The Tweets Heard ‘Round The World.
Early in the morning of March 8th, International Women’s Day, the Twitter account of a little-known app called Pay Gap App, started by Francesca Lawson and Ali Fensome, had around 2,000 followers. On the Twitter bio of @paygapapp, the two young programmers posted “Employers, if you tweet about International Women’s Day, I’ll retweet your gender pay gap”. Many large and well-known companies were posting their support of International Women’s Day and their appreciation of women in the workplace on social media. @Paygapapp was ready and waiting to respond. By the end of the day on Tuesday, @paygapapp had sent out hundreds of tweets calling out companies that posted about International Women’s Day with information about their hourly median gender pay gaps, as most companies who Tweeted their support of women publicly had nothing privately to resolve this problem in their own organization. The Twitter account @paygapapp had gone viral, with more than 120,000 followers and gained another 120,000 followers in the following days. Lawson Commented that “the account’s sudden popularity reflects consumers’ growing demand for transparency from companies who publicly campaign against inequities but may perpetuate them within their own workplaces.”
Difficult Conversations.
Thousands of people responded on social media their shock and outrage at the information @paygapapp was providing and the media reported in detail about pay inequity. Unfortunately, I wasn’t supprised at all by this news. After more than 20 years of consulting companies about Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, Supplier Diversity and Human Capital Management, I expected to see these numbers and the rampant practice of pay inequity based on gender, age, race and more factors. Regardless of if this is the first time you have learned about the pay gap or you have known about this for years, difficult conversations must be had and swift changes in workplace practices and culture must be made.
The Pay Gap Doesn’t Stop At Gender.
The Washington Post reported that “In 2020, the U.K.’s gender pay gap among all hourly employees was 15.5 percent, according to the Office for National Statistics — in other words, women earned about 85 percent of what men did on average. (Companies in the U.K. are not required by law to report ethnicity pay gaps.)” It went on to report that “In the United States in 2020, women on average earned 83 percent of what men earned, according to the American Association of University Women. The disparities are starker along racial lines, with Black women being paid 64 percent of what White, non-Hispanic men did in 2020 and Latinas being paid 57 percent of what White men made that year, according to AAUW. Native American women typically earn only 60 percent of what White men earn, according to the National Women’s Law Center, which also notes that the wage gap typically stands at 85 percent for Asian American and Pacific Islander women.”
Where Do We Go From Here?
Our clients rely on us for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, Supplier Diversity and Human Capital Management solutions. We share our training and expertise when they don’t have the in-house capability to do so, need an objective advisor with experience in building programs from the ground up. When our firm is called on to help a company resolve this problem, my team and I take a holistic approach to solving the pay gap. We not only want to establish fair and transparent pay, regardless of gender, ethnicity, age, and Nationality, but we want to take it a step further and challenge the traditional definitions of diversity and inclusion.
“Show Me the Money!”
Is your organization struggling with fostering an inclusive culture and successfully adopting a DEI strategy or have you tried before only to see little to no results? You’re not alone. Some of our clients have struggled with fostering an inclusive culture, or successfully adopting a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion strategy, but all companies can (and should) continue to push for progress and do better for their employees and the customers they serve. A successful outcome requires more than completing a checklist or holding training classes. Our experienced consultants will help you navigate implementing Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at your company with an integrated, holistic approach to ensure both short- and long-term success. Study after study indicate a positive, inclusive work environments results in employees who are happier, more productive and engaged, leading to greater success for your business.
We work with our clients to address and eliminate the pay gap and take it a step farther to reimagine their existing diversity and inclusion strategy. We meet with and interview employees, performing an initial assessment of the current state of the organization, and implement our changes in partnership of our clients. We work with our clients to implement the communication and maintenance of their new DEI plan and develop and deliver DEI education and training solutions to encourage buy in from their leadership, employees, and customers. We monitor their progress and adjust their plan accordingly. We fight future pay gap problems by leading Diversity, Equity and Inclusion talent acquisition strategies establishing mentorship and training and education opportunities for to help elevate and promote DEI candidates from within an organization. Ourflexible model works to achieve their Diversity Equity and Inclusion objectives and establish a culture and norms that embrace Diversity Equity and Inclusion and best practices for their industry. But Diversity, Equity and Inclusion is just one part of the key to solving inequality in the workplace. Our approach includes strategic offerings from Human Capital Management to keep the solutions we implement and encourages Supplier Diversity programming to support other businesses that value equity and inclusion.
Why Human Capital Management?
To eliminate workplace inequalities like the pay gap we work towards a cultural transformation for our client’s organization. Unlocking the value that Human Resources can provide an organization is the foundation of our Human Capital Management practice. We build strategies that encourage companies to invest in its most important asset – its people. We work with our clients to ensure that there is a diverse and inclusive, fair, and transparent workplace by bringing them the knowledge and skills to integrate each aspect of a successful HR organization. This includes workforce systems, full life cycle “hire to retire processes”, cultural alignment, as well as analytics and reporting. These solutions lead to a happier, safer, more inclusive workplace which leads to happier employees and improved productivity.
Your Greatest Asset is Your People.
We help organizations acquire, cultivate, and retain their greatest asset, their people by establishing company values including a mission and vision for future growth and improvement. We work with our clients to create programing that give all employees opportunities for job training and growth to remove more barriers to success for women and people of color so that inequities like the pay gap can be eliminated. Our solutions include fair and equitable compensation, benefits, and perks. We also train managers and leadership to recognize good performance, listen to employee feedback and show respect to their employees’ lives outside of work, to recognize and eliminate more issues that impact women and people of color unfairly.
We have worked with a variety of industries and develop a plan that works with our clients’ organizational culture. Our clients rely on us for swift and lasting transformational services and training when they don’t have the in-house capability or need an objective advisor with experience in building programs from the ground up. We work to eliminate the inequities women and people of color face buy listening to employee feedback and working across all functions to establish company values and provide opportunities for employees. Our solutions create systems to compensate fairly and bridge the culture, age, and gender gaps.
By identifying opportunities for improvement and providing best practice recommendations we set our clients on a path to eliminate and prevent inequities like the pay gap and to work towards a culture change and long-term success. Our experience tells us that eliminating inequalities and unfair practices at work is not a one-stop solution. We partner with our clients to develop human capital strategy aligned with your mission and vision, assess the full-life cycle of their HR processes and practices to ensure fairness and transparency. We provide benchmarks for leading practices and establish targets, meeting industry best practices for equality in Human Resources. Complex processes including evaluating a client’s technology utilization and integration, integrating the HR operating model to realize equal pay and benefits, supporting the employee full life cycle processes, establishing and maintaining cultural alignment and providing feedback, analytics and reporting empower them to better define supplier diversity policies and Gain visibility into diversity compliance and commitments.
What more can you do? Learn about and adopt a Supplier Diversity program.
Implementing and supporting a supplier diversity program in your organization is a great way to encourage other businesses and industries to embrace fair and equal pay for women and people of color. We partner with our clients to implement systems that can track and measure supplier diversity success. We will evaluate the technology, processes, and responsibilities that go into creating a holistic view of supplier diversity success to ensure every diverse dollar gets counted. We have seen among our clients a renewed focus on supplier diversity with companies making large public commitments. If your company has made such commitments, there are some key things to consider ensuring those initiatives are successful. We work with clients to evaluate their goals, measure their success, and make necessary changes to their processes and systems.
Encourage Fairness And Equality While Achieving Your Strategic Objectives.
Our consultants develop, implement, and expand a company’s diverse supplier program to achieve your strategic objectives and encourage a diverse mindset. We provide a pathway for them to develop resilient and agile supply chains by expanding their supplier base. Our programs empower organizations to better define supplier diversity policies and metrics and learn how to gain visibility into diversity compliance and commitments. We work with our clients to encourage diversity, equity and inclusion in their suppliers by evaluating their workplace and create an assessment of current demographics and company goals, provide recommendations on how to reach those goals. We give them the tools to seek out and foster new vendor relationships, especially in unexplored categories, such as small businesses, minority-owned businesses, or businesses in a different geographic area from current vendors. Our solutions offer methods for tracking the performance of Supplier Diversity goals and metrics across contracts and maintain and expand knowledge of current DEI topics, programs, and industry and client trends.
Let’s Get Started …
These solutions are just the beginning. More resources, time and attention must be paid to fair and equal workplace practices that include women, people of color, and many other minority groups that often are underpaid and underrepresented in the workplace. To find out more and get involved in the solution for your workplace go to directedaction.com and learn how to work with us to achieve strategic, lasting solutions in your organization.