Progression Toward Gender Equity in the Workplace Slow But Steady

As Women’s History Month continues this March, we are reflecting on the inspiring women from the past and present who work steadily, every day, to improve the lives of and increase the opportunities available to women. Visier remains committed to improving equity between all genders. We’re happy to report that we’ve made progress on our gender parity goals (more on that below), and we’ll continue to pay close attention in the best way we know: with data as a foundation. 

The gender pay gap

In 1963, the Equal Pay Act was passed in the United States to "prohibit discrimination on account of sex in the payment of wages by employers engaged in commerce or in the production of goods for commerce.” This year, Equal Pay Day in the United States is on March 12, 2024, one day sooner than the previous year. It’s not a day to celebrate, instead, it’s a date marking how far into the next year women (regardless of ethnicity or race) must work to equal one year of work by white non-Hispanic men. 

The National Women’s Law Center calculates that for 2023, women in the United States earned .84 cents for every dollar earned by a man. This shortage adds up to $9,990 less per year in median earnings for women—that totals a whopping eight additional years of work over a typical career lifespan. 

The gaping pay gap for women of color

It’s important that when we talk about progress, we talk about what that progress looks like for all types of women. The gap grows enormously wider when broken down into demographic-specific groups such as women of color, mothers, and those from the LGBTQIA+ community. In the U.S., the time it takes for different demographics of women to achieve the same pay as white men for the year prior is represented by the date their equal pay day falls on the calendar:

Source: equalpaytoday.org

As you can see in the image, in 2024 it takes the average of all women until March 12th to earn what white men did by the end of the previous year. But if you look at women’s pay by demographic, it takes Black women until July 9th,  Latina Women until October 3rd, and Native women until November 21st—almost a full year longer. These dates represent an improvement over previous years when Black women's equal pay day occurred at the end of September and Latina and Native women's equal pay days fell in December.

What you can do to help close the gender wage gap

With tools like Visier® Smart Compensation, run regular compensation equity checks comparing an employee’s pay to others within and outside the organization

Understanding the current diversity and inclusion numbers at your organization is the first step in committing to creating a workplace that is free from gender discrimination when it comes to compensation, promotions, and opportunities. 

Use people analytics to visualize gender by job level, an important metric to monitor for ensuring an equitable succession plan.

This list of recommendations for actively working toward gender parity in the workplace comes from the California Commission on the Status of Women and Girls: 

• ​​Increase the diversity of the applicant pool

• Remove bias from the hiring process by including more women in decision-making, and providing bias awareness training. 

• Train managers on building a culture of pay equity

• Encourage employee pay communication without the fear of retaliation

• Review job classifications and descriptions

• Review new hire pay, adjust existing employee pay to be equal

• Review compensation annually

• Increase diversity at senior levels and in the compensation department. A study of senior executive compensation at public companies revealed that women executives were better compensated when the compensation committee included women. There was a substantial gap in compensation when the committees included either no women or just one woman.

• Limit discretion in pay decisions by having a compensation committee review manager-recommended pay raises

• Promote wage transparency/standardize compensation

• Design fair performance evaluations

• Offer training and other accommodations that provide opportunities for promotion 

• Improve workplace flexibility/change subtle drivers of discrimination

• Design fair incentive compensation plans

• Offer paid parental/family leave for both women and men

• Adopt parental leave policies 

• Create a culture of equality

Using data analytics to measure what matters, like women in leadership roles, is foundational to making progress toward gender equity in the workplace.

While the gender pay gap is narrowing, there is still so much work that needs to be done, especially with regard to women of color. While days commemorated on the calendar are important for visibility, action always needs to follow suit. So today let’s honor how far we’ve come and celebrate the women who’ve helped us get there, but let us also hire women, promote women, and pay women. It’s the only way forward.

Where does Visier sit in this equation? 

At the beginning of 2020, Visier had 28% women managers. In 2021, Visier set a goal of increasing the percentage of women in management positions by 6%. We ended 2021 with a 10% increase in women in management. In 2022 we adjusted our internal gender parity goals to “40/40” by the end of 2023, aiming to have 40% of leadership roles and 40% of all employees who identify as women.

At the beginning of 2024 we beat our goal with 41% of our managers identifying as women and nearly met our goal for employees who identify as women, who now make up 39% of the total employee population.

DEIB programs are an important part of Visier’s culture, and we continue to maintain an active D&I Advisory board to ensure we are moving in the direction of gender parity. In continuing to support that growth, here are some of the programs and initiatives that the D&I Advisory Board launched and supported in 2023, and will continue to support in 2024:

• An update to our Ask. Align. Act. framework for increasing diversity and inclusion 

• A “D&I in the Workplace" course

• A course on how to be an inclusive interviewer

• Community calls to celebrate Black History Month and National Day for Truth & Reconciliation

• Anti-Bullying, Harassment and Discrimination Policy, including training

• A “Managing Bias” course

• Promotion impact reviews

• And an annual pay equity review
  

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