The Leaders Championing the Gender Equality at Work Movement

The long history of gender pay inequality dates back to WWI in the early 1900s when women took on men's jobs when they were fighting in the army abroad. During this period, women were expected to work just as hard as men but for less money so they organized several strikes to protest the pay gap. In the 1920s, women mobilized to make equal pay an election issue and were granted the right to vote under The 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. During WW2 and into the 1950s, trade unions and women's organizations raised the issue of equal pay again. Then in 1963, John F. Kennedy amended the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, which set the minimum wage and overtime pay, to abolish wage disparity based on gender. The Equal Pay Act of 1963 was meant to close the gender pay gap, yet 57 years later women are still making less on average than their male counterparts. And, the World Economic Forum predicts that it will take 257 MORE years to fully close because women are in job roles that are most susceptible to automation.

There are many reasons why the gender pay gap still exists today. First, the United States is one of the few countries in the entire world that doesn't mandate maternal (or paternal) leave like Canada, Australia, Brazil, and many others. Second, wage data is private in the U.S. so women can be underpaid without realizing it. Third, recruiters overlook women because of a bias that men are more capable of doing the work. Finally, women are discouraged to pursue jobs like engineering and programming that largely command higher salaries. All of these reasons, and more, are why women earn 85 cents for every one dollar of what men do according to Pew Research Centers' analysis of both full and part-time workers. This is still much better than in 1980 when the gap was 36 cents. Since 1996, we have observed Equal Pay Day, which has been both a symbol and reminder that the pay gap has yet to be closed.

The U.S. lags behind compared to other countries like the UK, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, and France. In 2018, the UK passed a law forcing companies to report the gender pay gap and a breakdown of the proportion of men and women who receive bonuses. In Iceland, companies with more than twenty-five employees have to (by law) obtain a certification of pay equality following their standards outlined in the Equal Pay Standard. In Norway, there's a 40 percent female presence in parliament and business boards, which has trickled down to other positions. Sweden has the best parental leave policy in the world, where new parents are entitled to sixteen months off, which has helped close their gender gap. More recently, in France, there's a new law where companies are required to report their gender pay and if it's not neutral, they face a fine of one percent of their total payroll after three years.

While the U.S. has not caught up to these other countries, there is a lot of hope for the future. The reason why Pew Research reports that younger age groups have smaller gender gaps is because of pay transparency. Young workers are much more open to sharing their pay information publicly with their peers, which has eliminated the stigma that older age groups still hold. A survey found that a third of Millennials have shared their salary information with co-workers, which is four times that of Baby Boomers. Another reason to be optimistic is that women have now become more educated than men and more are breadwinners in their families. There are 2.2 million more women than enrolled in college and women are breadwinners in 40 percent of all U.S. households!

Movements create lasting change, which is why I focused on the champions of the mental health at work movement in a previous article and today, we're talking about the gender equality movement. I feel that spotlighting the courageous, generous and forward-thinking work of a select group of leaders can encourage others to join the movement. I've selected some thoughtful leaders from some of the world's most admired companies that have been vocal about gender equality and have taken some major steps to ensure their workforces close their wage gaps. I spoke to five leaders, whom I'm proclaiming are the "leaders championing the gender equality at work movement", in order to hear their perspectives around topic, how women can rise up to leadership roles (like they have), what their companies are doing to address the problem and their outlook for the future. These leaders include Sara Wechter (Head of Human Resources, Citi), Kim Brycz (Senior Vice President, Global Human Resources, General Motors), Shuchi Sharma (Global Head of Gender Equality & Intelligence, SAP), Deanna Bass (Global Director, Diversity and Inclusion, P&G) and Celeste Warren (Vice President, Global Diversity & Inclusion Center of Excellence, Merck).

Dan Schawbel: Despite how much attention the gender pay gap has received over the past several years, women still earn less than men. Why do you believe this is such a big issue today when the problem has always existed and why hasn’t it been solved yet?

• Sara Wechter: This is a big issue because there are outdated stereotypes and norms that perpetuate the gender pay gap. We’re working to address those that we can to champion gender equality. This is a complex issue, which people often confuse as equal pay for equal work, but it actually is a result of a lack of women in senior positions. At Citi, we are in a good spot for pay, but we still have work to do on our representation. Finding a solution to this issue won’t happen overnight. There is a huge business case for diversity. We know that diverse companies outperform the industry and their competitors. By breaking up homogeneity, employees become more aware of their own potential biases. And research shows that companies with diverse teams are correlated with better decision-making, risk mitigation, creativity, and innovation performance.
• Kim Brycz: There are several things that factor into the gender pay gap. It can’t be solved overnight, especially in large complex organizations. Companies that didn’t make it a priority years ago, starting with the CEO, will have a way to go. GM has been focused on these issues for a long time, and that’s been a key factor in our success.
• Shuchi Sharma: The gender pay gap remains an issue because the bias behind it has become institutionalized in companies' systems, processes, and lack attention through our legal infrastructures. And those who have an interest in changing this state are not occupying enough of the leadership and decision making positions that will ultimately ensure we end the gender wage gap. Yet, that is changing. Today, 13 states have passed laws that make it illegal to require salary history in the job application process. That will only increase. The ERA is on the cusp of being ratified. And companies like SAP, and others are proactively addressing the issue because they know the employees of today and tomorrow expect them to, and in a tight labor market, you can't afford to not address equity and access the best talent. For example, at SAP, we have addressed equal pay for equal work since 2016 and last year conducted a global internal pay audit. See Story here. Smart companies who look at the data on the workforce of the future know that equal pay for equal work is a basic hygiene issue for men and women. 
• Deanna Bass: The pay gap has been a topic of conversation for as long as I can remember. However, there have been several things that have put the topic front and center again. The explosion of the #Metoo and #TimesUp movements have certainly had an impact as well as very high-profile battles such as the US Women’s National Soccer team’s fight for equal pay. These very high-profile situations have put many topics related to gender equality at the forefront. I think the reason that this issue still exists is simply one of choice. Pay equity is a choice of leadership, it is within the remit of any CEO, business owner or industry leader. It may seem more complicated but it’s really not. It may require shoring up systems, such transparency of the pay upon interviewing for a job. It may require working through historical hiring and advancement practices, but it is completely solvable with intentionality and the will of leaders to do it. As P&G, we have been working on this for many years and it is important for us. It is part of our value system. And I hope more companies can role-model in the absence of legislation. 
• Celeste Warren: Discussion is good, but in the absence of actions, it's just a discussion. It's unfortunate that after many years of talking about it, some companies haven't put the right actions in place to address it. The first step is doing the analysis by reviewing the data to determine if there is a disparity when comparing the pay of men versus women. You have to determine where those disparities are in the organization.  What levels do you see disparities, what jobs, what areas or departments within the organization have challenges? You really have to take an analytical approach to get at where the pain points are in the company.  The second step is to determine what the gap is and allocating the financial resources to close the gap. The final step is to understand why the problem exists within your organization. You need to identify the biases and pay practices that exist for employees.  This process should include getting everyone's perspective, including the managers, employees, human resources professionals and the leaders who develop the compensation processes so you can understand the underlying causes and then attack them.

Dan: A recent study by McKinsey and LeanIn.Org concluded that women’s biggest obstacle in the workplace is their first step up to being a manager. What do you think is preventing women from holding management positions and what can companies do to change that?

• Sara: One thing that I’ve noticed in my role leading HR, is that too often the challenges that women face are talked about as women’s issues. We need to change the dialogue and expand the conversation to include everyone. Parental leave is a great example. When I first started in this role, everyone wanted to talk to me about maternity leave. I quickly realized that we need to address leave for all new parents, and encourage men to take the time that the company offers. If every new father took leave, I think we’d see a cultural shift that would create a more level playing field at home and at work. I also think it’s important for employees to see someone they identify with when they look at the company’s leadership table. If you don’t see yourself as a future leader at the company, why would you want to be at the company? I want to ensure employees believe they can grow at our firm and bring their whole selves to work. 
• Kim: The study proves the need to identify diverse leadership potential earlier in their career, so that the first rung on the ladder becomes achievable. You also need diverse interviewers and candidate slates across the board. Then, it’s about having the right tools to assess and develop leadership abilities. All of these things work together to help candidates become ready for the first and second steps, and help their leaders to have meaningful career discussions with them on this path. 
• Shuchi: The first thing companies can do to change this is to critically examine their data. It is surprising but worth noting that many change efforts are often not underpinned by data. Unless organizations know the root cause of the problem, they cannot address it. Second, some of the initiatives which companies can implement to change this are ones we've been testing out and implementing in various geographies - 1) better parental leave policies and benefits. Allowing both mothers and fathers to participate in the care of a newborn builds empathy for the level of work required to care for small children. That empathy goes a long way towards eroding gender stereotypes and norms in the workplace that make it tough to balance work and family. 2) Flexibility. We've rolled out global flexible work guidelines to help managers offer employees more flexible ways of working that meet both the needs of the employees and the business. To help women make that first step to manager, we need to think of the issue as more of one impacting working families. Things like: basic services for families: Dinner. Drycleaning. Daycare.
• Deanna: I think the McKinsey study pointed out a very important system barrier to women’s advancement by pinpointing where women are getting stuck in today’s world. We did a lot of work to understand our own pattern of progression of women. In late 2017, together with our partners at Seneca Women, we stepped back to look at this more closely. We wanted to understand why women, who represent half the population and earn more advanced degrees than men in more than 100 countries, are so massively underrepresented in the top levels of companies, of governments, of industries and organizations everywhere. The answer, at least in part, is that society continues to operate with a set of assumptions about women that hold us back. We call these myths. One is the leadership myth. There is a collective standard, definition of leadership which is dominant male leadership putting women in a disadvantaged position. It is believed if women would just change their behavior – be more assertive, have more confidence, stop fearing failure – they’d have more opportunity to get ahead. This is wrong. We must stop labeling women’s behavior as “lacking” or “less than” simply because it shows up differently than a legacy leadership stereotype. We have to broaden our definitions of “leadership,” “confidence,” and “ambition” – we have to stop being so binary and narrowly defined. We need to understand that men and women may communicate and behave differently – and that’s a good thing. It doesn’t mean women are less qualified, less effective, less confident or less ambitious. Another reason for this is the notion that there aren’t enough women in the pipeline for the top jobs, and this is patently false. In fact, we often talk about this as one of the myths that are holding women back in the workplace. The truth is there are plenty of strong, capable, qualified women out there who want top jobs. Fixing it is all about intentionality and simple math. It’s up to us to be intentional about finding them, getting them the right experiences and ensuring they make it into those senior leadership positions. 
• Celeste: It stems from the culture of the organization and the biases of those managers and leaders who hire first-line supervisors and managers. Some of the thinking from the 1970s and 1980s around women in the workplace and women in leadership roles still exists, unfortunately. Many of us believe that in this new decade, this thinking has disappeared, but it hasn’t because external data shows that obstacles still exist.   We need to focus on what the underlying causes are and put plans in place to accelerate the advancement of women in managerial roles. You need to figure out what these issues and challenges are in your organizational culture and what's holding people back from advancing women.   For example, you could look at the company’s learning and development programs to determine how many women versus men are attending. You can look at succession planning processes and make sure that when you're putting plans in place that women are in the pipeline for critical leadership and managerial roles.

Dan: What programs, systems and structures have you put in place at your company to address gender equality? Which programs have been most effective, what were the results from those programs and which haven’t been as effective and why?

• Sara: Earlier this year, Citi became the first U.S. company to publish our global median or “raw”/unadjusted gender pay gap. We reported that the median pay for women at Citi is 29 percent less than it is for men. To effectively reduce the difference in the raw pay gap, we have established goals to increase representation at the Assistant Vice President through Managing Director levels to at least 40 percent for women globally by 2021. This is part of a continuum of work to diversify our company and create a more inclusive culture. Already, more than 50 percent of our colleagues globally are women. Our corporate board is 40 percent female and our executive management team is 30 percent female. We recognize that improving diversity requires more than numbers, but we cannot fix what we cannot see. Data allows us to see where the shortfalls are and where we must prioritize our efforts. In addition to our pay equity analyses and representation goals, we have senior-level accountability for our representation efforts, and we’re working to continue to increase diversity by focusing on targeted recruitment, career development, and retention efforts as well as improved promotional paths and processes. We are also examining corporate programs and policies to ensure our workplace supports all of our colleagues equally and actively addresses anything that might be inhibiting progress for women in our workplace. We’re looking at flex time guidelines, global standards for maternity and parental leave benefits and facilitating training sessions on micro-inequalities to name a few examples. We know that finding a solution to this issue won’t happen overnight. The many internal programs in place across Citi are just one piece of the equation. We hope that our efforts, internal and external, will inspire other companies to do the same.
• Kim: There are programs for women and programs for everyone. We talk a lot about bias, and we have trained leaders to recognize multiple biases in themselves, so they can pay special attention to their behaviors. We have something called Take 2, which is a career re-entry program that provides training, development, and networking to women who have taken a break from their careers and are now ready to return. We have an enterprise-wide program to support and grow executive-potential females, and it is hosted by female executives. We have modernized the entire process of university recruiting so that we can increase diversity in our talent pools. We are trying out a new mentoring program that pairs male allies with small groups of women to actively speak up for inclusion in key decisions they may be part of. To check the results of our efforts, we regularly review pay by function, region, gender, race, ethnicity, and level.
• Shuchi: In the case of gender we saw that the share of women in leadership roles was growing less than 1% YoY back in 2013. Not only did we need to increase the share of women in the organization and in management, but we also needed to address their sense of belonging. To address this challenge we developed a strategy which included harnessing data to understand where the challenges were, setting bold targets for the organization, partnering with the business leaders, partnering with Economic Dividends for Gender Equality (EDGE) and gaining certification, making an investment in development opportunities for women, creating targeted talent acquisition programs, making the contribution of female leaders more visible in the organization, engaging men to become a part of this organizational transformation, and supporting the growth and partnership with our Business Women’s Network to engage our employees directly. Having a holistic approach based on pillars of strategic transformation was and remains critical to our Women in Management (WiM) goals. In 2016 we reached the goal of 25% WiM eight (8) months earlier than the deadline. Currently, we aim to increase five percent over five years to reach 30% WiM by 2022. Being the first technology company to globally certify on the EDGE helped us reach these goals. The certification process provided a robust view of our data and trends on gender. It allowed us to review existing policies and determine where we had gaps that may thwart our efforts. That review facilitated the creation of new policies, programs, and practices in the countries going through global certification, and the creation of global action plans to drive a change in certain processes and culture. Last, changing our culture through policies, programs, and communication to showcase flexible working guidelines and opportunities has worked well. As teams began to adopt more flexible working practices, we saw positive changes in how employees perceived their opportunities in the workplace, level of engagement, and retention. 
• Deanna: At P&G, we have a long history of progress in the area of gender equality and we have further to go. But when we declared it publicly as a priority as one of our Citizenship focus areas, we aligned our global leadership on the work we all needed to deliver. This included intentional talent management to include the identification of high potential employees much earlier in our system and in their next assignment planning. It included setting and tracking very intentional targets for women and men’s representation at all levels. And it required that we build capability around the world on inclusive leadership. One way we did that is through the MARC initiative developed by Catalyst, Inc. MARC stands for Men Advocating Real Change. We believed, and still do, that engaging the hearts and minds of men and having frank conversations about power and privilege was key to unlocking greater progress in gender equality.
• Celeste: Merck closely monitors its compensation processes and procedures to ensure we pay employees fairly and equitably. As part of its monitoring efforts, the Company conducts annual legally privileged pay equity analyses. We also employ a tool called a Salary Modeler to ensure internal and external equity when making salary offers. 

Dan: I wrote an article about how women are best positioned to lead the future because they have a higher level of emotional intelligence and better soft skills than men, which are increasingly in demand over technical skills that are being automated. Do you think that women will have an advantage in the future based on these skills?

• Kim: It’s true that in many roles, softer skills are critical. But there are plenty of men that possess these skills too. And some of our best technical experts are women. Again, it’s about leveling the playing field in the talent management systems to ensure the best talent rises and understanding the key skills needed for each role.
• Shuchi: It's hard to say. Women and men both bring valuable skillsets to the table. Yet much of the data on the impending automation of the workforce predicts that many jobs traditionally held by women will be obsolete. Women will need to be incredibly resilient and malleable when it comes to learning new skills and changing careers. Ultimately, both men and women will need to possess these attributes.
• Deanna: To us, it’s not who is best positioned to lead, men or women. It’s about building highly diverse and inclusive teams at all levels of our company. We all bring unique skills and perspectives. We believe in the power of diverse thinking and experiences. We’ve seen our businesses grow and prosper under diverse leadership teams and we’ve seen the impact on innovations that serve the world's consumers when we put diverse minds at work.  
• Celeste: Speaking as a woman? Absolutely.  General stereotyping aside, many research studies have shown this to be true. There are attributes and characteristics that you see in women that correlate to strong leadership capabilities.  These capabilities are needed in today’s world, both in the private and public sector.  I do believe that there is credibility in those studies and we could all learn from them.

Dan: How long do you think it will take your company, industry and the economy overall to have gender pay equality and what needs to happen to make that dream a reality?

• Sara: We’ve recently seen an intensified emphasis on building a culture of diversity and inclusion in the workplace, but this certainly isn’t unique to Citi, nor is it new across the private sector. We aren’t the only organization working to create change, but we are one of the only U.S. companies to meaningfully increase our commitment to greater transparency and publicly admit where we are falling short. This is one of those things that we want to move quickly, but it takes time to change. The World Economic Forum (WEF)’s Global Gender Gap Report 2020 says it will take another 99.5 years to achieve global gender equality. This is actually an improvement on the 108 years worldwide (and 208 years in the U.S.) in their 2018 index. Even though those numbers are daunting, I feel confident that we’ll have meaningful change sooner than predicted. It’s about time that we tackle these tough issues together.
• Kim: General Motors takes pay equity seriously and we feel confident that gender pay equity exists today at GM. To that end, in 2018 General Motors was recognized by Equileap as the #1 company in the world for gender equality and a top ten best company for multicultural women by Working Mother Media. Further in 2019, GM was named a Top 15 company for executive women by DiversityInc, and a Top 10% Inclusion Index Company by Diversity Best Practices. In addition, women comprise more than half of the GM Board of Directors, and we are the first and only automotive company to be led by a female CEO and CFO. It’s hard to predict how long it will take the rest of the industry, or the whole economy to tackle this issue. I believe if you want to fix it and make it a priority, you can!
• ?Shuchi: The AAUW and WEF have done some great work here that answers this question. More pressing is the question of when we eradicate the wage gap for women of color and underrepresented minorities? That wage gap is extremely large. What needs to happen? We need to start the education and awareness around equality earlier in schools, show women graduating from college how to negotiate their first salaries (the AAUW has a fantastic program called StartSmart which does this), pass more laws that make it harder to pay women and men differently for doing the same work, create policies that support working families, provide paid family leave for all (this is a big one), ensure women who take time off to care for children or elders are not then barred from returning to the workforce. I do believe the next generations of the workforce that have grown up among our rapidly changing demographics will expect pay equality for all and continue to do more to make it happen. We will reach that tipping point of change. We have the means. What we need to apply is the will – and that should be easier. I remain optimistic and persistent.
• Deanna: P&G has been driving equality-based policies and practices and paying equally for equal work and performance for a very long time. It is one of our signature systems to support gender equality. Our entire system is based on objective criteria and takes the bias out and we are auditing this regularly around the world. We are also getting intentional about wealth equality and closing the wealth gap. We see a drop off at the promotion that moves women into our “executive pipeline” – the roles that set the pipeline for our President and Officer level roles. There are fewer women in the highest paying jobs. We need to break all the barriers for women to get into leadership positions. Again, I think it all goes back first to leadership commitment and then intentional action to achieve equality. As there are more companies leading the way, the progress will be faster. Also, organizations collaborating across our industry and business overall will help bring the topic to the forefront to accelerate and advance gender equality. 
• Celeste: I can’t speak for the industry and the economy because if the steps are put in place to close gaps, it can be done in a timeframe that is reasonable.  At our organization, this is a critical priority. We've been doing legally privileged pay equity analyses for many years in the United States and have recently undertaken similar privileged analyses in several international markets.  We have made huge strides over the years that we've been doing this. It's a longer-term strategy that we started years ago and it's really paid off.

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