How to combat unconscious bias among your workers that your organization isn't doing enough to achieve pay equality for men and women?

Have a frank discussion with employees about your compensation practices—and back those talks up with real time market data to show how their pay was determined, according to PayScale Inc.'s report, "Does Pay Transparency Close the Gender Wage Gap?"

PayScale compared pay for men and women doing the same job in the same geographic location, with the same experience and education, and for 2019, the overall "controlled" gender pay gap was women earning $0.982 cents for every $1 men earned.

However, for workers who said they had a transparent pay process at their company, the gap was effectively erased: for this group, women in 2019 were estimated to earn between $1 and $1.01 for every dollar earned by men.

"This latest research shows just how powerful transparent pay practices can be for organizations," says PayScale CEO Scott Torrey. "When employers use real market data and talk openly with employees about their pay, it serves to challenge the underlying bias that can impact decisions about compensation. Most employers want to ensure they're paying fairly, so we encourage HR departments and senior leaders to adopt transparent pay practices as an important step toward achieving this goal."

Having a transparent pay process also erases the gender pay gap across generations, PayScale's analysis found. Millennial women who work in a transparent pay environment do slightly better ($1.02) than other generations of women (who all earn $1.01).

Across industries, transparency helps to reduce the gender pay gap, though a marked gap still exists in some industries, including accommodation and food services, retail and customer service, and transportation and warehousing.

Certain occupations that are male dominated also continue to have a marked gap — even after transparent pay practices are adopted by their employers. Those include food preparation and serving-related occupations, installation, maintenance and repair jobs, production occupations, protective services jobs and sales occupations.

Moving up the career ladder, transparent pay discussions appear to have the largest impact for individual contributors, supervisor and managers, according to the analysis. By contrast, female directors and executives still faced discriminatory pay penalties for their gender–however, the gender pay gap is diminished with transparent pay practices.

Read more:

Instant Insights /

Pay transparency can help eliminate the wage gap

More From HR Executive

Related Stories

Recommended For You