Dive Brief:
- In a memo to employees, Citigroup announced plans to close its gender and race pay gaps. The company says that both women and minorities at Citigroup already earn 99% of every dollar that men and non-minorities earn, but that it is taking steps to close that gap.
- Citi says it routinely assesses market conditions and rigorously reviews pay recommendations across the company as part of its annual compensation process. The company expanded its efforts to close the pay gap this year by conducting assessments using job function, level and geography as criteria in the U.S., the United Kingdom and Germany.
- Citigroup says it also will adjust wages for other employees as merited.
Dive Insight:
Employers who fail to address pay disparities often face legal challenges, sometimes ending in multi-million dollar payouts. Some of the biggest names in the tech industry have faced such claims recently; Google, Microsoft and Qualcomm have been sued for allegedly discriminatory pay practices, although the success of those claims remains to be seen.
Although the pay gap between women and men receives a great deal of attention, disparities in compensation also affect people of color. Employers who have focused solely on ending gender-based pay discrimination must also examine how their pay practices affect nonwhite workers. To do so, employers are increasingly turning to data to make such examinations more methodical and to unearth structural issues, like problems in promotions.
Announcements like Citigroup's demonstrate a company's commitment to creating and maintaining a diverse workplace, and can certainly help prevent litigation. After all, one survey shows that employees may well value pay transparency more than the pay itself.
