#32 – Insights from the Workplace Equity Forum

In this week’s Coffee Talk, Margrét comes to us from a hotel atrium in Austin, Texas with highlights from the WorldatWork Workplace Equity Forum.

This conference of business leaders and pay equity experts focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in the workplace. So Margrét heard from many companies that had already gone through a pay equity analysis and were on their way to closing their adjusted pay gaps (the differences in pay after accounting for factors like employees’ job roles, skills, and experience). And as the next step in their pay equity journeys, these companies areusing DEI to close their unadjusted pay gaps.

So as attendees thought about DEI in the context of pay equity, they discussed a few key questions:

What types of DEI efforts are the most meaningful?
How can they be implemented?
How can their impact be measured?

A second key topic in Austin was pay transparency. In the U.S., new pay transparency laws have been passed in California and Colorado, and companies doing business in the EU need to prepare for pay transparency directives taking effect in a couple of years.

Much of this conversation focused on how pay transparency starts with a company understanding its own job architecture and why they pay what they pay.

Then, the company needs to make its pay policies clear enough that it can explain to each employee why their pay is what it is. As Margrét said, “In order to be transparent externally, you have to be ready to have that one-on-one conversation with your employees.”

This is especially the case since, as Henrike pointed out, employers in Germany have noticed that employees want to talk more about money. And this also means that managers will need to be trained to successfully handle conversations with employees about their pay.

The consensus among conference attendees was that this from-the-inside-out approach to pay transparency is a lot of work! But in light of current transparency laws coming into effect and more that will likely follow,starting the transparency process now will make for less stress in the long run.

Friday Coffee Talk from Planet Fair is a YouTube series of video chats and interviews co-hosted by PayAnalytics founder Margrét Bjarnadóttir and Henrike Von Platen, founder and CEO of the FPI Fair Pay Innovation Lab in Berlin.