Dive Brief:
- Salesforce has made an interesting move to close its gender pay gap: it's simply putting up the difference in women and men's pay, says Quartz. Salesforce conducted an equal pay assessment in 2015 to see if women and men were paid the same wage and found that pay for both genders needed adjusting. Quartz says the company paid $3 million to eliminate the pay disparity.
- It conducted the assessment again this year and spent another $3 million to correct new disparities. CEO Marc Benioff has agreed to keep monitoring the situation for future gender-based pay gaps.
- Benioff also requires that 30% of participants at company meetings be women and gives equality awards to equal-rights trailblazers. Salesforce also has been recognized as a top employer of women by various organizations.
Dive Insight:
Large companies might be able to wipe out pay disparities with a fat check, but small employers might not have the deep pockets needed to do so. Still, experts recommend that all employers conduct pay assessments to uncover disparities and begin to correct them.
Other efforts to reduce pay disparities including an increasing number of state and municipality pay-history bans, which prohibit employers from asking job candidates about past earnings. The purpose is to prevent employers from basing pay on women's former earnings, which are likely to be less than men's. However, opponents of pay-history bans have pushed back, tying at least one up in court.
And some employers, like Silicon Valley Bank, are removing names from resumes to keep candidates from being identified and subsequently discriminated against in hiring and pay because of gender, race, ethnicity or religion.
For employers who uncover disparities in a self-audit (but who don't have $6 million to spare), making changes to your application and interview process may be good first steps.
