Pay Equity Requires More than Money
Today is Equal Pay Day, the date that symbolizes how far into the next year all women must work to reach the same amount men earned in the year before. Women of color won’t catch up with what men earned in 2024 until summer — Black Women’s Equal Pay Day is July 9th; Latina Equal Pay Day is October 3rd and Native American Women’s Equal Pay Day is November 21st. Some states are aiming to make the playing field for men and women more equal by prohibiting employers from asking applicants about current salaries, which forces companies to set salaries based on the job, not on disparities carried over from previous work. That should improve the chances that men and women start a job at the same salary. But it’s not just at hiring that inequality occurs. Studies show that performance reviews, promotion and salary increase decisions, even choosing which tasks to assign can lead one employee’s career to rise, while another person’s, performing the same job, stagnates.
As recruiters and managers, we are not so good at identifying our biases and counteracting them. Without processes that force us to base judgments on objective criteria, we’ll fall back into comfortable patterns — stereotyping, recency, confirmation, affinity, or other biases. Without a structured process, we tend to prioritize the wrong attributes. Women are evaluated on social skills, which tend to be less valued, while men are assessed on business-related factors. White managers don’t provide employees from underrepresented groups the constructive criticism or feedback they need to improve and align their performance with company priorities. On the flip side, taller men are viewed more favorably by both genders.
Without an objective decision-making process in place, you’ll likely find a pattern of promotions and salary disparities at your workplace that cannot be explained by objective factors. Here are three ways to mitigate bias and increase equity in compensation processes:
Ensure that applicants and employees are assessed on objective criteria.
Look at their performance of the competencies needed for the job — not their individual characteristics. How do all the marketing associates rate on communication and collaboration skills? How do your sales managers rate not just on regional numbers but on their customer focus, ability to develop talent and build teams? Look at outcomes from the last month and from six months ago to determine their mastery of the competency, whether that mastery has been sustained or improved and to combat recency bias.
Use a rubric for interviews, reviews and promotion decisions to ensure everyone is evaluated on the same basis.
If you are going to assess social attributes, do it for both genders. Don’t underplay lack of social skills for men and highlight it for women. Research shows that determining criteria before starting an assessment — and sticking to that criteria — minimizes stereotyping and other gender discrimination.
Document your assessments.
When you are required to record your thought processes for others to review, shortcuts can become evident: “I just liked him, I guess. We had the same sense of humor.” “He asked about a promotion. She didn’t. I didn’t even consider offering one to anyone else.” As you prepare your documentation ask yourself questions to clarify — if you liked an applicant’s answer to the question “Where do you see yourself in three years?” ask yourself what you liked about it. Why was it a better answer than the other applicants gave? If you discover that you liked it because it was the answer you’d have given (affinity bias), you may want to reconsider the other answers.
Give objectivity a try. It will move you toward equity and you may learn something about yourself in the process.
