We have all seen conversations about the Pay Equity Gap and what that involves. Brian Reaves and Melissa Thomas Hunt share valuable insight into the complexities of achieving pay equity and how those efforts are impacting the workplace. On average women are still making just 82 cents for every dollar their male counterparts earn. For women of color the numbers are even worse. Black women will lose more than $1 million, on average, in lifetime earnings due to this persistent inequity.
BRIAN REAVES: I have the great honor of being UKG’s Chief Belonging, Diversity and Equity Officer.
MELISSA THOMAS HUNT: I’m a John Forbes Distinguished Professor of Business Administration at the Darden School of Business and Professor of Public Policy at the Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy at the University of Virginia
BR: We’re here today to talk about a recent study by the Harvard Business Review Analytical Services around Closing the Pay Equity Gap. The Study confirms what UKG believes and what I personally believe is that the topic of Pay Equity is infinitely complex. That’s why at UKG, we actually think of this topic within the ecosystem of equity. Equity of compensation as well as equity of representation opportunity and well-being. The statistic that jumped out to me that was pretty telling is the fact that 74% of executives actually believe that the topic of Pay Equity is of moderate to high import in their companies, but only 49% of those executives actually have a Pay Equity plan in place. From an employee perspective, 71% of the employees in this study believe that Pay Equity is of high import, but only 41% of them believe that there’s a Pay Equity plan in place at their companies which 24% believe that there is no Pay Equity plan at all. So I think that this just speaks to the complexity of the topic and those numbers are lower for people of color as well.
MTH: Historically, companies that were focused on Pay Equity were really indexed on women. But from the UKG study, we’re now seeing that companies are opening up that aperture and are now expanding their focus to a broader array of marginalized groups. This is incredibly important because what we’re seeing is that particularly along racial and ethnic lines, there is a divergence in the attributions that employees are making for why the Pay Inequity exists.
For example, more than 1/3 – about 35%, Black African American employees indicate that they believe that Pay Equity comes from discrimination and opportunities for advancement. This drops down significantly with Asian Americans who only 25% of them believe that that is the fundamental reason. Down to 20% of LatinX and Hispanics where only 18% of individuals who identify as white.
BR: You can go to UKG.com/closethegap where you will find the study, educational resources that we spoke about earlier because it will take all of us to close the Pay Equity Gap for all of us.
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