Employer side negotiation tactics and better metrics to close the white/black pay gap
Usually when I see graphs measuring the racial pay gaps, for reasons we all understand, they compare whites and blacks at the same title, experience, and year.
But that ignores one of the ways I have seen employer side negotiation tactics maintain and drive pay disparities.
Here is the situation: A reasonable person understands that wages cannot be forced to decrease year after year as compared to inflation or cost of living. But many workplaces/stockholders expect exactly that.
So what happens when wages are failing to cover rent, healthcare, and basic necessities?
People with options turn down the jobs.
People without options (or worse options) take them.
What did this look like when I was hiring, and salary setters (in my case HR) refused to increase the salary bands?
White males turned down the jobs or stopped applying.
White women took them but left quickly.
Black women applied, accepted them, and stayed.
I did not see any black male candidates.
So, nice that the workplace was diversifying, but quite bad that black people were being taken advantage of.
I think a metric that could be internally adopted and tracked to prevent these outcomes is:
( inflation adjusted black wage yr5) /(inflation adjusted white wage yr1)
for any given position. I picked a 5yr interval because it seemed like a time period where meaningful change in salary and diversity could be captured.
If the metric is less than 1, then you immediately know that something in. your company's practice is going wrong and that you are penalizing the black labor pool. Importantly, it gives you a number to back up the adhoc observation and to use to lobby for change.
Please let me know your ideas for
-improving this metric,
-suggesting a different one,
-and how to pitch these without getting fired/slated for a 'layoff'
Browse recent posts
I'm a VP at a company and I contracted COVID last week and my company won't pay for my sick time.
While I'm not sure of the legalities, HR stance is that employees are not allowed to be in the office if you've been exposed.
While I make decent wage, I live alone and rely on each paycheck to pay rent in an expensive metropolis. I'm not sure what to do and when I offered to work from home, they won't send my laptop. Should I go around them and have courier pick it up or I feel I'm at a loss. I'd appreciate the community's advice. This isn't a vacation, I'm really sick and I'm starting to question if I want to give my notice if they aren't going to pay me.
0 Likes • 2 Comments
I am really struggling with getting an interview in this job market.
Feeling very defeated. I joined a company in May, then in July they had a big layoff and my role was impacted. They are kindly keeping me on until December, but I had no idea the job market would be this tough. I have applied for hundreds of jobs at this point and so far received 2 interviews. It is really weighing on me, and I am feeling overwhelmed as the clock is ticking down to my last day at this job.
0 Likes • 2 Comments
Excellent Article on How Companies Might Encourage Imposterization
From MIT’s Sloan Review — create a free account to read:
https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/halt-impostor-syndrome-before-it-happens/
0 Likes • 0 Comments
Sharepoint - for those that use Sharepoint to collaborate with your team...do you find it useful to use the feature to select a "color" for your folders?
Is there a benefit? Please share examples of how you used this feature. Thank you !!!..
0 Likes • 3 Comments
I recently asked my director if I could partake in my company’s health and wellness program.
Our policy states that all employees are encouraged to use it. It allows employees to spend upto 3 hours a week on exercise during work hours. The policy is lenient so nothing more is restricted except that we can’t extend our exercise over 1 hour per exercise event during the work week, and we must send an email to our director explaining our interest to partake.
My director encouraged me to participate in the program. I then asked my project manager who has the same director. He told me that since I already participate in a alternative work schedule (off one day every two weeks, I work 40 hrs/wk), and I work from home 95% of the time, he doesn’t want me to participate. He said that the policy was written pre-covid when employees had to go in to the office. I told him that I don’t plan to take advantage of the policy every week, or even use the max 3 hours every week. He still didn’t like it.
I was recently given an individual award for my work and I take very little vacation time. I am not a slacker. He is a project manager that feels that all my time is his time. I sit so much at work that my back hurts. I need to move around.
My project manager has changed the narrative of the policy to fit his personal feelings on the matter. It’s a good cop/bad cop situation between my director and my manager. Managers sometimes do not stand behind policy when it doesn’t benefit them. What is the best way to handle this?
0 Likes • 1 Comment
Should they be asking for my birthdate and year?
Received an error email from Onramp.io which sparked my memory that I do have a profile on the website. Reviewed profile and found that they had my birthdate and year in the profile which I probably filled out and I have not heard from them regarding job opportunities or training for over 2 years.
0 Likes • 1 Comment
Share your insight
Join an authentic community that helps women support each other at work. Share your professional experience or ask for advice — you can even post anonymously.