The fight between equal pay and unbiased hiring has been going on for ages. The gender pay gap is highly relevant, especially for female employees. It is upsetting that females, who make up around fifty per cent of the world population, are often undermined and not paid at par compared to men. This pay gap exists and has been in practice over the past centuries.
As per a survey by the World Economic Forum, it would take at least a hundred and seventy years to close this gap if recruiters start today. Companies must break down the gender stereotypes for female candidates to establish gender balance. Human resource management can reduce this gender gap, right from the hiring process, by removing bias in the salary ranges between genders.
Why does Gender Gap exost in Salary Pay?
The primary contributing factor to this gap is bias. Gender discrimination is prevalent among males and females and is also seen among women of colour. Let’s look at a few reasons this gap still exists today.
1. Bias in Hiring
Most recruiters avoid hiring female employees, especially if there is more labour work involved. The company’s human resource management must eliminate the process of asking salary history questions altogether. Rather, the employee’s current salary must be based on their talent, expertise, and job description. This is an ideal way to eliminate the gender wage gap and establish gender equality.
2. Salary Negotiations
Another contributing factor to the gender wage gap is salary negotiation during interviews. Most HR professionals try to undermine the candidate during the negotiation process and take a step back from offering fair salaries. Instead of reducing the salary structure, human resource management must show salary transparency to the candidate, irrespective of their gender.
3. Affordability Gap
Most companies refrain from allotting certain types of work to women, for instance, field trips and home visits. This is because the company is liable for any harm caused to its employees during work hours. Thus, they are in a fix and need to hire male candidates, which disturbs the male-female ratio of the company and creates an affordability gap. Therefore, the company hires more male candidates than required, creating a gender pay gap.
How does Gender Gap pay affect the company?
The gender gap is prevalent in major organisations’ working cultures worldwide. Women often feel oppressed and biased by the male community and, in turn, dislike the organisation. Wage gaps hurt the employees severely, as it is a way of telling them that something is essentially lacking in them. However, the only thing lacking is women candidates’ ability not to be men.
Here are some ways the gender pay gap affects the company in the long run.
1. Performance
When employees feel undervalued, they intend to pay less attention to what’s happening in the company. They merely look for ways to complete the assigned work and leave the office premises. Since they are less interested in the company, they quit thinking beyond the horizon. This reduces the company’s overall performance, as the employees are not interested in their work.
On the other hand, employees who feel valued by the company are interested in uplifting the company and bringing success to it.
2. Retention
Retention refers to the number of employees who continue staying with the company for longer. The company requires the HR managers to put in a lot of time and effort during the hiring and recruitment process. Moreover, there is no guarantee on how these candidates will perform once they join the company. There is a constant back and forth and a huge risk involved while hiring new candidates. By reducing the gender gap, women, too, shall be able to reach higher positions.
3. Employer Branding
When the company sets foot in the market to hire new candidates or while creating brand value, the employees of the company are its face. Employer branding is an important and major contributing factor to the company. People can easily judge what must be happening within the organisation by looking at their employees.
Employees who feel valued and loved by the company shall be more interested in the company and shall always talk about the welfare of the company. When both men and women represent the company, it creates a better impression in the market.
How can Recruiters Aid in closing Gender Pay Gap?
The recruiters, or the company’s human resource management, play a major role in narrowing or closing the gender pay gap. This is because recruiters make the major decisions while hiring candidates for the company. HR decides who to hire and the salary structure during the hiring process. Eliminating bias at this stage and offering an ideal salary to talented women can help reduce the gender pay gap. Here are some steps HRs can introduce to the organisation.
1. Eliminate Questions about Salary History
When a recruiter asks candidates about their salary history and previous job experiences, they aim to understand their job profile and salary structure in the previous company. HR offers them their current positions and salary structure based on this range. However, this only promotes unfair practices.
It is highly possible that the candidate was underpaid or overburdened with work. Organisations must not use the previous company as a criterion for judging the candidate. Rather, focus on their skills and knowledge while offering a job position and salary structure.
2. Adjust any existing Gender Pay Gap
If human resource management finds inequitable salaries between the two genders, they must immediately understand the pay gap. Further, adjusting this pay wage gap is necessary to establish uniformity throughout the company. This helps identify employees as per their values and skills, thereby improving the company culture.
3. Conduct Training Programs
To run a profitable company, it is essential that all employees of the completely feel equally important. In places where gender bias exists, employees feel biased and not worth themselves. This lowers self-esteem and is a big drawback for the company.
Conducting training programs can help employees understand the value of healthy work culture, for it also helps restore gender bias. Employee negotiation training and unconscious bias training are the two programmes that management positions must take care of.
4. Healthy Work Culture
The importance of a happy and healthy work culture cannot be determined using mere words. It is indeed the essence of a growing company where human resource management doesn’t have to work tediously toward the retention of employees. Instead, people would like to be a part of such a company that brings them joy and happiness. This is only possible if the company values employees and understands that they are a legitimate factor for success.
5. Reversing Expectations
Simple changes in the recruitment process by the recruiting industry of the company can alter the entire process. For instance, eliminating questions about salary history can help reduce bias set by the previous employer. Accepting women to leadership roles in the company’s main structure is another factor to be considered. Hiring HR managers for the representation of women can also help in the long run.
Wrapping Up
As the world progresses, it is high time that companies and their human resource management begin identifying employees as employees, not as males and females. It is important for the company’s success that its employees feel valued and wish to continue staying with it. At the end of the day, the company’s success depends on its backbones, that is, its employees. Reducing and eliminating the gender pay gap is a way to ensure employee satisfaction. Be the change to see the change.
To know more about how to improve the human resource management of your company and take a step closer to the company’s success, check out SumHR. SumHR is a leading company catering to all your company’s HR needs.
