Ensuring Equal Pay

Are You Paying Men and Women Equally?

While the new salary history bans being put in place across the country are designed to close the gender pay gap at the hiring stage, employers should take a close look at how current employees are paid as well.

According to a recent Pew study, “American women earn 82 cents for every dollar earned by men”, and at larger companies, women may be receiving only half of what the company pays men.

To close the gender pay gap at your firm, Inc. outlines four steps employers can take to ensure all workers are being paid fairly, regardless of gender:

1. Pay Audit
Inc. recommends creating an “organizational flow chart” so you can accurately compare positions. This should involve a review of current salaries, as well as a look at recent promotions and raises.

2. Transparency
Recent students show that men are more likely to negotiate salary offers, so Inc. suggests disclosing salary ranges during the interview process to avoid paying women less. This also includes benefits, such as 401(k) matches and vacation time.

3. Promotions
Referred to as the “position gap”, many companies may start out paying similar salaries to men and women, but find themselves promoting more men. To avoid this, Inc. recommends training managers to avoid “implicit bias” when reviewing employees for promotions.

4. Repeat
It can be easy to review the above once and feel the issues are addressed, however Inc. encourages employers to regularly review salaries, promotions, and benefits to ensure pay equity remains. This is particularly important during times of growth.

For more tips on closing the pay gap at your company, please click here.


The information included in this blog post originally appeared in an article in Inc. in June 2018, written by Helaine Olen.

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