Woman getting paid less than men equals

Riley

I am new to HR and the organization that I work for so all of your advice would be helpful and appreciated.

This morning I got curious and looked up the salaries of each of our 4 office managers of which only one is female. Just as I thought, her salary is considerably less than her three male counterparts, even the om who has only been with the company a year. She has been employeed since 1994. The other two have been here since 89 and 92. I know experience counts, but shouldn't she be making more than the rookie? She has had no discipline problems.

I am a feminist throu and throu. This kind of thing makes my blood boil. I am biting my toungue waiting for the right, and responsible things to come to mind. Do any of you have any advice on how to let my boss know we are sexually discriminating against this woman?

Don D

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 10-02-02 AT 11:47AM (CST)[/font][p]If you are feminist through and through, then you are prone to jump to conclusions when presented with appearances of sexist evil, right? Hold on. There may be a perfectly reasonable and legal explanation for what you have found. Assuming you have a right to the information in the first place, I suggest you approach your supervisor and simply ask "Is there some reason why Mary's salary is so disproportionate to John's? Aren't they in the same position, her with more time than he?" That'd probably be a better approach than a jack booted demand, not that you would do that. P.S. The typical H.R. hatrack contains many hats, but I don't think there's a 'feminist' hat there. A Human Resources professional has ideals, standards and integrity and promotes fairness, objectivity and good practice. Feminism, by definition, is an agenda. An agenda doesn't usually work well in H.R. I suggest you park your agenda at the door.

ritaanz

I see all 4 have the same title of Office Manager. Do they have the same responsibilities? I have several Unit Managers. Their salaries are all quite different. That's because the scope of responsibilities is very different, the working environment in some cases is unpleasant (to put it mildly), the degree of financial damage or loss can be substantially more or less and the compexity of the work varies from routine to highly complex.

You said you were new to HR and the organization. Perhaps the job descriptions
may answer your questions.

ritaanz

Oh, I should add, I am of the female gender originaly from New Jersey, home of male chauvinist p - -.

Paul in Cannon Beach

Riley,

Interesting question. I hope you can provide some additional details regarding job duties, experience etc. Its possible that the newer office manager came in with a higher degree of experience and his salary simply reflects that.

On the other hand, if the jobs are equal, experience roughly equal, and the disparity can't be explained by any other relevant factors then I think you have a potential problem which should be addressed.

Tread carefully though. Don't alienate yourself from the top dogs by appearing to be the judge and jury on a decision that they made. Margaret calls those CLE (career limiting events).

Passion is good but not at the expense of your credibility, relationships with co-workers and superiors, and your career. I cringe at the memory of some things I did and said early in my career because I had more passion than knowledge.

Gillian

Differences in pay are created by different reasons only one of which is illegal - is this person paid less because she is female? Differences can be created by more experience, different but valuable experience, education, productivity etc etc. The difference that you have noticed is the start. Now you have to look for the reasons. Starting with discrimination may take you down the wrong road, not to mention the problems that might create with your bosses.

Riley

First of all, Don D, if I had a feminist agenda, I would not have went into HR. I didn't take this job to advance all women and bash all men. I took this job because I thought it was challenging and interesting with lots of opportunities, not to promote my feminist ideals (I save that for after hours)! Although I thought about leading a take over of the world by women!

All four ees job descriptions are the same. The male only has one year of experience, hired straight out of college while the woman has been with the co since 1994. This is what caught my attention. I am doing some more digging to see if I can resolve my suspicions before I bring this to the CEO (my boss).

Thanks for all your help and advice!

Don D

Riley, my dear, Shelve the idea of starting a take-over-the-world-by-women movement. You may have been out of the room; that has already been done with large success. Seriously, think about this though: What if I told you I was a racist or sexist, but only after work? :-?

franfields

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 10-02-02 AT 02:12PM (CST)[/font][p]With fear of being chastised again by the group x:-8, I have to put in my two cents worth anyway.

It struck me as somewhat unprofessional for an HR person to start out by saying that they "got curious and looked up the salaries of each of our 4 office managers". If you had said, "In order to determine if salaries/ranges were properly aligned/fair/appropriate/whatever at the managerial level ...." I could understand your comparing salaries and I would have felt comfortable with your motives.

My advise to you if you want to stay in the profession and be effective is learn to put your personal curiosity and biases aside.

PS How about opening up your user profile?

ritaanz

Fran, that's odd. I looked at Riley's profile too. Nada. Good question!

Gillian

The female has been there since the early 90's and the new person was hired out of college. That is an interesting piece of information and could be the source of an equal pay violation, after you have done your homework, of course. It is not unusual for females to be promoted into professional positions from clerical roles. They get a raise and everyone is happy. Meanwhile, new employees straight out of college are hired into the same professional position at whatever the going rate is for new college graduates. The college graduate rate is usually higher. Unfortunately, the wage disparity does not close because no one thinks about it. Pay raises occur on the regular schedule, everyone gets the normal merit increase and the pay disparity remains. None of this is intentional, it just happens. In these types of situations where the jobs are really the same we should be making sure that the pay disparity closes.

Pork

Riley, could it be that the one (1) female equal office manager out of four office managers is YOU? I ask, because I know of no other office manager in any organization in which I have been employed and a designated manager with the type of information in payroll and personnel records where your information came from other than the HR position. If that is the case then "Dandy Don's" words of advise is right on. Park your hidden agenda on the side, and receive good advise with your posting. The issue you raised in your company is correct there is law that protects against discrimination of women from opportunity for advancement and equal pay for equal work. It is the equal work definition and truth that requires quality research and careful presentation "at the right moment" or you could receive the heat from your boss and a social and professional "shutdown" by your peers.

Given that it is not you, then again go carefully for there is no way to protect the innocent female office manager who may be happy with her circumstance and would catch the raft of your heat for opening the issue. Her peers and your boss will immediately assume and believe she complained. You might get the issued squared for now, but there are more roads to travel next day, next week, and next year; I would bet "if a Robin weighs 5lbs, everyone will agree the Robin is FAT". The female manager will need to move to the top position very quickly or else a reorganization is or will occur and guess who's position has been gobbled up by the other three office managers and the CEO, your boss.

When you say there are four office managers, are there four seperate branchs and your are clling them equally office managers, when they are actually branch managers? In 25 years I have never seen an organization with 4 office managers under the same roof. 4 department heads: operations, financial, personnel,logistics & transportation, would be an example! Tell us more details and we might give you some real meet to chew on. I'm coming back to this post in about 30 minutes for it is going to grow from here, so sit back and enjoy the chatter. Pork

Riley

I am sorry for the misleading words, I did not "Just become curious on a whim" I was preparing the report for wage increases as these will take effect in December and we go through several drafts. I was updating wages on a spreadsheet when I came to this woman's salary (it is not me). I had noticed some decrepencies in the way she was treated (different from other office managers), not given speacial projects, talked down upon, not in on meetings other OM's were in on. I wanted to see if this was just personality differences between peers or part of the company culture. I was going to have to update the other three sometime, so I would have seen them anyway. At first glance, my suspicsions are correct, but their are probably, as many of you have stated, other factors to consider. I am not going to bring up until the apprpriate time, and only if I find it necessary. Like Pork said, the lady could be happy with the position and salary she has. I do not want to cause her any discontent.

My profile is active now, I did not know it wasn't. Sorry.

Pork- we call them office managers because we have four different feed yards, they manage the office of that yard. It is common in the cattle industry to call the "branch manager" the office manager.

Don D- I don't know what to say except, I am sorry you are a racist and sexist in your spare time.(Joking) I look at it this way. I am a Christian, but I don't work with the Christian radio station blaring. I am a Catholic, but I don't have a statue of the Virgin Mary on my desk. I am a Democrat, but I don't hang rally signs in my office. I am a feminist, but I don't come to work angry at every man because they have a different body make up than I do. If I am going to be active in my beleifs I will do it after 5:00. I cannot say these beleifs will not influence my everday life, but I strive to look at everything with an OPEN mind.

franfields

Riley, Thanks for the clarification. I now understand your motives and intent. You go girl!

Pork

Riley, GO GAL!!! "Dandy Don" go lightly here we got'us a sassy cat on the other side! I am with you: I have 11 of these types that run 11 different operations all producing the exact same product "out the back door". They are paid from $30,000 annually to $42,000.00, annually. They all have a budget to live with and the same number of employees. Presently, we do not have a woman OM but we are looking and have two trainees on board and developing. When they get there they will get the first years salary like all the men have done $30,000.00 in the first year. with the very same $15,000.00 objective bonus award. The women will advance in salary just like the men have by taking troubled farms and straightening them out or receive an equal increase like the men do. I have Master Degreed OMs, BA/BS Degreed OM, one graduate of "parchman" ( Dandy Don will know that shool of hard knocks), one high school graduate, 1 female service manager who was a successful O/M and raised to inspector level and now has become a wage earner in the office after medical problems. Hopefully, she will someday return to the OM position because she was the strongest of the lot. I hope this is a more pleasing response. GO GURL, Pork

Sunny

Riley: I advise caution. You say you are new to the position and Company. How new? If you have an Equal Pay issue here you will need to address it, but jumping in with both feet may not be the best way.
Remember, you work for the Company and any action you take should be in its best interest as well as the best interest of the employees. Hopefully the two will be close most of the time. If you feel the Company is deliberately being unethical you should be prepared to leave what you can't change. But I certainly would obtain more information before I acted.

Pork

Riley, While you are looking also include your supervisor level and your handlers. I found there was an obvious difference between my cowgirls and cowboys doing the same supervision of three handlers. The girls were making more on the average than the guys. When researched, I found the OMs gave greater credit for their work in the overall process. Well I set out to get it more even and have through the Production Manager been able to influence the action and now have an established base of $9.00 per hour in the first week. No one gets promoted to a supervisor position until they have completed my 10 module Leadership course. Good Luck, Got to go to church! Pork

vmiller MO

There is an approach you may want to consider. One of the functions of HR is to prevent the company from violating the law. You could point out to the "top management" that there there appears to be possible problem in pay and that you want to make sure that the company has good and clear reasons for the differences. There could be many. You want to do this so that the company is clear why there is a pay difference and not have to reconstruct reasons if challenged later. Further, you want to be in the position to show that the company takes is legal obligations seriously and acted responsibly and "ethically." From experience, it is easier to have the reasons now, then to have to reconstruct (some would say create) them latter.

From a legal point of view, the legal syllogism for a person to make out a case is:

The employe is a woman (could be male)
Women and men in the job performing roughly equivalent duties
Women get paid less than men
Therefore, sex has to be the reason for the difference

The burden then shifts to the company to demonstrate a legitimate, non-discriminatory reason. The other writers have supplied many such reasons.

Please note that my use of the syllogism is not intended to provide a legal opinion on your situation or even to be a comment. It is just to demonstrate how easy it is to articulate a fact pattern that requires the company to advance legitimate, non-discriminatory reasons.

MAF

I have a question. Could the company backlash at the female OM? Will they presume that she is the one who initated the question of pay differences? Be very careful that she doesn't get hurt in your quest to make things right.Just a thought.

Jessica

Hi All,

This is such an interesting conversation I had to throw my two cents in here at the end (middle?). I am constantly impressed by the efforts of folks on the forum to keep our eyes on the ball.

As someone who identifies as "feminist" I am sensitive to throwing the word around because it is often an emotional trigger, and little room is made for the fact that there is no one accurate definition these days. The chances that my identification with that term is in close range to Riley's definition are not great anymore. Are you second wave? Are you third wave? Are those terms familiar? It is sort of like saying "I'm 'political.'" Political in what sense? Why? What do you get out of calling yourself "political"? What does your community get out of that label? How do the choices you make in your life support that distinction? I often think that these days we could look carefully at "feminist" and consider using "humanist" instead to note that there are lots of different ways in which difference is problematic in our society. It is always an interesting exercise to explore where we fall on any continuum, but doesn't always make for effective conversation about what our concerns really are. I applaud everyone for sticking to the conversation and pushing for what could really be going on.

I would like to add one more voice to the question of whether or not this exploration will benefit, in the long run, the employee who may (or may not) be underpaid. The delicate balance of representing company and employee is critical to being effective in the work that we do. That means thought, care, and a constant focus on respect for all the people we work with. It is important to stand up for what is right, and if there is a discrepancy in pay scale based on gender than by all means it is your job to stand up. The trick is to watch where you step when you put your foot down. In these kinds of situations it is so important to stop, breathe, and consider your next choice before proceeding.

If you determine through the kinds of inquiries listed before my post that there is a discrepancy, is there a way to remedy this behind the scenes, saving face for everyone? Is it possible that this is an issue of a long-term employee simply being overlooked? Is that something you can firmly, but gently, draw to the attention of the powers that be? If this is intentional we can often circumvent that intention by presenting the facts, the law, and the only appropriate remedy available to the company.

Best of luck to you, and I look forward to seeing this thread continue as you move forward, and I'm sure we all hope, find resolution.

If I've tripped over my tongue here at all (always likely) I hope one of you will help me back to where I need to be.

Jessica

Don D

Jessica: I have this to say to you. You make too much damned sense to post so infrequently!!! x:-)