Dismantling The Barriers to Pay Equity
March 15th is Women's Equal Pay Day. This is an important day for everyone in the world to take note of.
Why???
Because, this date represents the date that all women collectively must work in order to make the same income as men made in the previous year.
Notice we said “collectively.” This date does not account for intersectionality such as race, class, or (dis)ability, which shows further inequity. For instance, Black Women’s Equal Pay Day is September 21, 2022 (58 cents to a White man’s dollar) while Latina Equal Pay Day is December 8 (49 cents to a White man’s dollar).
Gender bias in the workplace is very real, and has tangible impacts on the lives (and wallets) of non cis gendered male talent. Often, a woman’s ability to be hired and/or promoted is subject to sexist assumptions by the organizations they wish to be, or are currently, employed by.
The lack of salary transparency in the workforce is also a barrier to equity. Organizations that discourage employees from openly sharing salary data contribute to salary inequity. Organizations that don’t post salary ranges and don’t ensure those bands are applied equitably for everyone contribute another barrier to equity. Organizations that don’t provide training and interventions to disrupt implicit bias during critical hiring, promotion and merit discussions further perpetuate salary inequity.
Ready to close the gap, break the bias and dismantle the barriers to pay equity? Here are just a few steps women and the organizations that employ them can take:
Things Women Can Do for Themselves Every Day and on Women’s Equal Pay Day:
Speak Up: Talk to each other openly and honestly about total compensation because transparency is critical. Employers are the biggest beneficiaries of the culture of secrecy around salary data. Ask for what you deserve and want (then add tax), and after talking to mentors and other people at your company, you can negotiate.
Lean Into the Art of Negotiation: Study negotiation strategies and tactics. Leverage tools like salary.com, glassdoor.com, payscale.com and LinkedIn.com to research the general compensation range for your role (or similar roles). Prep for the negotiation conversation by understanding your audience, anticipating their responses and preparing your rebuttal. Also, know when to walk away. What is your BATNA (best alternative to a negotiated agreement)? This is your floor. This is a MUST because if you don't have one, it's hard to negotiate from a position of power.
Brag about Yourself and Your Accomplishments: Women are often taught to not take up space, that bragging is inherently a character flaw, and that there isn’t room for all in the winner’s circle. Combat this narrative and instead be very intentional about the brand you want to build for yourself and then shamelessly promote it. Reframe the thought from bragging to branding, with you as the Chief Branding Officer. If you don’t position yourself and promote yourself, who will?
Things Organizations Can Do Every Day and on Women’s Equal Pay Day:
Offer Transparency on Wages, Benefits, and Role Responsibilities: Far too often, organizations don’t clearly outline the benefits and salary range for a position. Instead, we often see things like “industry standard” or “pay and compensation commensurate with experience”, followed by the required EEOC statement. Organizations truly committed to closing the pay gap and creating a more equitable recruiting process can share up front the salary range for a role, the benefits included and outline the specific responsibilities of the role.
Sometimes, women get more work than they are supposed to get and “wear more hats” than they signed on to when hired. If you wear multiple hats, you should be compensated differently than if you were only wearing one. You are doing more than one job. So, you should be compensated accordingly.
Encourage Pay Transparency and Equitable Promotion: organizations should empower their staff to discuss salary as a DEIA initiative to make sure they are “doing right” by their employees. It is in an organization’s best interest to empower their employees because that increases retention, effectiveness, and overall work enjoyment. Furthermore, promotions should be merit-based, and an organization should be able to answer any questions about them like why a staff member didn’t get one or did get one, outside of things like “we went in a different direction” or “[insert name] cares about this company”. They should be able to answer clearly, concisely, and with facts back up why they did or did not promote someone.
Provide Regular Implicit Bias Trainings: Hiring, promoting, and incentivizing your staff can be difficult, however, it’s made worse when you don’t standardize the questions nor confront potential assumptions you might make based on race, gender, (dis)ability, socio-economic status, religion, and other socially constructed identifiers. Implicit bias training should be integrated into standard training with refreshers for how to disrupt bias required before making staff decisions.
Let’s make Women’s Equal Pay Day a thing of the past and pay women and people of other marginalized genders equitably, fairly, and well today!