UK Gender Pay Gap Report WeWork 2018

Our mission to create an equal community

“We know that people want to find meaning and purpose in what they do, and that means having opportunities to build and progress through a lasting, rewarding career. WeWork is committed to being one of the best places for women to do this. We must ensure that women and men have the same access to senior roles and the pay that accompanies them. We know there is more work to do to close the gender pay gap and we will work to change the ratio.”—Mathieu Proust, UK and Ireland General Manager

This report sets out our gender pay data as of 5th April 2018 and outlines the steps we have taken to date to address it.

The gender pay gap 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, location or performance ratings. The gender pay gap is different from equal pay, which refers to paying men and women equally for equivalent work, and is a legal requirement in the UK.

Our median gender pay gap on 5th April 2018, when WeWork International Ltd. had 375 eligible employees, was 16.6%. Our mean gender pay gap was 23.4%.

This reflects the composition of our UK workforce, which has seen comparatively more men in senior roles. As the business scales quickly in the UK, our workforce is changing and growing rapidly year on year; today the company employs 848 people in the UK.

We are actively working to address this issue from multiple angles:

• We are strengthening our recruiting process to help bring in talented female leaders at all levels.
• We have implemented a new pay structure to improve transparency and equality.
• We have launched innovative programmes to support our employees’ professional growth and development throughout their tenure with the company, including programmes designed specifically to support the women in our business.
• We continue to support our female members—the majority of whom in London are founders, sole proprietors, or in management—through community-driven partnerships, services, and programming to help them build and progress their businesses and careers.

“Empowering women to succeed in the workplace is a core part of our mission at WeWork, and that starts with our own employees. We are committed to being a community where everyone is equal, and I’m looking forward to seeing us implement further programmes and initiatives to support women in our company.” —Eleni Zneimer, Vice President, Community and Member Experience

The information set out below relates to WeWork International Ltd and is based on a snapshot of employee data taken on 5th April 2018.

Our gender pay data

Our median gender pay gap was 16.6%. This is the difference in the midpoints in men’s and women’s hourly pay in April 2018 expressed as a percentage of the midpoint of men’s hourly pay.

Our mean gender pay gap was 23.4%. This is the difference in the average hourly rate of men’s and women’s pay in April 2018 expressed as a percentage of the average hourly pay of men.

The pay quartiles show the proportion of men and women in four equally sized pay bands:

In terms of bonus pay, 47.4% of men and 48.6% of women received a bonus (cash & vesting equity) in the 12 months preceding 5th April 2018.

The bonus gap is the percentage difference in total bonus payments (cash & vesting equity) received by men and women in the 12 months preceding April 2018.

• The mean bonus gap was 46.6%.
• The median bonus gap was 52.8%.

What drives the data?

The gender pay gap and the bonus gap were driven by a greater number of men in more senior roles in the UK. At the time of the snapshot, about 40% of women were in senior positions in the UK.

As of April 2018, we had a greater proportion of men than women in our sales, development (construction), and real estate teams. Candidates for these teams have often come from industries with a traditionally higher proportion of men in senior roles, such as technology, real estate, and development. Given that development and real estate hiring responded to prevailing 2017-18 market rates, pay rates are typically higher than in other roles at the company.

We are striving to address these compositional effects to reduce our gender pay gap. On one hand, this means increasing the ratio of senior women both through internal progression and external hiring. It also means ensuring that team members who wish to progress to more senior roles have the opportunity and tools to do so.

Actions taken to close the gap

We have taken the following actions since 5th April 2018, and plan to further develop and strengthen our strategies as we grow.

Talent acquisition

We are ensuring that our talent acquisition processes support the introduction of women into the business at every stage. We use Textio, a tech solution which supports the drafting of gender-neutral job descriptions, to ensure that we are not discouraging women at the application stage. We’ve introduced interview training to all interviewers, which covers diversity and tackling unconscious biases.

Salary banding

Since this snapshot was taken, we have introduced pay banding across WeWork to provide greater transparency over pay and give managers a more robust framework with which to make pay award decisions.

Landit

WeWork uses technology platform Landit to empower its female employees to realise their personal and career objectives, and to increase the success and engagement of women in the workplace.

All women who have been with WeWork for a year or more in London have had the opportunity to access Landit, and 121 women participated in the first pilot this year. The results are currently being processed by our learning team, ahead of a wider roll-out. In addition, in February 2019 WeWork led a $13m series A funding round to allow Landit to scale its capability globally.

Case study: Landit

Landit is a tool to help female employees in their personal and professional development by providing members with a personalised playbook, recommendations of high quality resources to improve their skills, career coaches for guidance, and experts to help review and polish CVs and profiles. Participants in the WeWork Landit programme get access to:

• Complimentary coaching sessions with an executive coach
• Curated skill development
• Tips for building your personal brand (e.g. creating and elevating your personal story)
• Accomplishment tracker
• Developing a personal board of advisors
• Customised tips, advice, and inspiration

Career progression for our Community Team employees

Our Community Team is the core group of individuals who run our physical locations day-to-day; they are responsible for the spaces where our members come to work, as well as fostering relationships and a sense of community within those spaces.

Own It is a Community development programme that supports high-performing Community Leads and provides additional training and development on the path to becoming a manager.

In the first round of the programme, 80% of participants were women. We recently launched the second round of the programme, of which 57% of participants are female. We’re committed to continuing this programme and want to provide additional learning experiences to help our team members grow.

Female affiliate group

In 2019, we officially launched our female affiliate group’s London chapter to provide support, networking, and feedback opportunities to female employees based in London, as well as employees who would like to learn how to better support women in the workplace. We plan to extend this to our employees in Manchester.

The group has an executive sponsor, our General Counsel Sarah Nelson-Smith, and an internal network to share ideas and celebrate the work of female employees and members. The group will host regular networking opportunities, personal and professional development opportunities, and offer our female employees at every level a direct dialogue with leadership about how we can continue to improve our employee experience for them.

Supporting women in the wider We Company community

WeWork employs hundreds of people in the UK, but is the workplace for thousands more. Our responsibility to support the progression of women in the workplace extends to our members as well as our staff.

Helping to train the talent of the future

When the company launched the Flatiron School’s first international campus in London in 2018, we announced a commitment to supporting women and other underrepresented groups with £1 million in funding, partnering with organisations including AllBright and Women Who Code. Since 2012, Flatiron School has provided over $11 million in scholarships to help make tech education more accessible for those underrepresented in tech, including women, people of color, LGBTQ+ and low-income students.

From August to November 2018, Flatiron School and Citi joined forces to empower women to take their first step in tech through Flatiron School’s Women Take Tech initiative. Through this global effort, we inspired more than 1,100 women to take the first step to tech by applying to our programmes.

Earlier this year, Flatiron School partnered with SeatGeek to offer women around the world $200,000 in scholarships to attend Flatiron School’s industry leading software engineering, UX/UI design, and data science courses. Offered through Flatiron School’s Women Take Tech initiative, the partnership aimed to highlight the innovative women who have made tech history, while inspiring women today.

In addition to these external scholarships, we also offer discounts to We Company employees who take the courses, as well as further scholarships for our Community team.

Supporting female founders

Fifty-four percent of WeWork London’s female members are founders, sole proprietors, or in management. WeWork and Capital Enterprise recently announced a partnership to support female-founded and female-led startups by providing them with the space, educational resources and global community they need to grow their businesses.

Case study: partnering with Capital Enterprise to support female founders

WeWork has welcomed Capital Enterprise’s One Tech programme to its spaces across London to support the organisation’s aim to double the number of women accessing investment by 2020.

WeWork is providing one hundred entrepreneurs from the programme with a WeWork membership. The female founders will be given three-month hot desk memberships, which include access to WeWork’s space, custom programming, access to mentors and local investors, as well as the ability to tap into WeWork’s community of over 40,000 members in London.

The partnership launched on Monday 4th March 2019, ahead of International Women’s Day and to celebrate, WeWork and Capital Enterprise have been hosting events – free for both members and non-members to attend – to introduce female founders to potential investors.

OneTech is powered by Capital Enterprise with support from Founding Sponsor JPMorgan Chase and the Mayor of London’s Digital Talent Programme.

Statutory declaration

The information and data provided in this report is accurate and in line with the requirements of the Gender Pay Gap reporting regulations.

Sharon Bachar
Head of People, WeWork Europe

Published 3rd April 2019