The Complexities of Pay Equity - Understanding Law on Pay and Employment Equity

Why Should You Attend:

• Do you know if your employees are being paid equitably?
• Can you justify wage differentials based on neutral job related factors?
• Wouldn’t you rather know in advance of an OFCCP audit or a discrimination charge if you have pay discrepancies so that you can fix them?

Pay equity, also called pay satisfaction, is described as the degree to which the actual pay of an employee matches what he or she thinks they deserve. High pay equity means high employee satisfaction with his or her job, low pay equity increases the potential for absenteeism, grievances, strikes, and turnover. In light of the government’s interest in ferreting out inequity, how do we apply the principles of pay equity while remaining competitive and out of trouble? In this session, the instructor will discuss the twilight zone of pay and employment equity and share some tips for consideration as you review your programs.

Learning Objectives:

• Understanding meaning behind the laws and executive actions surrounding pay equity
• Building a framework for a compensation philosophy that weighs comparable worth for equitable pay decisions
• Understand how to rate job evaluation results and comparisons
• Best practices for maintaining pay equity

Areas Covered in the Webinar:

• What equitable pay means in a practical sense
• Why pay and employment equity matters – five reasons to focus on pay equity
• What is the law on pay and employment equity?
• Advantages to integrating pay equity principles into your compensation system
• How to assess equity issues in the workplace
• Developing a compensation philosophy that includes an equitable pay process
• Key steps for establishing a sound base pay program
• Comparable worth… what does it mean?
• Creating a weighing formula for assessing comparable worth and equitable pay
• Some thoughts about developing a compensation rewards program

Who Will Benefit:

• CFOs
• Payroll and accounting managers
• Employers and business owners
• Human resources specialists and managers

Instructor Profile:

Cathleen Hampton has more than 25 years of experience as a human resources professional providing subject matter expertise in areas of risk and compliance, work force planning, and human capital strategy. She has a unique ability to analyze operations for risk and help manoeuver cultural practices and compliance enhancements that would increase organizational outcomes. She is noted for launching new programs focused on talent acquisition and retention strategies that outpaced major competition through strong and decisive business leadership.

Topic Background:

The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 dramatically increased the exposure of companies to claims of pay discrimination by allowing employees to file a lawsuit for perceived discriminatory pay decisions even if the pay decision occurred years earlier. Similarly, the proposed Paycheck Fairness Act, had it been signed into law, would have removed limits on punitive and compensatory damages in pay discrimination cases. Although the law failed in Congress in 2009, the administration has continued its focus on, and desire for, finding and eradicating discrimination at a time when the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP), federal agencies with pay discrimination enforcement powers, have received substantial budget increases.

Knowing this, what can a proactive employer do now to manage the risk of pay equity litigation? An increasingly common answer is to conduct a pay equity study. Such a study helps a company understand its pay structure and reduce its potential liability by addressing three questions:

• Which pay differences are at issue?
• Whose pay should be compared?
• What are the factors that explain differences in pay?

Specific and complete answers to the last question are critical. Absent valid explanations, the company is at risk. The key challenge in finding these answers is that, although a company’s pay decisions are made one at a time over an extended period and depend on a variety of factors specific to the time at which they were made, an understanding of pay differences today requires the company to explain the cumulative results of all past pay decisions.

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