How Can Organizations Stay Up to Date on Pay Equity Trends & Best Practices?

If employers want to remain competitive in the job market today, they must be mindful of pay equity. Employees and customers expect fair pay practices. As we know, pay equity isn’t a one-stop shop. It’s an ongoing process. It’s important to stay up to date with trends and best practices.

You should be aware that you can’t be paying employees differently based on their protected characteristics. But what else do you need to know? For example, a trend that we’ve seen more post-pandemic is pay transparency and data reporting. Are you familiar with these requirements? As society puts more pressure on achieving pay equity, employers have more to be conscious of.

In this article, we’re going to discuss how organizations can stay up to date on pay equity trends and best practices. We explore the distribution of responsibility, online tools, and technologies that can help you.

Who Is Responsible for Pay Equity?

So, who do you nominate to be responsible for staying up to date with pay equity trends? The answer isn’t so simple. Harvard Business Review asked executives and employees for their opinion. 47% of executives said it is the responsibility of the HR officer. On the other hand, only 6% of employees thought it was an HR duty. Instead, 37% of them said this should be the CEO’s responsibility.

As you can see, there is some confusion about who should manage pay equity. I’d argue that everyone from the bottom to the top of the workplace hierarchy should contribute. Brian Reaves, chief belonging, diversity, and equity officer at UKG, says, “The key is to foster a culture of accountability and transparency throughout the entire organization.”

Utilizing Pay Equity Tools & Technology

Investing in pay equity tools and technology can really help you in staying up to date with pay equity trends. For example, Salary.com’s CompAnalyst helps you compare your organization’s compensation rates against comparable companies. The platform uses survey data from thousands of employers, ensuring that benchmarking is fair and objective.

Now you may be saying that this is a waste of money – that you could do this research on your own. The thing is, pay equity is a complex process. It requires reviewing internal and external market data. You need to be able to make predictions and analyze how one change impacts everything else. The patterns will need to be manually extracted and there’s a lot of room for error.

With CompAnalyst, survey data is updated on a quarterly basis, ensuring you’re using the most recent information. It allows you to model scenarios and observe how they’ll impact the overall salary structure. Regardless of the tool you choose to use, there’s no argument that having it will make your life a lot easier.

Keeping Up with Fair Pay and Pay Equity Regulations

There are both federal and state regulations around pay equity. What’s more, they’re being updated and adjusted regularly. Employers must be aware of them. To hear about these changes when they happen, you should turn to organizations dedicated to achieving pay equity, HR organizations, and government sites.

Start with the Department of Labor and the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. They will have latest information that’s relevant to your state as it comes in. EPIC, the Equal Pay International Coalition can also provide you with updates. Their target is, “By 2030, achieve full and productive employment and decent work for all women and men, including for young people and persons with disabilities, and equal pay for work of equal value.”

It could also be worth having an employment lawyer if you’re a big organization. They can inform you of your obligations and offer the best advice on how to approach them. While the HR team should be aware of the laws, advice from legal counsel could be more accurate and save you from undesirable situations.

Reviewing & Updating

One of the best ways to review your company data is through salary surveys. This allows you to benchmark and compare your compensation structures to those of other companies. Doing so will identify areas of inequity or pay gaps you may have missed. Additionally, salary surveys can help you decide on competitive pay rates that complement the size and location of the company within its industry.

Whenever you make any changes, update your employee handbook. You could do this biannually or annually. Discuss what you update in regular meetings with the whole team. A major step in achieving pay equity is learning from mistakes and rectifying issues as soon as they arise. You can’t stay up to date with trends and best practices if you’re not willing to make changes on the go.

The Rewards of Pay Equity

When you realize how much work goes into achieving and managing pay equity, it can be easy to turn and run. The thing is, if you’re an organization that wants to remain competitive and grow in today’s job market – it’s vital to care about pay equity. This will have an impact on your retention rates, the talent you attract, and even consumer loyalty.

The rewards of pay equity go beyond the employee. Of course, it is the morally right thing to do by them. Comparable work deserves fair and equitable compensation. And yes, there are legislative obligations. But pay equity also serves employers. We can see how ‘cancel culture’ is ruining the reputation of individuals and companies who ignore social responsibilities.

If keeping up to date with pay equity trends and best practices can help your organization grow, it’s an easy decision.