receive any form of bonus. Bonuses for this purpose includes vouchers and share awards as well as regular performance bonuses.
• Bonus Gap refers to the gap between men and women on the value of all bonus items taken together. ‘Bonus’ for these purposes includes voucher awards as well as bonuses as generally understood.
• Benefits in kind sets out the percentage of our people who are in receipt of non-cash benefits of monetary value – for example health insurance or gym membership. Benefits in kind are offered to our people on an equitable basis; however, some of our people may have reasons for refusing them.

Diversity, Inclusion and Our Values

Our Diversity & Inclusion Strategy and Action Plan

Our Diversity & Inclusion Strategy and Action Plan has been in place for several years. It is reviewed weekly by our Culture, Diversity & Inclusion Specialist along with our Culture & ESG Manager. Our Diversity & Inclusion Council meets once a month to oversee progress on the Action Plan. Once a quarter, our Board discusses Diversity & Inclusion as a specific agenda item.

We want our planning and decisions to be informed by data. This year we ran our Team Demographics Survey, which is intended to give us data on the specific views, needs and concerns of our different employee segments. We are excited by the potential for the survey findings to inform and improve our efforts on Diversity & Inclusion in the coming years. It is already the case that each of our departments has its own culture team, and each culture team bases its own plan on survey findings.

As a sign of our commitment to our Diversity and Inclusion Strategy, we are signatories to the Women in Finance Charter. This means that we are committed to increasing the number of women in management and board level positions to achieve better gender balance.

Reinforcing Fairness

We educate all our team on equality, diversity, and inclusion on an ongoing basis. We ensure that there is targeted development on these matters by those involved in management and recruitment. Our management team has benefitted from Inclusive Leadership development incorporating unconscious bias awareness. 

We have equipped our People & Culture team with the tools necessary to recruit and retain a diverse workforce. We have partnered with the Irish Centre for Diversity to conduct an independent and expert review of our recruitment and selection processes to ensure fairness.

Upcoming in 2024, we will be rolling out inclusive language training to all our team.

Family Friendly Policies

We have deliberately set out to be among the most family friendly and flexible workplaces in Ireland.

In the last year we have reaffirmed after reviewing our commitment to a blended working model, enabling work from home where the role allows.

We have also launched our fertility policy, involving paid time off for consultant appointments and procedures along with explanatory webinars.

We continue to offer term leave, enabling those with children of school age to apply to take leave during the school holidays, but smooth their pay over the entire year. We continue to facilitate compressed work weeks and flexible working hours.

Our family friendly policies are intended to be of potential benefit to both men and women. We are however aware that, for as long as the prevalence in broader society remains that women take charge of a greater share of family responsibilities than men, the flexibility encouraged by laya is likely to make us an attractive place for women to work.

Addressing the needs of our team

We encourage our team to become members of our medical insurance plans. Whether as employees or members, we make available to our team:

• Menopause support, in the form of webinars and paid time off for consultations or procedures
• Access to our Laya Health & Wellbeing clinics for all members aged 12months+
• Healthcare concierge service for members aged 18+
• Our Digital Health Hub, digital services including access to GP, physios, dieticians, and parenting coaches among other supports – available to members aged 17+
• Healthcoach – tailored fitness screening for members aged 18+
• 24/7 Mental Wellbeing Support, available for members aged 16+
• Heartbeat – a Cardiac Screening available every 2 years to members aged 12+

Are we succeeding?

We look for external experts to examine and validate our Diversity & Inclusion environment, and where appropriate suggest ways in which we can improve.

• We are officially recognised as one of Ireland’s Best Workplaces by Great Place to Work
• We are recognised as one of the Best Workplaces for Women, also by Great Place to Work
• We hold Bronze, Silver and Gold Accreditation from the Irish Centre for Diversity – with the process of reaffirming our Gold Status recommencing in the coming months.

As part of our annual survey this year, 95% of our team scored laya healthcare favourably on the statement “People at this organization treat each other with dignity and respect regardless of their personal identities”. For the statement “I can be myself at work without worrying about being accepted” 94% of our team agreed with this statement. We look to our team for the most meaningful affirmation as to whether our Diversity & Inclusion Strategy is succeeding. We believe the fact that 73% of our team are women is an important indicator of our being a great place for women to work. 

Erika O’Leary, Director of People and Culture

At laya healthcare, we are incredibly proud to be an attractive place to work for women which is evidenced by the fact that the majority of our team are women. We offer a broad and progressive range of flexible and family- friendly working options that align with our commitment to fostering a diverse and inclusive workplace for all.

Women benefit more from our family-friendly flexible working arrangements, largely as they tend to take on significantly more of the childcare and other family responsibilities than men. Ultimately, we remain resolutely committed to ensuring transparency in our approach to equal pay for equal value work”.

 

Find out more about our approach to Diversity, Inclusion and Equality, view our Awards or download our previous report: Gender Pay Gap 2022