My companies gender pay gap is relatively small. Around 10%. Its dropped significantly since a female became VP. We now have 2.
Their wage increase doesnt have a big impact on overall figures, because we employ so many people.
However, what has, is the work of one of these women. She worked her up through the company and is determined to help others.
She says that getting sexism out of the workplace, is unfortunately, a long game. So while she wants everyone to improve that, she encourages us as senior leadership to do what we can to impact our lives and the lives women working for us today.
For example, in my department a survey showed that although 70% of staff working at my level were women. On the whole we were paid 6% less. When we looked at th recruitment process and documents, it appeared that the men, generally, didnt accept the first offer. Women, generally, did accept the first offer.
But instead of simply saying 'well women should ask for more' we looked into it further. The women (again all generally) didnt know what the pay grades were. Men did. Women didnt know what their colleagues were on, men did. We also found that women generally tended to be more grateful that had been offered a promotion and snapped their hands off. Where men were more confident that they were the right personal for the role and that the company should reward them. It appears women felt incredibly lucky to be offered it at all.
So the VP worked on
Making sure pay scales were available
Making sure the gender pay gap information was easily available
Making sure we all had visability of what the average wage was in out departments and our levels.
She regularly holds works shops where she gives advice on issues she has faced and speaks directly to people who have pay issues. So if you discover you are paid less that the average in your department, she will coach you through asking for a rise, for example.
Holding sessions to find out exactly why women feel grateful for promotion (generalised sexism, childcare, taking time off for sick relatives and children impacting women more than men etc) and holding sessions with SLT to improve their coaching skills, to help their female employees recognise how good they are and their worth ti the company.
Yes she, maybe, could just step in equalise it all. However she believes that if we do that, in 5 years we will be in this position, again, as men will continue to feel confident they deserve a higher wage and women will still feel they won by a fluke and take what's offered the first time.
We also have a policy at work, to make eachother the best we can be for the company AND for themseleves. Even if that person leaves, the company always wishes them well. She wants women who do leave to take the lessons learned and do that a new company too and ask for what they deserve not what they are offered. She wants senior leadership, to take what they have learned about how women feel at work, with them if they leave too.
She also overhauled our rules on flexible working and working while having carer repsonibilities. Recognising that women, mainly, still do carry the load from home too. For example, my son was sent home from school, sick. He is 10. I was told to go get and take him home and asses the situation. If he was really ill and I couldnt work from home, I could take it as different types of leave that suited me. If he was I'll, but well enough that I felt able to work from home productively then I worked from home. They trusted me to make that decision. As it was, ds was ill, but just laid on the sofa watching movies and napping. Work wasnt impacted. They trust me to make the decision about whether I was able to work from home or not.
I can also work from home when I want to, but they do like an average of 3 days per week in the office. That can work by working from home all one week and then not doing it for a while, so it averages out.
These sorts of things have stopped women being judged so much for not coming in when their kids are sick. Stopped women worrying about what people think if they do take a couple of days to sort out children.
The gender pay gap is about so much more that just sexism. We should be looking at things we can change, as well as trying to change the long game in the future.
But even when it is women not asking for as much. We need to challenge why.
Also at our company they have done similar work around shared parental leave. Which has increased the up take. While I cant say all or even most people use it, theres been 3 times as many people use it in the last 6 months, as the 6 months previously.