Tool: Employer Pay Equity Self-Audit

Workforce Management

Business and Professional Women/USA, an advocacy organization for working women, adapted this audit from a Department of Labor document to help employers gauge whether they are paying men and women employees equally. The organization notes that discrepancies can lead to costly lawsuits.

In a time when women make up nearly half the workforce, many think that the issue of equal pay no longer exists. Business and Professional Women/USA begs to differ.
According to the organization, the latest Census Bureau estimate reports that full-time year-round female workers make 77 cents for every dollar a male earns. For minority women this statistic worsens, as African-American women make 66 cents, Latinas make 55 cents and Asian-American women make 80 cents. "Given the current rate of change, it will be another 50 years before women achieve equal pay," according to the organization, which believes that gender discrimination "is not only a women’s issue but a business issue."
"Employers play a major role in helping to end the wage gap and to treat women fairly in the workplace," according the group. Employers will suffer from pay discrimination not only because of expensive lawsuits but also because women—whether as customers or employees—will have less money to spend and invest, the group argues.
BPW/USA believes in the three-pronged approach to addressing the issue of pay equity. "We believe that legislation should be passed to enact tougher laws; businesses should be held accountable for their unfair pay practices and mindful of what they pay their employees; and women should be given the knowledge and tools to empower themselves to get even at work."
The employer pay equity self-audit was developed to assist employers in analyzing their own wage-setting policies and establishing consistent and fair pay practices for all. BPW/USA encourages employers to answer all of the questions in the audit to further examine how they are doing with paying and promoting their female employees fairly.
For more information about BPW/USA, please go to www.bpwusa.org.
Employer Pay Equity Self-Audit
1. Conduct a Recruitment Self-Audit
Does your hiring process seek diversity in the qualified applicant pool for positions?
2. Evaluate Your Compensation System for Internal Equity
Do you have a method to determine salaries and benefits?
Do you write position descriptions, seek employee input and develop consensus for position descriptions? In unionized workplaces, do you involve union leaders?
Do you have a consistent job evaluation system? Are jobs scored or assigned grades? Are positions where women and minorities work scored or graded according to the same standards as jobs where men or non-minorities work?
Could a method be used for ensuring consistent pay for people with substantially similar levels or experience and education who hold jobs calling for substantially similar degrees of skill, effort, responsibility and working conditions, even though job titles may be different?
3. Evaluate Your Compensation System for Industry Competitiveness
Do you have a method to determine the market rate for any given job? Do you ensure that market rates are applied consistently? (i.e.—Can you be confident that men are not being compensated at or above market rates while women are compensated at or below market rates? Can you be confident that non-minority workers are not compensated at or above market rates while minority workers’ compensation is at or below the market rates?)
Would your company benefit from a fresh approach that updates position descriptions; assesses skill, effort, responsibility and working conditions of various jobs; assigns grades or scores; and ensures consistent application of market rates and external competitiveness?

Full story: http://www.workforce.com/archive/feature/24/91/83/index.php