UK Gender Pay Gap Report – WeWork 2020/21

Overview

This report sets out our gender pay data as of 5 April 2020 and the measures we have implemented and actions we will continue to take to address and narrow the gap. In line with reporting requirements, this report provides our results for both WeWork UK employing entities – WeWork International Limited, which employs our UK HQ teams, and WeWork Community Workspace UK Limited, which employs our UK Community team dedicated to operations and member experience within our buildings.

Measuring the pay gap

The UK defines the gender pay gap as the difference between men’s and women’s average pay across an organisation, expressed as a percentage. It is determined by comparing the average pay for all men with the average pay for all women in an organisation, without accounting for different roles, tenure, experience, location or performance ratings. A positive percentage indicates the extent to which women earn, on average, less per hour than their male counterparts and a negative percentage indicates the extent to which women earn, on average, more per hour than their male counterparts. The closer the percentage is to zero, the smaller the pay or bonus gap.

The gender pay gap is distinct from equal pay, which refers to paying men and women equally for doing the same or equivalent work. WeWork takes the concept of equal pay for equal work very seriously.

Mean and median gender pay gap

The mean pay gap is the difference in the average hourly rate of men’s and women’s pay in April 2020 expressed as a percentage against the average hourly pay of men. The median pay gap is the difference in the midpoints in men’s and women’s hourly pay in April 2020 expressed as a percentage of the midpoint of men’s hourly pay.

Mean and median gender bonus gap

The mean bonus gap is the percentage difference in total bonus payments received by men and women in the 12 months preceding April 2020. The median bonus gap is the percentage difference between the midpoint total bonus payments received by men and women in the 12 months preceding April 2020. Bonus payments include all cash bonuses as well as non-cash bonuses, for example in the form of shares and stock options.

Proportion of men and women receiving bonuses

This refers to the percentage of male and female employees who received a bonus payment in the 12-month period prior to and including 5 April 2020.

Proportion of men and women in each quartile of the organisation’s pay structure

The pay quartiles show the proportion of men and women in four equally sized pay bands, determined by their pay.

Our results

Understanding our gender pay gap

WeWork International Limited

Our mean gender pay gap of 30.2% and our mean bonus pay gap of 69.7% were heavily impacted by a greater number of men in more senior, higher paying roles than women. We also continue to have a greater population of women in the two lowest quartiles.

Our bonus gap was primarily driven by three factors. Firstly, the bonus programme during the reporting period was only applicable to employees in specific functions and there were a large number of employees who did not qualify for a bonus – this has since been addressed with the introduction of a company wide bonus scheme, as outlined below. Secondly, of the qualifying employees, we have more men in the senior positions that receive higher bonus payments and larger stock option grants. Finally, our data also reflects large, non-recurring equity payouts made to three male executives who chose to sell their stock options as part of our tender offer to all employees in Q1 2019. These large stock option grants were granted to these three male executives prior to the implementation of our new compensation strategy (see below), significantly affecting our mean bonus figure. Whilst these executives are based in our London HQ, the global scope of their roles influenced their stock option grants and remuneration.

The majority of our UK HQ employees work in sales, real estate, and development, all sectors that continue to see a higher proportion of men in the most senior roles. Across the UK, the real estate sector has one of the highest mean pay gaps and we are committed to playing our part in addressing this legacy of imbalance in our industry through the actions outlined below.

WeWork Community Workspace Limited

Our mean gender pay gap of -2.31% and our mean bonus gap of -8.1% were driven by a greater number of women in more senior, higher paying roles than men.

Our mean gender pay gap sits slightly above the UK average for the hospitality sector.

Our bonus gap is representative of having a higher representation of females in our upper quartile. In addition, whilst all employees were eligible for our Community bonus scheme, not all employees would have been paid a bonus during the reporting period due to the bonus payment schedule for all new employees who joined the business in Q1 2020.

Our actions

We are fully committed to providing equal pay for equal work, and providing an exceptional employee experience with a focus on ensuring that all our employees can build rewarding careers in an inclusive and diverse place to work. We continue to take steps to close our gender pay gap by removing barriers and creating an environment that encourages and enables female employees to succeed, whatever their career ambitions.

Talent attraction & acquisition

We strive to be an example of the future we wish to create—one where people support each other and embrace differences as a competitive advantage. Closing our gender pay gap starts with ensuring broader representation across our business through our recruitment processes. We have invested in a new recruiting system that supports a fair hiring and selection process. We have also designed a Hiring at WeWork programme to support our hiring managers to drive a fair, diverse and transparent recruiting process and to ensure we appropriately evaluate candidates. Currently used by our Talent Acquisition team, it will be rolled out to all our hiring managers by the end of 2021. Our Talent Acquisition team also all now have sourcing incorporated into their role with the aim of proactively targeting candidates from various diverse sources to complement our pool of direct applicants.

Compensation strategy & promotions

To improve our gender pay gap, we also need a compensation and promotion strategy designed to retain and reward the extraordinary talent within our business at every level and enable more women to progress through the company. For FY2020, we introduced a new global compensation strategy that rewards our people for their contributions in both the near and long-term and ensures parity across all employee groups. The strategy includes an annual cash bonus for all employees which has defined shared targets according to internal level. We awarded our first annual cash bonus in February 2021 with a consistent payout percentage across all levels. We have also introduced a new comprehensive analysis process for promotions. Our Compensation team is also constantly examining market data and benchmarked salary bands to ensure we offer new hires and internal employees fair and competitive compensation.

Flexibility

As a global leader in flex space, flexibility is at the core of everything we do and our business model enables our employees to get the most out of their work day. Our HQ and network of strategically located buildings offer spaces designed with collaboration and productivity in mind. We believe that continuing to offer more flexibility and improve the balance between the demands of work and home life will enable greater representation across the board, so we have introduced a new flexible working approach post pandemic which has a balance between office and home working. As outlined in a report by the Institute for Fiscal Studies in 2019, some of the gap can be a result of many new mothers choosing to return part time and work closer to home, which can reduce their job opportunities and restrict their access to high paying roles. We believe our new approach will enable our employees’ greater flexibility in not only work location but also their working hours, which we hope will in turn remove such barriers.

Parental leave policies

We fully support employees in taking time away from work to focus on their new family and we have increased our Maternity and Paternity leave policies in the UK to 16 and 4 weeks full pay respectively in 2019. We have also made significant improvements to our new parent’s return to work plans with info packs, manager packs, tracked risk assessments and aligned communication at different stages so our employees are supported on their new parent journey whilst continuing to progress their career.

Learning & development

Our Office of Inclusion, a newly established global team, with Regional Chapter Leads and ambassadors, is central to our goal of making WeWork a company where people of all backgrounds can thrive. They have partnered with our Learning team at the end of 2020 to deliver a range of training aimed at promoting and driving inclusion. This included an unconscious bias e-learning alongside Lean In and Allyship Circles. We will build on this in 2021 with Inclusive Leadership Training to help People Managers foster inclusion at every level of the organisation and equip employees with the knowledge and skills required to build and sustain inclusive and diverse teams.

Employee Community Groups

These employee-led groups serve as a resource for team members by fostering a diverse, inclusive workplace and representation includes Women of We, Parents at We, We of Colour Veterans at We, and Pride of We. Their purpose is to bring employees together to build an internal network to raise awareness of potential barriers and to support and empower individuals within these demographics to be heard and to drive impactful positive changes. Each group has a sponsor from the executive leadership team and at least one in three of our employees is a member, either as a representative or a supporter, of one of these groups.