In an era where the #MeToo movement, politicians and celebrities are increasingly shining a light on gender inequality in the workplace, the gender pay gap is a more relevant topic than ever. This is especially the case when we recognize Equal Pay Day — the date on which the average women’s earnings finally catch up with what their male counterparts made last year.
Glassdoor Economic Research published a new multi-country study on the state of the gender pay gap in the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany and four other countries. The report, Progress on the Gender Pay Gap: 2019, reveals that although significant pay gaps remain between men and women, the pay gap has narrowed slightly in the U.S., UK, France and Australia, showing improvement since Glassdoor’s 2016 study.
Today, the unadjusted pay gap between men and women in the U.S. is 21.4 percent, meaning women earn, on average, $0.79 for every $1.00 men earn. This represents a 2.7 percentage point shrink in the unadjusted pay gap from three years ago, when women earned, on average, $0.76 for every $1.00 men earn.
Most employers are aware of what a pressing issue equal pay is, and more and more are attempting to tackle it head-on, with companies like Starbucks, Intel and Boston Scientific analyzing and publicly releasing their gender pay information. But what if you don’t have the dedicated budget for a salary audit, or just don’t know where to start? If you find yourself in this camp, it’s worth visiting How to Analyze Your Gender Pay Gap: An Employer’s Guide.
The Case for Analyzing Your Pay Practices
The gender pay gap isn’t just a cause célèbre of Hollywood figures and policymakers — it can make a real difference in your ability to attract and retain talent. In fact, one Glassdoor survey found that sixty-three percent of employees polled would not apply to a company where a pay gap exists between men and women for similar work.
On top of that, multiple studies have shown that increased salary transparency is a win-win for both employees and the companies they work for. It leads to increased productivity, more equitable treatment and even better hiring.
“Studies find that better access to job information can encourage smarter job searching [and] help improve the quality of job matches,” said Dr. Andrew Chamberlain, Glassdoor Chief Economist. “By providing more information to job seekers about job application processes, companies improve the diversity of applicant pools by boosting the number of female job applicants. Some economists argue that improved information can prevent workforce dropouts and ‘discouraged workers’ in the same way that far more costly worker retraining programs can.”
Simply put, the more you know about your own company’s pay practices — and the more information that you publicly release — the better.
[Related: How to Close the Gender Pay Gap: 4 Tips for Employers]
How to Combat the Gender Pay Gap
Conducting an internal pay audit isn’t as simple as simply looking at the total of what men earn versus women — doing it right can be complex, time-consuming and costly. But we know that not every organization has the resources of a multinational Fortune 500 company, so we decided to make it easier. With Glassdoor’s How to Analyze Your Gender Pay Gap: An Employer’s Guide, our economic research team created a playbook for understanding, measuring and combating any gender pay gap that might exist within your company.
The guide is technical, and the analysis will likely need to be conducted by an individual in finance, data science or analytics, but it does provide a step-by-step guide on which software to download, data to gather, code to input and more. Once you’ve looked at the results, there are a handful of next steps worth taking, including:
- Pledging Your Commitment: Share the results of your analysis and any adjustments you’ve made to create a more equitable workplace, and take the Equal Pay Pledge on Glassdoor to prove to candidates that you care.
- Making Equitable Offers: Certain groups of employees, such as women and older workers, are less likely to negotiate — accommodate for that by offering salaries that more closely reflect what the positions are worth, eliminating a reliance on negotiation to achieve a fair salary.
- Equalizing Performance Reviews: Don’t let performance reviews, promotions and bonuses fall victim to unconscious bias — provide manager and leadership training on how to recognize and resist unfair treatment.
- Starting the Conversation: Encourage employees to use their voice by posting reviews and salaries on Glassdoor.
The gender pay gap is a multifaceted problem with no quick fixes — but the more companies analyze their own internal pay gaps, the sooner we’ll be able to reduce, or even eliminate, it, creating a more equitable world in the process.
