Google recently conducted a study to determine if the company paid less to women and members of minority groups. To the surprise of almost everyone, she discovered that men were paid less than women who did similar work.
The study, which led to the disproportionate increase in the salary of thousands of men, is carried out every year, but the most recent findings occurred now that Google and other companies in Silicon Valley face increasing pressure to solve gender problems in space. labor, from sexual harassment to wage discrimination.
Gender inequality is a radioactive issue in Google
The US Department of Labor is investigating whether the company pays women less in a systematic way. There are former employees who have sued the company, claiming they were paid less than men who had the same training. In addition, last year, thousands of Google employees were against the way in which the company faces the sexual harassment accusations of top executives.
Detractors said that the results of the salary study could give a false impression. The representatives of the company acknowledged that it was not addressed if women were hired with a lower salary category than men with similar training.
“Flawed and incomplete sense of equity”
Google seems to be adopting a “flawed and incomplete sense of equity” by making sure men and women receive similar salaries for similar jobs, said Joelle Emerson, executive director of Paradigm, a consulting firm that advises companies on strategies to increase diversity. This approach does not mean addressing the problem of the lack of “equality”, he said, because it would be necessary to analyze the structural obstacles that women face as engineers.
Google has refused to pay women less and accepted that the compensation between similar positions was not in itself an integral measure of equity. A more difficult issue to resolve – one that, according to detractors, Google often attends inadequately in the case of women – is a human resource concept called stabilization. Are employees assigned the appropriate salary category according to their training?
The company said that it is currently trying to address the problem
“Since stabilization, performance indices and promotions affect salary, this year we are conducting a comprehensive review of these processes in order to make sure that the results are fair and equitable for all employees,” he wrote on Monday. a blog post Lauren Barbato, lead analyst for salary equality and human resources analysis at Google.
To establish an employee’s salary, Google starts with an algorithm that uses factors such as performance, location and employment. Afterwards, managers can consider subjective factors: do they believe that the employee has a solid future in the company? Are you receiving a salary equal to that of colleagues who contribute in a similar way? Managers must justify their decisions.
Although the pay raise is useful, Google’s detractors say it does not come close to what a woman would earn if she had been assigned the appropriate salary category from the start.
Kelly Ellis, her word
Kelly Ellis, an ex-Google and one of the claimants for gender pay inequality against the company, said in a court statement that Google had hired her in 2010 as a level three employee – the category for new software engineers who are recent college graduates- despite their four years of experience. In a matter of a few weeks, an engineer who had also graduated from college four years earlier was hired on Ellis’ team-as a level four employee. That implied that he would receive a higher salary and that he had more opportunities to obtain bonuses, raises and compensation of shares, according to the demand. Other men on the team whose training was equal to or less than their own were also hired as level four employees, according to the lawsuit.
The accusation could become a class action lawsuit on behalf of more than 8300 employees and former employees.
The salary survey covered 91 percent of Google employees and compared compensation – wages, bonuses and company stock – according to job type, job level, performance and location.
Google pointed out that it was not possible to compare the situation of racial minorities in terms of wage adjustments because the United States is the only place in which the global company tracks the racial background of employees.
In response to the study, Google gave 9.7 million dollars in additional compensation to 10,677 employees for this year
Men make up about 69 percent of the company’s workforce, but they received a higher percentage of the money. It is not known what is the exact number of men who obtained increases.
The company has conducted the study every year since 2012. At the end of 2017, it adjusted the salaries of 228 employees with a total combined amount of around $ 270,000. This year, new recruits were included in the analysis for the first time; Google said that probably explains the big change in the numbers.