Lately I seem to be getting a lot of my ideas for articles from Nicky Campbell's radio phone-in shows and this month is no exception.

This time it's the tricky area of sex discrimination that's got my grey cells working. A big topic and a potential minefield, I know. To be specific, it was Harriet Harman's view on the salary gender gap and her comments about how the government might make it mandatory for companies to publish the salaries of all their employees.

Apparently the Office for National Statistics and the Equality and Human Rights Commission have both reported that women in full time employment still earn less than men in equivalent positions. They claim the difference is approximately 17%, but that in some sectors, notably the City, it is as high as 55%; a big improvement from the 1970s, apparently, where the average differential between men and women performing the same function was 45% across all sectors.

Of course I am completely in favour of equality sex, race, age, religion, etc and abhor discrimination in all its forms. However, I also believe that we have enough laws to protect people at work and that another law aimed at making pay scales transparent will do little to change attitudes. In fact it will just frustrate and annoy a business community that already has enough hurdles and bureaucratic red tape to deal with in an economic climate that is not taking any prisoners.

However, the programme did stop and make me think about our sector and whether we have an issue with pay gender discrimination in the food industry. It appeared from the people taking part and from various reports that I have found on the internet that the sectors that came in for particular attack appeared to be the public sector, the financial community, the media, medicine and IT. Now there will be examples of bad practice in every industry across the country and I am sure the food sector also houses some people with an outdated attitude towards women, but in my experience, all my clients are looking for just two things: talent and ability. And it's relevant skills and experience that are the main factors in determining remuneration packages not gender.

We get a job brief and a salary range for that job. I have never, in nearly 10 years of recruiting, been asked to recruit based on one salary level for male candidates and another for female candidates. High-performing companies need high-performing teams and that means recruiting and retaining the most talented people they can. It's all about the bottom line gender isn't an issue. That's what drives our marketplace and that's all the regulation we need.


Guy Moreton is director of recruitment practitioner MorePeople.

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