According to the Equal Pay Act, women and men in one workplace must receive equal pay for equal work. All organizations should observe this rule because, besides attracting legal repercussions, it staves off far-reaching implications like reduced morale and poor productivity.
That brings us to a crucial topic: bridging the gender pay gap. Do you know how to address this issue? If not, don’t worry. Read on for invaluable tips and hacks.
An Overview
This gap refers to the difference between women’s and men’s average wages in the same workforce. Professionals use this element to measure and compare women’s economic positions to men’s.
Numerous culprits can widen this gap, including discrimination and bias (conscious and unconscious) in decisions like recruitment and pay. Others include education levels, occupational choices, and the employment sector involved.
Tips For Bridging The Gap
The following practices will help your organization alleviate the problem of gender pay gap:
1. Embrace Transparency In Pay
Many employers have embraced pay transparency today after realizing that it’s one of the surefire ways to build employee trust, foster engagement, and improve productivity. If your organization is yet to adopt this practice, it should do so sooner.
But to fully embrace transparency in pay, there are several things you must do. First, use solutions like audits to identify pay discrepancies, one of the issues that often lead to high turnover rates. Data and unambiguous salary bands can also help you set salary ranges and eliminate unfairly set wages.
Also, for pay transparency to be a pillar, your organization must have superbly-aligned pay philosophies and structures. That means you need a clearly defined base pay, commitment to equity, and, above all, to rely on a clear salary structure that covers the entire organization.
2. Support Paternity Leave
According to a recent report, the ‘motherhood penalty’ contributes to 80% of the disparity between the average salaries earned by men and women. That is so because sometimes, individuals of the fairer sex get relieved of their duties after becoming pregnant. Moreover, some companies allow them to take some time but at lower wages.
Paternity leaves can narrow the gap because they allow men to spend more time with their young ones. Most importantly, when men take some time off work and play a part in raising kids, they give women the opportunity to rejoin the workforce and earn wages.
Incentivize paternity leaves to encourage more men to help their counterparts in raising babies. For instance, offer flexible hours that allow them to spend as much time away as possible and only report to the office when there’s a compelling reason.
3. Use Pay Equity Audits And Calculators
Equity audits and calculators can effectively bridge the gender pay gap.
A pay equity audit is simply a solution that allows you to compare the wages for different employees ‘like work.’ Of course, the comparison factors essential differentials like job performance and work experience. This audit also investigates the sources of unjustifiable pay differences.
On the other hand, a pay equity calculator like Mercer is a tool that lets you gauge the pay equity in your organization. You can use it to drill into pay gaps by gender and many other aspects, including race and ethnicity.
4. Encourage Remote Working
Remote work is indispensable because it allows women and mothers to continue investing in a full-time career trajectory even when their role limits movement. Remember, sometimes people of the fairer sex sacrifice their careers when balancing home and work life becomes impossible. But with remote work, that shouldn’t be an issue.
Today, remote work isn’t as herculean as it was pre-pandemic. You can now overcome countless challenges using technology. But before fully embracing remote work, research and identify the best tools. Also, explain the benefits of this approach to your team and help them create a culture of trust.
Don’t shun remote work because, besides helping you bridge the pay gap, it gives you access to a diverse talent pool, reduces turnover rates, and boosts employee productivity.
