By Kimberly Kafafian

3-15-22

Today is Equal Pay Day. For those who don’t know the significance of this day, in essence the date marks how far into the year women must work to earn what men earned in the previous year. Why do we mark this measurement? It’s because for every $1.00 a white male earns:

• White women make $.79
• Black women make $.64
• Hispanic women make $.57

With it being March 15th, that means that women on average had to work an additional 2.5 months to make up for the pay gap! The fact that in 2022 women still have to work so much more than a man to earn the same pay evokes a range of emotions: sadness, anger and shock. In 2021, the date was March 24th, so I guess we’ve made some sort of progress. But according to a new Pew Research Center report that advancement must be minimal. It found that the gender gap in pay has remained relatively stable in the U.S. over the past 15 years or so, with women earning only 84% of what men earned. 

Explanations for the Gap in Pay Equity

According to the Pew Research report, much of the pay gap is attributed to educational discrepancies, occupational segregation and work experience. Although the number of women in higher-paying professional and managerial positions that were traditionally dominated by men has increased, women are still overrepresented in lower-paying occupations which don’t require higher education. These education and segregation explanations are supported by other research. PayScale’s Gender Pay Gap Report for 2021 noted that without controlling for factors such as education and occupation, women make only $.82 for every dollar a man makes. When comparing job title, years of experience, education, industry, location and other compensable factors, women in the controlled group make $0.98 for every $1.00 a man makes. So these two factors have a huge impact on the pay gap.

The experience factor impacts all education and occupation levels. Let’s face it, most women are the default parent.  As such, many women leave the workforce to be the main family caregiver. This interruption in career path has a significant impact on long-term earning potential. And the pandemic has only compounded the problem. Shutdowns pushed women in front-line positions out of the workforce forcing an experience gap. Even professionals who could work remotely took a hit to their careers as they had to leave their jobs for childcare reasons when schools closed. Right now, women’s participation in the labor force is at a 33-year low as more women take on caretaker roles.  This staggering statistic is underscored by a MetLife poll which found that 48% of respondents believe the pandemic negatively impacted their careers, with one in five saying they were pushed out of the workforce altogether.

The Pay Gap’s Impact on Lifetime Income Puts it All Into Perspective

Just think about those extra 2.5 months women need each year to catch up to their male counterparts. Now, add that up into years over a lifetime. If men and women retired at the same age, after working the same number of years, consider how much more income a man would have earned. It can be hundreds of thousands of dollars! In fact, according to a study by Lean In, women lost an average of $406,280 over the lifetime because of the pay gap. 

How Can We Reach Gender Pay Equity?

Despite all the gains, there’s still so much that needs to be done to erase the gap. One initiative that’s making strides is pay transparency. More and more jurisdictions are requiring proactive pay scale disclosure, which will hopefully narrow the wage discrepancies. But women need to be proactive as well. They should become knowledgeable of average salaries and seek higher pay when negotiating salaries and pay raises. As an HR professional, I know employers need to take significant actions. They must eradicate gender discrimination in the workplace and do a better job with their DEIB initiatives. Companies should also proactively promote parental and family leave for all genders so that the impact on careers is more balanced. Leaders need to take the lead here, such as the case with Twitter’s CEO, who after only three months on the job is taking parental leave. Working together is what will make the difference.

By Kimberly Kafafian

I started my HR career in compensation. Part of my responsibility at that time was to market price entire departments to ensure external competitiveness. I remember how bizarre – and deeply bothersome – it was to focus on external competitiveness while being forced to ignore the disparate pay levels between men and women within the same department. In every department, there was always one “outlier” – someone who made a tremendous amount more than the rest of their peers. And yes, that person was always a white male.

Despite the fact that women have earned more bachelor’s degrees than men since 1982, more master’s degrees than men since 1987, and more doctorate degrees than men since 2006, the gender wage gap continues. One strategy to bring about pay equality that’s gaining momentum is pay transparency. As an HR professional, I’ve witnessed this become one of the fastest growing topics in my profession. Why? Because not only does pay transparency work to close the gap across many industries, occupations and positions, it also supports regulatory compliance and offers other key benefits to the organization overall – including leverage during the Great Resignation.

Proof that Pay Transparency Pays Off

Compensation data and software firm PayScale released a report based on 1.6 million responses about compensation over a two-year period. According to its findings, pay transparency works across the majority of industries, occupations and job levels. It found:

• When respondents agree that there is pay transparency in their organization, the gender wage gap vanishes for women doing similar jobs as men, provided all compensable factors are adjusted
• There are a few notable exceptions where pay does not quite equalize across industries: retail and customer service, accommodation and food services, arts/entertainment/ recreation, transportation and warehousing 
• There are also some exceptions across occupations: construction and extraction, sales and related, food preparation and serving related, production, installation/maintenance/ repair, protected services – which tend to be male dominated jobs
• A gender gap is still evident at the director and executive levels

Despite the discrepancies, adopting transparent pay is one step toward pay equality.

Salary Disclosure Laws Help to Push Transparency

In my generation, along with previous generations, talking about how much money you make has been taboo. And companies traditionally have held this information close to the vest. So, your counterparts’ salaries were pretty much a mystery. But now with the internet, salary information is right at our fingertips from sites like Glassdoor and LinkedIn. You can even find it on social media. Today, discussing salary with your co-workers is protected by law, and more and more states are enacting laws that allow job seekers to know a position’s pay range when they interview. While this can help with salary negotiation, for pay transparency to work, it needs to come directly from the organizations themselves. 

Many organizations, however, feel trepidation about taking such a leap and have pushed back against transparency afraid of employee disputes. But in some states they have no choice. Pay transparency laws are popping up all over the country. The trend started in California back in 2018, when the golden state required employers to provide external applicants with the pay scale if it was requested and the first interview was complete. Similar laws have been enacted in Maryland, as well as Cincinnati and Toledo, Ohio. Washington passed a version of the law, but expanded it to include internal applicants upon request after the initial offer. 

In time, pay scale disclosures laws started requiring proactive actions. Connecticut employers must provide the salary range to external candidates at offer and current employees at role change or upon request. In Nevada, employers must provide the range to current employees interviewing for new roles and external applicants post-interview or upon request.

New York City is going even further by requiring employers with at least four New York City employees to include the minimum and maximum salary on all job postings.

For jurisdictions where the disclosures aren’t mandatory, it’s up to HR teams to make leadership see their benefits of adopting a transparent pay process.

Pay Transparency Brings Benefits Beyond Closing the Gender Wage Gap

When organizations adopt pay transparency, they realize additional benefits that HR teams should bring to their attention to bring them on board:

• Regulatory compliance with the Fair Labor Standards Act and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which can help protect against lawsuits
• When organizations commit to a compensation strategy that values employees, they make themselves more attractive to top talent and enhance employee engagement, in turn boosting retention rates and profits
• According to a LinkedIn report, the professionals that practice pay transparency found that it makes the hiring process more efficient by streamlining negotiations and that it helps ensure fair pay among race and gender

Pay transparency isn’t enough on its own to eradicate the gender wage gap, but it can have a significant impact. 

By Kimberly Kafafian

Candidates have control of the labor market right now. Full stop. Between COVID and the Great Resignation, the playing field has entirely changed and employees are no longer beholden to their employers. The circumstances of the last two years have employees at all levels, across all sectors and industries, rethinking their options and leaving their jobs in droves. When it comes to employees deciding where they’ll land next, they are being incredibly selective, and doing lots of research on companies and their cultures before even applying for a position. One of the candidates we recently worked with had turned down multiple offers, from October to January, until she found exactly what she wanted, with whom she wanted. All this being said, the importance of employer branding, now more than ever. Regardless of size or number of employees, organizations need to understand how they’re perceived as an employer, how that perception is impacting attracting and retaining the right talent, and the actions they need to take to build a visible, positive reputation.

The Stats Speak for Themselves

Last April, Glassdoor released an article titled The Most Important Employer Branding Statistics to Know. The findings they culled speak volumes as to why focusing on branding is so important for organizations in today’s climate. Here are just a few eye-opening numbers:

• 86% of employees and job seekers research company reviews and ratings to decide where to apply for a job (Glassdoor/Harris poll)
• 75% of active job seekers are likely to apply to a job if the company actively manages its employer brand (Glassdoor survey)
• 68% of Millennials, 54% of Gen-Xers, and 48% of Boomers indicated they visit employer’s social media channels specifically to evaluate the employer’s brand (CareerArc study)

What does your brand say about your culture? Is your brand even visible online? These are questions HR & Marketing departments need to be asking right now if they want to successfully navigate today’s labor crisis. Branding is how you’re going to stand out from the competition during the research phase of the job search. 

What Exactly Is Employer Branding?

To put it simply, employer branding is the perception employees and potential employees have of a company. In essence, it speaks to a company’s desirability and its ability to attract and retain talent.

Employer branding all comes down to defining and positioning who you are as an organization at every touchpoint:

• Website career page
• Social media channels
• Job postings
• Review sites like Glassdoor
• Employees
• Communication with candidates

Why Employer Branding Is so Important

To be honest, employer branding takes effort, but the outcome is so worth it. It just might be your best weapon in the war for talent. Here are a few of the benefits businesses experience as a result of powerful employer branding:

• 50% more qualified applicants (LinkedIn)
• 28% reduction in turnover (LinkedIn)
• 50% reduction on cost-per-hire (LinkedIn)

And now, let’s look at the inverse. These stats shed light on what you have to lose if your employer reputation isn’t so great:

• 50% of job candidates wouldn’t work for a company with a bad reputation – even for a pay increase (LinkedIn)
• 86% of women and 67% of men in the United States wouldn’t join a company with a bad reputation (Glassdoor)

While employer branding has been a buzzword for a few years, its gaining even greater importance in recruiting talent in the current climate. 

Stay tuned for our blog on devising a successful employer branding strategy. 

By Kimberly Kafafian

Everywhere we look, businesses of all sizes, and across all industries and locations, are suffering from unprecedented turnover and struggling to attract new talent. With staggering resignation rates and an incredibly tight labor market we couldn’t have imagined two years ago, organizations are currently focusing efforts on cultivating the right culture. As HR Consultants, we work day in and day out with business owners and C-suite leaders to rethink the employee experience and create an employee-centric environment designed around our new work world. After all, research clearly demonstrates the strong connection between culture and engagement, as well as culture and recruitment. But in my experience, this strategy isn’t sufficient on its own to lessen the blows brought on by the mass exodus of workers. We need to get more creative when it comes to recruitment. And one out of the box strategy is to actively pursue retirees. This is something hospitals have been doing since the outbreak of the pandemic, which we think the business world could greatly benefit from emulating.

Today’s Retirees Are Not Idle Workers

You may be thinking to yourself, “Wait, don’t people retire because they wanted to stop working?” Well, yes, some do. Others, however, leave their careers to pursue something different. Or to become consultants. Or to start new businesses. Or to spend significant time volunteering. And some just simply change their minds! The point is many of today’s retirees remain active in the business world. And even of those who don’t, a good percentage would consider being active once again. In fact, a recent survey of retired workers by Resume Builder found that 34% of retirees have considered going back to work because of job opportunities available in the current labor shortage. So, considering this group definitely expands your talent pool.

Benefits of Hiring Retirees

Back in 2019, Josh Bersin and Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic wrote an insightful article titled The Case for Hiring Older Workers. While it was written to offer one solution to the number of job vacancies outnumbering job applicants at the time, I believe it’s extremely apropos for today’s environment. The authors wisely dismiss outdated misconceptions that being older means being “less capable, less able to adapt, or less willing to roll up your sleeves and do something new than your younger peers.” They aptly point out that many people, especially those that had long and meaningful careers, like to work, as it allows you to give back, network with friends, and do something with your intellectual energy. But even more importantly, the authors highlight the benefits organizations gain by hiring older, experienced workers. 

Throughout my decades of work in the HR arena, I have engaged with workers across generations. I believe older workers and retirees can offer so much to an organization, such as:

• Vast knowledge and expertise that only comes from years of work experience
• Competence to be able to take on complex tasks or roles
• Maturity to recognize they have nothing to prove
• Ability to work well in a corporate setting
• Cognitive diversity, which can boost productivity and spark innovation
• Strong work ethic
• Enthusiasm – which can be contagious

While “returnships” typically relate to women returning to the workplace after substantial periods, some companies are using them to invite older workers to come back. With so many amazing benefits, I’m a strong proponent of “retiree returnship”. It will not only help fill current talent needs; it can also make the organization stronger overall.

Ensuring a Successful Returnship

For a retiree returnship to work as envisioned, companies need to create an environment where retirees want to work and where they can thrive. Here are a few suggestions:

• Be flexible in terms of schedule and remote work
• Help retirees adjust back into the workplace with a formalized training process as needed, i.e., new skill sets or technology
• Team retirees with other employees who can answer questions and provide support
• Offer opportunities for mentoring and reverse mentoring
• Promote your corporate culture and purpose in job postings so retirees can get excited about working for your organization
• Provide benefits retirees care about, such as dental plans, vision plans, and other perks

The tight labor market doesn’t show signs of easing any time soon. Recruiting retirees can help companies fill vacancies and build a stronger organization overall.

By Kimberly Kafafian

An essential part of managing employees is addressing performance issues. I admit, even for the most seasoned People Managers and HR professionals, these are not fun conversations. These conversations are, in fact, one of the most challenging aspects of a manager’s role. Because of that, managers quite often (ok, almost always) delay having these discussions. But delaying talking to an employee about their less than positive performance is detrimental to everyone.

Monarch is located in the NY tri-state area and we often commute into Manhattan to meet with clients. Our commute puts us on trains operated by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, or MTA. The MTA has a slogan for commuters: If You See Something, Say Something (which was coined on Sept. 12, 2001). Good performance management is just like that: done in real time. 

All too often, performance problems are brought up for the first time during annual performance reviews. When you wait too long to raise performance concerns, you unleash a host of problems:

• The employee may be under a false impression that they are doing a good job. As an HR professional, I all too frequently hear, “No one has ever said anything to me before about concerns with my performance.” If nothing is mentioned (and more importantly, documented), the employee’s actions may seem acceptable and then the person will see no reason to change. Plus, if you terminate after this one mention at such a late date, you open up the possibility of legal action for unfair dismissal.
• At this point, it is often too late to fix the issues as the unproductive behaviors exhibited by the employee have become commonplace, deteriorating the manager-employee relationship. Said differently, your employee now has an unproductive habit that wasn’t kept in check.
• You missed the opportunity to quickly correct the performance issues, which negatively impacts not only the employee’s performance, but the performance and value of the entire company. The moment you see behavior that needs correction, correct it. Let’s face it, People Managers, that’s part of your J-O-B.

Discuss Performance Issues with Employees

When they First Arise

Hoping that the employee’s performance issues will go away is wishful thinking. If no one told the employee that there was an issue, how would they know they should work on it? You need to have a discussion with the employee as soon as you are aware of the performance problem. Here are some reasons why it’s so important to do so:

1. It ensures that the manager and the employee are in sync of what is expected.
2. It helps the employee better understand what is needed for good performance.
3. It provides an opportunity for the employee to correct the issue.
4. A quick resolution leads to better outcomes for the organization overall as the issue could also be hindering the work of colleagues or subordinates.
5. Providing regular feedback, both positive or negative, helps build better working relationships and trust.
6. Giving feedback in smaller doses, more frequently, can help employees maximize their strengths and grow.
7. It ensures that the feedback is current and in context, rather than out of date and irrelevant.
8. During the annual performance review, there should be NO surprises. Both of you should be going into this conversation on a level playing field. 

Nobody likes having tough conversations, but it’s important not to put them off. And honestly, the more often you have these conversations, the easier they become. Frank and timely discussions with employees about their performance problems can help them improve, which is good for the employee, good for the employer, and good for their relationship.