ECI portfolio company, CIPHR, has become accredited as a Living Wage employer by the Living Wage Foundation.
The Marlow-based tech group, which has over 200 staff working across its three brands – CIPHR, Digits Industries and Payroll Business Solutions (PBS), has pledged to pay all its employees at least the real living wage rather than the UK’s minimum, or national living wage.
Employees will be guaranteed to earn a minimum of £9.50 per hour, or £10.85 if they are based in London, although CIPHR has been paying most of its staff over these rates for the past few years. The real living wage is set to be increased later this month, to reflect the steep rise in actual living costs over the past year. The new rate will be announced on Monday 15 November, as part of Living Wage Week.
The real living wage is already significantly higher than the minimum rate for workers over 23 years old, which is currently £8.91 per hour and will rise by 6.6% to £9.50 per hour from April 2022.
Claire Williams, director of people and services at CIPHR, commented: “This is an extremely proud moment for CIPHR. Our people are at the heart of what we do, and we are committed to aligning pay to the real living wage to ensure that all our employees are paid a fair wage that reflects the actual cost of living, and not just the legal minimum.
“We also feel it is immensely important to recognise the part we play in supporting social mobility and reducing poverty, and this accreditation is a small contribution to this.”
Katherine Chapman, director at Living Wage Foundation, commented: “We all need a wage that meets our everyday needs, even more so when living costs have been rising so sharply. That’s why I’m delighted to welcome CIPHR as our newest Living Wage Employer, joining the movement of almost 9,000 responsible employers across the UK, who voluntarily commit to go further than the government minimum to make sure all their staff earn enough to live on.
“As we begin to lay the foundations of a better society, it is important that we do not forget the people who have been instrumental to the survival of our businesses and our society: our workers. The Living Wage movement recognises that our workers ought to have a decent wage to support themselves and their families, and that paying this wage is the right thing to do.”
More than 600 organisations use CIPHR’s cloud-based HR, learning, payroll and recruitment software solutions globally across the public, private and non-profit sectors, with customers including Blackpool Pleasure Beach, Brighton College, British Museum, Cambridge Building Society, Cera Care, Claire’s Accessories UK, Content+Cloud, Devon Doctors, HH Associates (HH Global), Information Commissioner’s Office, Met Office, PrepWorld, Sport England, The Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, Thorntons Law LLP, The University Of Buckingham, Vehicle Certification Agency, and Volkswagen Group UK.
