Gender Pay Gap Report 20/21

The gender pay gap is the difference between the average pay of men and women, expressed as a percentage. The gender pay gap is different from equal pay. Equal pay is concerned with pay differences between men and women who carry out the same jobs, similar jobs or work of equal value. It is unlawful to pay people unequally because they are a man or a woman.

Nationally, the gender pay gap has persisted for many years — while the gap has been closing, overall progress has been and remains, very slow. The size of the gap varies between the private, public and voluntary sectors, by different types of businesses/services and by other factors, such as the age of employees. The Government has introduced these new reporting requirements to try and improve the rate of progress in closing this pay gap.

There are many factors which contribute to, or cause, a gender pay gap and these will vary between different employers. Some relate to wider society, such as the type of career choices men and women have typically tended to make and some may be specific to the particular organisation. We have set out in this statement the main factors we consider are contributing to our gender pay gap.

National Tyre Service Limited (trading as National Tyres and Autocare), part of Axle Group Holdings Limited (the “Group”), is an independent fast fit specialist in the UK. Its technicians specialise in vehicle parts repair including tyres, exhausts, brakes, batteries, steering and suspension, lubrication, MOT testing and vehicle safety inspection. We have a network of 237 branches throughout the UK. National Tyres and Autocare employs circa 1,200 personnel.

National Tyre Service Limited’s sister company (which is also in the Group) Stepgrades Motor Accessories Limited (trading as Viking Wholesale Tyres) is an independent tyre wholesaler, operating form eight warehouses throughout the UK. Viking Wholesale Tyres employs 230 personnel

Senior Management within each company have Group responsibilities.

National Tyre Service Limited aims to be a fair and progressive employer and is committed to tackling inequality and promoting diversity. Its employment arrangements comply with all relevant equality legislation and codes of practice.

National Tyre Service Limited’s pay arrangements aim to fairly reward staff contribution and performance, taking into account economic/financial considerations, organisational and individual performance and the pay rates of similar roles in the wider economy.

Bonus payments are made to staff within certain positions.

The mean gender pay gap

This figure shows the difference between the mean (average) hourly rate of pay of male and female employees in the relevant pay period, as a percentage.

Our mean gender pay gap is -8.46%.

This means that within the company the average pay of women is higher than men and is an increase from 3.1% last year. Across the company many positions attract bonus payments and therefore bonus payments do have a large impact on hourly rates of pay, especially as some positions attract a monthly bonus and others an annual bonus. Although the fast fit industry is a predominately male business, within the support functions based at head office, the company has a number of senior female employees The high ratio of female employees in senior positions contributes to the reasons for the negative mean gender pay gap.

As advised in the introduction, National Tyre Service Ltd and our sister company Viking, share a senior management team. Therefore we have also looked at our gender pay gap as a Group. Axle Group Mean Gender pay gap is -21.25. This again is reflective of the high proportion of females in senior positions within the Group.

The median gender pay gap

This figure shows the difference between the median (mid point) hourly rate of pay of male and female employees in the relevant pay period, as a percentage.

Our median gender pay gap is 7.7%, which is almost the same as last year.

We consider the main reasons for/causes of the above median that the majority of our staff work within the branch network and are male. This part of the business also attracts the potential to earn a greater amount of bonus than those roles in head office, which is where the majority of our females work. Therefore when it comes to the medium pay, there is a positive gender pay gap.

When considering the Median Gender Pay Gap from a group prospective, the Median gender pay gap is 4.9%, which is a slight reduction from last year.

The mean bonus gender pay gap

This figure shows the difference between the mean (average) bonus pay of the male and female employees in the relevant bonus period, as a percentage.

Our mean bonus gender pay gap is 29.5% a decrease from 41.6% recorded last year. As advised above, most positions within the company attract bonus, however the criteria for receiving bonus varies with position. Therefore there will always be fluctuations in relation to mean gender bonus depending on the performance of the company. At the effective date for 2020, the country was in lockdown and therefore this had an effect on the bonus potential for many of our branch-based staff who are predominately male. The effect of this has been to narrow the gap.

When looking at Group mean bonus gender pay gap, the gap is reduced to 11.4%

The median bonus gender pay gap

This figure shows the difference between the median (mid point) bonus pay of male and female employees in the relevant bonus period, as a percentage.

Our median bonus gender pay gap is 10.8%, which is a reduction from last year’s 46%.

Although there has been a big reduction in the median gender pay gap this year, this in part will be due to COVID and the ability of males in the operational sector of the workplace, to earn the same level of bonus as in previous years.

One of the main reasons for the difference continues to be the high percentage of males within the operational management of the Company. These positions have the opportunity to earn greater bonus payments in comparison to head office roles, which although these do attract a bonus payment, the amount of bonus potential tends to be of a lower value. The head office roles are where the majority of our female staff work.  

These figures show the proportions of male and female employees who received bonus pay during the relevant period.

92% of male employees and 81% of female employees received a bonus payment in the relevant period. Therefore there is little difference in the percentage of males and females who receive a bonus.

As an industry Fast Fit is predominately dominated by males. All senior managers within the operational divisions of the company are male and therefore a higher proportion of males than females within the company are in senior positions.

The percentage of females (at the effective date and full pay relevant employees) within the company is 8.2% 

Although National Tyres and Autocare have promoted the inclusion of women within our branch network, especially through our Apprenticeship programme, the percentage of women working within this sector of the business remains extremely small. It is traditionally seen as a male job, however we are starting to see a greater interest in females wanting to carry out mechanical roles.

Out with the Operational Divisions, females are more evenly represented in senior roles within the Company. As a Group, Axle has a high proportion of females in Senior Management roles. As some of these females in senior roles are employed by our sister company Viking Wholesale Tyres, their salaries and bonuses have not been taken in to account when calculating National Tyres and Autocare Pay Gap statistics.

However we have carried out a Group Gender Pay gap report and advised of this information as part of this report.

We are committed to closing our pay gaps. We will be carrying out the following action to try and address this problem.

• Continue to review pay and bonus practices to ensure that they are applied fairly and equitably
• Continue to review our recruitment practices to try to recruit more females into mechanical roles within the business, which is currently under represented, by females.
• Continue to develop our work with schools and colleges and review how we can attract more females to the industry through the work experience opportunities that we provide
• Continue in our commitment to offer the same development and training opportunities to both male and female within the business
• Continue to Review flexible working policies in order to attract more females to work within the industry
• Review our reward strategy to make it more inclusive of all roles within the company