Just 36% of managers have received pay equity training, survey finds

The gender pay gap is still a prevalent issue in the workforce. Women in the US earn just 84 cents for every dollar men earn overall, while Black and Latinx women earn just 69 and 57 cents on the dollar, respectively, compared to white, non-Hispanic men.

As a result, 75% of HR professionals conduct regular pay audits to help identify inequities, according to a December survey by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM). But mitigating pay inequities will likely involve more than just audits. In fact, it may require change from company leadership.

Survey says. Nine in 10 HR pros surveyed said they’ve been trained to make business-related pay decisions. And while 48% of respondents reported receiving training to properly document pay decisions and on the importance of pay equity, only about 40% said that was true of senior leaders, and only 36% said managers had been trained, too.

When managers and senior leaders receive the same pay equity training as HR, they can work in tandem to close the pay equity gaps they uncover at their organizations, Emily Dickens, SHRM chief of staff and head of government affairs and corporate secretary, told HR Brew.

Start early. The quickest way to catch a gap is to conduct a pay audit every time a new hire is brought on, Dickens suggested. This can help an organization determine if a new employee is being offered a salary that might create inequities for their colleagues. If that is the case, HR, senior leaders, and managers can team up to address it.

“I’m on our executive team, but I’m also a people manager,” Dickens told HR Brew. “Every time I hire a new person in one of my divisions I do a pay audit and I spend time with HR looking across the scene.”

A solution may be to immediately increase the salary of any impacted employee. But sometimes that’s not feasible, Dickens said. Should the company’s budget not allow for an immediate increase, a small pay bump to hold the employee over could be an option. If not, HR should be transparent with the employee, she added, so they know there is an issue, and that a solution to address it is in the pipeline.