A Statement from Andrew Midgley, Managing Director, TXM Recruit
Industry context
TXM Recruit was founded in 2005, servicing the rail and engineering sectors. Historically, these sectors have been male-dominated. Even as recently as 2023, only:
- 16% of the Rail workforce was female (NSAR Rail Workforce Survey 2023)
- 7% of the Engineering workforce was female (Engineering UK Report 2023)
These figures have remained low despite extensive, industry-wide efforts to bring more women into these sectors.
Our own journey
We ran our first internal gender pay gap exercise in 2019. This was not yet a regulatory requirement for us, but we chose to do so. Our goal was to build a better understanding of our positioning and track our progress towards greater equality. At the time, the Company’s mean gender pay gap (hourly rate) was 40% and our median gender pay gap (hourly rate) was 19%.
6 years ago, a large proportion of TXM consultants had backgrounds in our specialised sectors, with many having previously held a career in these industries before transitioning into a job in recruitment. Recruiting from a predominantly male sector resulted in the growth of a predominantly male – yet highly experienced, high-performing and knowledgeable – workforce, who commanded high salaries.
Evidence of change
Over recent years, TXMR has taken a number of steps:
- We place extra focus on recruiting more female employees, particularly at more senior levels, to correct the underrepresentation at TXM Recruit.
- Our junior female employees receive professional coaching and development to support their progression within the Company, resulting in multiple promotions to senior positions, across different workstreams.
- We have enhanced our parental leave policies, to support our working mothers during and on return from maternity leave.
- We have updated our hybrid-working policies, to support our working mothers who may be juggling motherhood and full-time employment.
- We reviewed our policies, practices and environment, to ensure our inclusive culture is upheld, highlighted and showcased, which recently included a complete rebranding, moving away from the masculine colours and language, that once represented TXMR.
Compared to 2019, our current average pay difference position is an improvement of 37%, whilst our median pay difference has also improved by 19%.
We strongly believe that this is direct result of the actions taken over the past 6 years. We are proud of the achievement, though we also recognise that the journey to equality is long and we must continue our commitment and efforts to ensure that the next generation of women joining our organisation benefits.
Performance-based payments
Reducing the gap in basic salaries is easier to control compared to the payment of bonuses, which are awarded by way of performance-based commission. We have identified that our experienced male employees in Sales roles received higher commission payments at the snapshot date, due to both the volume of placements made, and the seniority of placements made. Similarly, while we have increased the number of female employees in senior positions, these are not sales roles, so the ability to earn a bonus is reduced or non-existent.
Moving forward, TXM Recruit will implement the below actions to further reduce the existing gaps:
- Continue to recruit more female employees, particularly in sales and at more senior levels.
- To enhance development plans for female sales employees, to ensure they are provided with the training/tools to progress in these billing roles, to directly address the bonus gaps.
- To continue to review our policies, to establish further ways to support our working mothers, so that they are able to maintain/progress their career while juggling motherhood.
- To further partner with industry experts, to ensure our culture and practices are continuously reviewed/audited and receive guidance on what more could be done.
- To set ourselves the objective to further improve the gender pay gap figures we have reported on this year.