The parity of the workforce must take place from the top levels and pay equity is always the key aspect of bringing that parity. The modern-day workplace culture is making admirable resolutions to effect pay equity. Yet some organizations are struggling with it; creating a sense of inferiority and partiality among the workforce. The equitable pay practice always ensures equal growth for the employees and also for the organizations for all the right reasons.
What is Pay Equity?
Any profit-oriented organization works with an employee base that assists the company to serve its customers. Needless to say that the employee base works for their remuneration in return for their services. The organization often pays the employees for their respective roles on monthly basis. Ethically it is the responsibility of the organization to pay two employees equally if they are offering similar kinds of services to the organization. This equal pay is what is called pay equity which both of such employees rightfully deserve for their services to the organization.
Pay equity brings an ethical vision to employers to consider employees equally beyond any kind of discrimination. The partiality in the remuneration of employees is often seen on the basis of their gender, age, race, and so on. Fortunately some of the modern prominent organizations are now curbing the pay disparity in their annual workplace policies. The government is also leading the front to pass legislation to implement pay equity across all organizations in a country.
In recent years Canada has made drastic reforms in bringing women’s labor pay equivalent to men’s. The country is gradually rising beyond gender pay to provide equal opportunity for growth to women with the new Canadian pay equity reforms.
In the United States, General motors are one of the first automotive brands to introduce pay equity. General Motors’ vision to provide women with equivalent perks and salaries is pushing the world’s automobile sector to adopt a similar reform.
The well-known cosmetic brand L’Oreal is also making its way to pay equity. The company has rooted L’Oreal gender pay equity across all its worldwide locations to empower women following their dreams just like the opposite gender.
5 Tips to Improve Pay Equity
An organization goes through a number of challenges to reconstruct the pay scale for its employees to bring pay equity. All those challenges need to be tackled from the top to bottom levels in order to prevail the pay equity across the organization. Here below are our 5 tips that could assist the management to implement the pay equity resolution:
- Keep the hiring process at the pay equity regime
Pay equity generally begins from the hiring process itself which happens through the HR. There needs to be a straightforward policy that the newly hired candidate should get the same pay scale just like the existing employees at the same post. The newly hired employees shouldn’t be paid lesser or more than the existing employees in the name of bargain or negotiation. This will maintain pays equity in the organization from the very start.
- Make Pay Equity Transparent
Keeping the whole payment pattern transparent for various posts will further push pay equity across the organization. Pay discrimination often happens under the table thus, transparency will tackle this issue to the most extent. It will also raise the faith of employees in the workplace and motivate them to work for excellence.
- Timely audit of pay equity
There should be a timely and random audit to check the norms of pay equity at the top end. This audit will strictly ensure that no inside changes are made to hamper the pay equity levels. The audit can be conducted at the level of departments or teams taking the payment sample of employees.
- Putting a ban on asking about the previous salary history of employees
Often in the hiring process, HR makes it mandatory for the new employees to show their previous workplace salary receipts. On the basis of the same receipts HR bargains the salary with the prospective employees. This forces new employees to work for the company at a lower salary than the existing employees in the same post. This practice of enquiring about the previous workplace salary of new candidates should be banned.
- Discuss the pay equity commitment with employees during meetings
Having regular and timely discussions with the employees about the company’s emphasis on pay equity will definitely strengthen it further. Simply for the fact that when management makes it the utmost priority to pay its employees equally then it just simply works out.
Conclusion
Pay equity at the organization’s end doesn’t just ensure equal growth for employees but also curbs the evil of discrimination and racism in the workplace. It has been the historical practice that often employees are paid differently for their gender, age, race, and even color. It is high time that organizations must come forward to treat their employees equally for their real worth. The standard of pay equity must be the top priority in the agenda of organizations towards the employees.
