We’re driving change from the ground up
At Dojo, closing our gender pay gap is vital because gender diversity and equity are innate in our culture and success.
Individuality matters to us, and we want to build an inclusive workplace where everyone feels like they belong.
However, as a flourishing scale-up, our rapidly growing workforce has heavily impacted our gender pay gap over the last few years. But we’re determined to tackle this.
After careful reflection, we now understand the steps needed to fix it from the ground up and create permanent change at Dojo.
We see this report as an invaluable tool to hold ourselves accountable and set plans for a more equitable future.
Key takeaways
Between April 2021 and April 2022, our median gender pay gap increased by 7.7%. The main drivers behind this were:
- Dojo scaled significantly by 239 employees (equivalent to a 41% increase in our employee base), of which 64% were men.
- Out of the 239 additional employees, 49% were offered roles within our Tech, Commercial and Data departments. This contributed to the increase of men in our upper pay quartile (+3% to 77%).
- In particular, 75 tech roles comprised over a third of our upper pay quartile, with only 5 of these roles filled by women.
On the other hand, we've seen our median gender bonus gap reduce significantly by 44% since our last report. Although only certain roles are eligible for bonuses, this is a positive step in the right direction.
However, creating lasting change to our gender pay gap is more than just numbers.
It's about identifying and fixing the root causes of gender inequality at Dojo – focussing on all aspects of the employee lifecycle.
We know the drivers of our gender pay gap at Dojo come from a lack of women leaders. So we're initiating key actions to change this and create a more gender-balanced senior leadership team.
This will allow for a more diverse, equal workplace, which is vital for our culture and ability to achieve our strategic goals.
What is the gender pay gap?
The gender pay gap shows the difference in average hourly earnings between men and women working in our organisation at a point in time (regardless of job role, seniority or location).
The gender pay gap is different from equal pay. The 1970 Equal Pay Act made it illegal to pay people doing the same job different amounts based on gender.
(The gender definitions “men” and “women” we use are based on the current legal definitions. As a business, however, we recognise that not everyone’s gender identity fits into this binary approach).
Our 2022/23 gender pay gap metrics
How do our results compare to previous years?
What have we done since April 2022?
- Appointed a Social Value Manager to set a company DEI Strategy and action plan based on our current data and performance.
- Conducted Senior Leadership Team data sessions kickstarting a culture of shared ownership for essential gender diversity goals.
- Created a ‘Women in Tech’ community to help support women negotiating the challenges of a male-dominated industry and team.
- Restructured our ‘Parents at Dojo’ community(10% of our employees) to be a safe space for working parents and including a key representative to attend DEI champion meetings. We hope to improve how the business can support work/life balance for this demographic.
- Targeted early and mid-career talent training and hiring more women into tech roles via partnerships with Academy (6 hires) and Code First Girls (4 hires).
- Initiated a ‘Women in Leadership Mentorship Programme targeted at women in middle management roles at Dojo (+15 participants per quarter).
- Remodelled our benefits package to ensure it supports working parents at Dojo, with the introduction of Peppy (shared parental leave) and sabbaticals.
What are we doing moving forward into 2023?
We’ve taken time to understand the evidence-based actions for employers, highlighted by the Government Equalities Office, and recognise that we need to change our approach.
We need to take further and more targeted action to close our gap for good. Going into 2023, we will be:
- Introducing ‘Career Pathways’ – a technical skills, leadership and core competency framework which creates a levelled career progression system.
- Conducting a Fair Pay Audit – introducing Career Pathways means we can ensure employees of the same level are paid fairly. This will enable us to see how pay relates to employee level.
- Appointing a Reward Partner – someone dedicated to using salary survey data to drive transparency in pay and reward.
- Introducing a Reward Philosophy – a framework to articulate our reward principles so we can fairly and transparently reward our people.
- Redesigning our hiring and promotion processes – skills-based assessments and structured interviews to ensure fairness across candidates.
- Establishing candidate shortlists – any open role in our upper pay quartile includes multiple women.
- Designing ‘build vs buy’ processes – this identifies staff leadership potential and helps them develop their talent and skills. It means our Talent Team can be more actively aware of possible future positions and how internal personnel can develop to potentially fill these roles.
- Partnering with ‘SheCanCode’ – (a community of 30,000 women in tech) to attract more women to our business via events, newsletters and social media.
- Exhibiting at the ‘Women of Silicon Roundabout Event’(Women in Technology World Series) – as a significant player in the global gender diversity movement, this will help increase the visibility of our company to this community of 4,500+ women in tech roles.
- Furthering our ‘Women in Leadership Mentoring Programme’ – to continue a culture of mentoring and sponsorship for women in middle management.
- Introducing conscious inclusion workshops – to strengthen a culture where curiosity about differences is encouraged and where inclusion is the mutual responsibility of all employees.
- Developing our employee benefits package – with an emphasis on improving the workplace experience for women.
We recognise that our gender pay gap at Dojo isn’t where it should be. This won’t change overnight or even by the next time we publish our metrics.
But we’re committed to closing it by building an organisation which promotes equity from its core.
However long it takes, we want to close the gender pay gap at Dojo for good.
