4 Companies That Publicly Claim to Pay Women Equally

Depending on the study, women make as little as 77% to 82% as men at the same job, when canceling out for similar experience and qualifications. On average that equates to $11,000 less a year.

Read: Women Still Don’t Make as Much As Men

The CEO of Salesforce.com recently captured the headlines when he said that they were taking a close look at all 16,000 employee salaries to ensure that men and women at the company were being paid equally. Salesforce CEO Mark Benioff calls pay the “third rail.”

save saving bill moneySome careers are more equal than others. While pay for pharmacists is much closer to equal, pay for women working jobs in retail and real estate tends to far more unequal.

But Salesforce.com isn’t the only company that has taken a hard look at its internal pay data.

The Gap

In 2014, in a move that surprised many, Gap Inc. disclosed publicly that it paid men and women equally for the same jobs. Gap Inc. is also the parent company to Old Navy, Banana Republic, Piperlime and Athleta.

shutterstock_192812690Gap also has more women working for the company than men. 70% of Gap’s workforce is female. Taking the pay gap out makes sense for the store, as it stronger solidifies the relationship it has with its workforce. CEO Glenn Murphy said in an interview with Buzzfeed that they were trying to bring more transparency to pay practices.

Raytheon

A military contractor with a small percentage of female engineers might not sound like the place to find gender pay parity, but according to government audits and Raytheon’s findings, they pay equally across gender. Raytheon also participates in the Boston Women’s Workforce Council, where a number of companies voluntary submit their pay data to help build information about how women and men are paid in the Boston area.

All isn’t quite sunshine at Raytheon. According to a NY Times article at least one female engineer said the male dominated culture inside the company made it hard to get ahead.

Raytheon, as well as many other companies that do business with the US government, will be under more scrutiny in the years ahead as the US government now requires companies that do business with the government to report wage data to the US government.

Microsoft

Photo via Flickr user Jacoplane/Wikipedia

Photo via Flickr user Jacoplane/Wikipedia

Microsoft’s new CEO Satya Nadella noted in October that Microsoft paid women within half a percent variation of men. Nadella said he asked the HR department to look at all pay carefully.

While he did say pay was equal, he admitted that Microsoft still had a ways to go in equal treatment.

The news that Microsoft paid equally was largely lost in the furor behind people finding out at the time that Nadella made $84 million for his own pay package, though CEO pay inflation is not unique to Microsoft.

While there are more companies studying their gender pay disparities, very few like the above have come forward. No doubt worries about lawsuits and bad publicity fuel that decision. The process of openly creating equal pay is a tough one. In Canada, McGill University began a multi-year process to change the pay gap. It some cases it lead to the University paying years of ‘lost wages’ to some employees (something one doubts Salesforce.com will be doing) and struggling to figure out the formulas and right ways to fairly change a whole institution’s pay practices.

Sources:

Pharmacist: Most Equal Job For Men And Women – AOL Jobs

$84 million Microsoft CEO: We pay women equally – CNN Money

Vigilant Eye on Gender Pay Gap – NY Times

Gap, In Unusual Move, Discloses Men And Women Are Paid Equally – Buzzfeed

Salesforce CEO Takes Radical Step To Pay Men And Women Equally – Huffington Post Business

Obama To Sign Executive Orders On Equal Pay – Huffington Post Politics