Employers: Have you conducted a pay equity audit within the last 12 months?
If you did, I am assuming you found one or more of the following:
1. Wage discrimination
2. Below-market salary ranges
3. Inconsistent base salary ranges (and/or incentive targets) assigned to jobs
4. Promotion disparities
5. Pay compression
6. Lack of performance reviews
7. Poor-quality performance reviews
8. Performance review bias
9. Gender pay gaps
10. Age related pay gaps
11. Race and/or ethnicity pay gaps
12. Inconsistent new hire pay rates offered (inconsistency in applying compensable factors)
13. Disparities in the assessment of potential
14. Inconsistent opportunity provided to work overtime
15. Inconsistent payout of severance for similarly situated employees
It is important to look at the full employee life cycle from new hire to termination for inequities.
There are many touchpoints during an employee’s tenure.
· Where is discretion used in the decision-making processes?
· Are standard process steps being followed consistently?
· Are judgement and bias able to sneak in and alter the final decision that is implemented?
· Can you defend your decision if you were asked about it in 6 months? 12 months? 3 years?
· Would this rationale stand up to scrutiny by your board, senior executive team, a judge, a jury, attorneys, stockholders, and others?
If you find problems that need to be fixed, do you and your senior leadership team have the backbone and budget to fix what is broken?
If you are trying to get a pay equity audit funded so you can engage a consultant to help you, their advice should include how to solve the issues listed above. That way what is found can be fixed.
Don’t start a pay equity audit without confirming that the end goal is to fix problems that are found. And always do this work under attorney client privilege.
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