Estimated reading time: 4 minutes
When I entered the workforce, decades ago people didn’t talk about their pay. We simply didn’t realize there was a gender pay gap.
In fact, it was one of those unwritten rules that you knew you should not ask other people how much they were making – and compare it to yourself.
I guess it was naivety or simplicity – but this practice was accepted.
The fight to eliminate the gender pay gap was far from started so those of us women who had a job (at least most of us) were grateful and chose not to make waves.
The Pay Equity Act of 1963 was already on the books and had become law. This Act made it illegal to pay different wages, for similar work, simply based on gender.
But we all know it takes time for laws to be taken seriously and enforced. We knew first hand that it didn’t matter if it was law if no one enforced it.
Since that time the movement for equal pay has gained strength and workers started demanding to receive fair compensation.
In 2009 President Obama signed into law the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act which contains an explicit retroactive provision opening the floodgate of litigation surrounding discriminatory pay practices.
No wonder employers didn’t want employees to know what each other makes – unless their practices were indeed discriminatory.
The simple answer is if you are transparent with your pay practices, you will gain employee trust and employees will know exactly how and why pay is distributed.
5 Tips To Eliminate the Gender Pay Gap
1. Talk About It
As I mentioned, decades ago, you simply did not talk about pay.
Take the time to create a pay policy, pay ranges, and pay grades.
Share this information with employees so they can see exactly what jobs pay how much and the prioritization of those job classes.
For instance, if you have pay grades starting at a 5 that go up to 27, you can show employees the financial ladder within your organization.
This provides a visual so employees can see exactly how the pay ranges increase.
2. Audit Employee Salaries
Internal auditing practices can uncover lots of issues within an organization and pay practices are a great example of just that.
Perform a pay equity audit. This can be a very scientific process. However, If you don’t have the resources for that, simply look at your male and female population.
Create a spreadsheet and list males and females separately, the pay grade that each employee is in, and what they are paid within their scale and tenure.
Obviously, job performance plays into this but this will at least give you a starting point to evaluate how well your organization is showing equity in pay and avoiding a gender pay gap.
3. Make Adjustments Public
If you find discrepancies in pay, correct them. If you need to make pay retroactive to a start date, do it.
Then communicate to all employees what you are doing and why.
Apologize for allowing some employees to fall below their peers for pay and the organization’s commitment to fair compensation practices.
4. Give Employees Access to Pay Information
Create a binder, a folder in a shared drive, or a tab on the organization’s intranet.
Share the information, allow employees to review the information, and commit to keeping pay information updated.
5. Conduct Regular Salary Research
The worth of jobs changes with time so be sure to do salary research at least every couple of years. There are lots of online tools to help with this.
Engage the employees in the process and allow them to help with salary research.
For instance, if a segment of your employee population belongs to a professional organization, see if there is published pay information that is shared.
This will communicate that you are interested in ensuring their pay is competitive with comps in their profession.
While we have come a long way in gender pay equity, we need to continue to commit our organizations to be transparent with employees and base pay decisions on performance rather than gender.
How well does your organization manage pay equity and avoid the gender pay gap?