Blackhall Properties limited, trading as Village Vets, provide expert care for pets across over 20 clinics in Ireland with 270+ employees.

When determining reward and pay for our employees, we balance several factors, including the general economic climate, company performance, and the external market for the variety of roles that we offer. Our reward systems are designed to recognise the accomplishments, commitment and performance of our people.

People are at the heart of our organisation. We are committed to listening to the needs and feedback of all our team members, regardless of gender, to ensure our reward systems align with their needs. The Village Vets Leadership team is fully dedicated to improving the working lives of all our employees

Village Vets promotes a series of initiatives to support a diverse and inclusive workforce. Over the past few years, Village Vets has invested significantly in our extensive CPD and training plans. We continue our long-standing partnership with University College Dublin, where we support the next generation of Veterinary Surgeons by facilitating first opinion rotations for undergraduates in our clinics. Reflecting the wider veterinary profession, we also have a workforce which has a high female population and actively support more women in joining this important profession.

Narrative and Trends Observed:
Several trends can be observed from the data between 2023 and 2024:
Gender Representation in Pay Quartiles:
We saw a slight increase in female representation in the top quartile from 2023 to 2024. The lower quartile shows a significant female majority, increasing from 95.4% in 2023 to 98.5% in 2024, due to high female representation in our industry

Gender Pay Gap:
The mean hourly rate gap for women has slightly decreased from 25.0% lower in 2023 to 24.1% lower in 2024.
The median hourly rate gap for women has widened, increasing from 13.9% lower in 2023 to 19.3% lower in 2024.

Bonus Pay:
There is a notable shift in bonus pay, with men’s mean bonus pay being 44.7% lower than women’s in 2024, compared to being 89% higher in 2023.
Women’s median bonus pay remains significantly lower than men’s, with a slight increase in the gap from 93% lower in 2023 to 95.1% lower in 2024.
The percentage of men receiving bonus pay increased slightly from 9.1% in 2023 to 9.7% in 2024, while the percentage of women receiving bonus pay decreased from 6.2% in 2023 to 4.6% in 2024.

Benefit in Kind:
A slightly higher percentage of women than men received a BIK in 2024.

Actions We Have and are Taking:

Review of Recruitment and Promotion Practices
Ensure unbiased recruitment and promotion processes to increase female representation in higher quartiles through interview and bias awareness training and the introduction of more collaborative interview processes.

Promoting Flexibility in the workplace
In attracting more women into the organisation and ensuring we retain them; we promote flexible working practices and strive for better alignment towards all our employees to benefit from such schemes whilst building their career. We continue to explore job share opportunities and, subject to government policy, we will continue to support childcare schemes for our employees.

Community and Education
Village Vets has established strong partnerships with UCD, collaborating on initiatives such as first opinion rotations for undergraduates and supporting various research projects. We are committed to expanding these efforts by encouraging colleges nationwide to support more Vets, Nurses, Animal Care Assistants, and Front-of-House colleagues. Our goal is to inspire young women to consider careers in these fields.

We actively foster a culture of diversity through inclusive recruitment processes, aiming to attract candidates of all genders and backgrounds. By promoting diversity and inclusion, we strive to create a workplace where everyone can thrive. Additionally, we are implementing programs to develop diverse leadership within the organisation, ensuring that our team reflects the varied perspectives and experiences of our community.

General Actions
We are developing and implementing our bespoke employer survey to regularly gather feedback from employees on pay and reward systems. This will involve hosting focus groups to deep-dive further and using this feedback to make informed judgements regarding compensation practices and benefits.