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UK: Most influential women in the UK world of discounting

Discount Retail Chain Aldi UK finally broke the long-held dominance of the ‘big four’ supermarkets. Much as Aldi might argue its “discounter DNA” means it will never “join that club”, the figures show it overtook Morrisons in terms of market share.


But while they now rival the traditional big four on financials, are they doing the same on gender equality? Not when it comes to representation of women in top paid roles, according to gender pay gap reports covering 2021/22, the latest year on which all supermarkets have reported. At the big four, women make up an average 40.8% of employees in the top pay quartile. By comparison, at Aldi women make up just 33% of the top pay quartile and at Lidl GB it’s 34.2%.


What’s more, the average (mean) difference in hourly pay for men and women across the business is 10.5% at Lidl and 9.8% at Aldi. That’s a cut above the average 9% across the big four (8.8% at Tesco, 8.3% at Sainsbury’s, 8% at Asda and 10.8% at Morrisons).

While the lower number of women in top jobs at discounters may seem marginal, Denise Wilson, CEO of FTSE Women Leaders, argues it is “significant”.


“The average progress in the FTSE350 is around 2.5% to 3% [a year],” she explains. “So a 6% difference is three years behind.”


Wilson believes the discrepancy is largely down to supermarkets facing a greater level of scrutiny as publicly listed companies. Since 2010, the FTSE Women Leaders review has reported annually on the percentage of women in leadership at all FTSE 350 listed companies, while setting targets for progress.


“When I rank companies in the FTSE 100 at number 98, 99, 100, the next year they’ve done something about it, because they don’t want that. But those companies that aren’t caught by this, nobody is looking at that. There’s no lens on it.”


Tesco and Sainsbury’s are clearly under this microscope. As was Morrisons until it was bought by a private consortium in 2021. Of the big four, only Asda has so far escaped the scrutiny of the annual review. And like the discounters, Asda is behind on women in top paid roles. They occupy 38.2% of Asda’s top jobs, a figure that was flat year on year in the supermarket’s latest report out this week.


While the discounters do report on their gender pay gap to the government, so do 12,000 other companies, meaning the scrutiny they receive is hardly invasive.


But it’s important to put their figures into perspective. In the context of the wider economy, none of the retailers’ numbers look too bad, says Anna Falth, UN women’s head of Women’s Empowerment Principles, of which both Lidl and Aldi are signatories. “You have certain sectors where there are very few women, less than 30%, in management and on the board,” she says.


And that’s just looking at it from a UK perspective. One explanation for Lidl and Aldi performing worse on gender diversity than the major supermarkets could be their German ownership, suggests Tea Colaianni, founder of Diversity in Retail.


Colaianni sees gender equality as an area in which British businesses are relatively advanced. Wilson also believes the UK is“a step or two, if not more, ahead of most other countries on this topic”, while she reports “Germany has really struggled with their management culture.”


Perhaps unsurprisingly, Lidl rejects this point about its ownership, pointing to its London head office for its GB business and a high proportion of British suppliers.

“Our mean gender pay gap is well below the UK average, and we are proud to have closed our median pay gap completely,” says a spokeswoman. “Whilst we have made positive strides over the years through the introduction of varying initiatives … we recognise there is still more to do.”


Meanwhile, Aldi says it has a number of initiatives to improve inclusivity of women, such as a female mentoring programme, menopause support and extended maternity leave. It argues comparisons with competitors don’t take into account its slimmer management structure, meaning it has fewer senior roles.


However John Amaechi, a diversity, equity and inclusion advisor who has worked with a number of major supermarkets, believes there are some simple steps all businesses can take to tackle the perpetuation of male leadership, regardless of size.


For example, “people like to have optional criteria” in job specifications, he says. But they are a “great way” for an interviewing panel, most likely predominantly male, to unconsciously ensure “that any non-traditional candidate doesn’t make it through”.

“Men have a propensity to put in ‘yes’ to optional criteria that they don’t have,” says Amaechi. “If a criteria is important, make it mandatory. If it’s not important or it can be learned quickly, remove it, and the number of people who make it through to the next process will be proportionately more diverse.”


Another is to relax requirements for experience, which serve to perpetuate the status quo. “When you look at the data, the number of years’ experience has incredibly low validity in predicting performance,” he says.


“It’s not about whether you hit the ground running, it’s about whether you’re fast enough in two years’ time. So, get rid of that, and suddenly the number of candidates who can get through to interview is much more proportionate, because we know women won’t have that experience necessarily.”


As for Lidl and Aldi, Colaianni says it is more important to look at their progress than numbers in isolation. “What I’m more interested in is the trends over time,” she says. “Are they improving, or have they plateaued?”


Indeed, both companies are making progress. In 2017-18, women made up 30% of the top pay quartile at Aldi and 30.3% at Lidl.


For some though, it’s a rate of change that needs some acceleration.

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