The mean pay gap – based on the average hourly salary of its staff – was 19.7% as of April 5, 2017, Well said in its gender pay report published today (March 23).

The report also revealed that the median gender pay gap – which takes the mid-point when all hourly rates are lined up from biggest to smallest, reducing the impact of one-off outliers – was 1.2%.

Well Pharmacy chief executive John Nuttall said: “Our gender pay gap reporting shows a disproportionate number of females in our store colleague roles and a disproportionate number of males in our driver roles.”

Females made up 75% of the 7,314 people employed by the UK’s third largest pharmacy chain in April 2017, the report noted.

Of its female employees, 75% “work in store colleague roles (eg healthcare assistants, pharmacy assistants, pharmacy technicians)”, the multiple said.

“Our pay gap is therefore driven by the structure of our workforce,” it added.

Bonus gap

The report also revealed 6.9% of Well's female employees received a bonus, compared with 10.6% of male employees.

The mean gap between the amount of bonus given was 66.5% in favour of men.

Well “supports and welcomes” requirement

As an employer with over 250 staff, Well Pharmacy was required by law to publish the report by April 4.

“Well both supports and welcomes [the requirement] as part of our wider diversity and inclusion agenda,” the multiple said.

Well’s report comes three days after Boots published its own gender pay gap information, which revealed its mean gender pay gap was 21%, with a median pay gap of 5%.

What’s being done?

While Well HR director Ben Turner is “confident that we have robust pay structures in place and believe that our figures are in line with other retail businesses”, the organisation “will review our role profiles and adverts to ensure there is no gender bias in them”, he told C+D.

Mr Turner also committed to “auditing the gender split on our career development programmes to try to ensure equal male and female representation throughout our workforce and in our managerial roles”.

Well’s gender pay gap information “is different to equal pay, which ensures that women are paid the same as men for like work”, he stressed.*

*This article was updated at 5.30pm to clarify the difference between the gender pay gap and equal pay.