Mind the (Pay) Gap

Invariant’s Dialogue for Change

Invariant hosted its 12th Dialogue for Change: “Mind the (Pay) Gap,” with Katie Bardaro, Senior Vice President of Analytics and Customer Experience at Syndio, and Dr. Andrew Chamberlain, Chief Economist and Director of Product for Machine Learning at Glassdoor. Invariant’s Teal Baker moderated the conversation. The discussion focused on how corporate leaders can better tackle pay equity as part of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) strategies.

Watch the conversation here:

Below are five takeaways:

1. The pandemic is disproportionately and negatively impacting women. The whole picture is not yet clear, but women are leaving the workforce at a higher rate than men. School and daycare closures and diminishing caregiving support mean that women of all income levels are shouldering most of the home care and caregiving responsibilities. McKinsey & Company found that mothers were three times as likely to meet most demands for housework during the pandemic compared to fathers.

Increased work flexibility is one benefit of the pandemic. Inflexible work is a barrier to closing the wage gap. With more companies shifting and maintaining work-from-home options, women are more likely to return to and stay in professional roles.

2. Holistic approaches are critical. While the adjusted pay gap shows the inequity between men and women at a similar professional level, it does not show inequities and discrimination that may exist earlier in a career or a company’s talent pipeline. The pay gap is also an opportunity gap, where there is an underrepresentation of women in senior and leadership positions. Companies should look beyond pay equity and apply a more holistic strategy for hiring and promotion processes. Discussing representation in the workforce, hiring pool, leadership positions, and pay equity is vital to creating lasting and meaningful change.

3. Transparency is essential but will not solve everything. More employees are becoming increasingly eager for transparency around pay in the workplace. Public transparency helps job seekers negotiate, shines a light on a company’s pay equity, expands hiring pools, and incentivizes companies to keep their pay process a priority. While transparency is an important step in shrinking the pay gap, a broader focus is needed, particularly when looking at flexible work and childcare, the hiring pipeline, and even earlier in the education system.

4. Understanding pay equity is data-driven. Having complete and robust data is needed to understand pay equity within a company. Many well-intentioned employers do not feel they have the technical expertise to deal with the complexity of pay equity issues. There are now online platforms (Syndio) and virtual guides (including Glassdoor’s Employer Guide) to help employers perform a pay analysis and coach businesses through potential issues. Companies should be doing annual pay equity analyses shared with employees to support retention, trust, and compliance.

5. Shifting our mindset is the first step for change. Seeing best practices as checking a box means a company is less likely to adopt a DEI strategy with a lasting impact. Employers should be self-reflective and proactive with their DEI strategies, understanding that senior leadership and board member makeup demonstrates a company’s commitment. This mindset leads to lower remediation costs for pay inequities, more meaningful distribution, and more diverse leadership teams.

In appreciation of Katie and Andrew’s participation, Invariant made charitable contributions to the National Women’s Law Center and JUST Capital.

You can request a demonstration of Syndio’s PayEq here.

You can read Invariant’s previous Dialogue for Change recaps and recommendations here.