Women won’t be paid the same as men any time soon – at least not at the BBC. In a scathing report, the House of Commons’ Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee (DCMS) lists in detail how and why the gender pay gap at the corporation just isn’t closing. Yes, there are now more women earning more than £200,000 a year, but – the report says – women working in comparable jobs to men still earn far less.
The DCMS committee started its inquiry into BBC pay after one of the corporation’s four international editors, the then China editor Carrie Gracie, complained of systematic pay discrimination against women in January 2018. Last year, when the BBC had to list all its employees earning more than £150,000, two-thirds – including the seven highest earners – were men. The report authors found that there are plenty of instances of ‘ad hoc’ personality-led pay decisions for senior positions, and not much central oversight – two factors that resulted in pay inequalities.
Things may not be great at the BBC, but the UK’s national broadcaster is far from being the only organisation with a yawning pay gap. From April this year companies that employ more than 250 people in the UK have been required to publish statistics on their pay by gender. Analysis has shown around 90 per cent of women work for companies that pay them less than their male colleagues.
So what can governments, companies and individual employees do, to ensure people earn the same money for the same work, regardless of gender?
Get the regulation right
Government has to act and make laws that require gender pay gap reporting. The UK has done that, but it’s not enough. To truly close the pay gap, there should also be a requirement to publish an action plan on how an employer will close the gap, says Sam Smethers, the chief executive of the Fawcett Society, a UK charity campaigning for equal rights for women and men. “There must be penalties for those who don’t follow the rules,” she says.
Companies that are serious about tackling discrimination should conduct their own equal pay audits, Smethers argues, which dig deeper “into their data and the nature of job roles, to make sure men and women are paid equal pay for work of equal value.”
Be transparent
Organisations have to strike the right note from day one, even before new hires arrive to their job. “Start by addressing inequality in starting salaries – ensure that on entry, recruits are aware of the salary range for their job family,” says Jill Rubery at the Manchester Business School, who is an expert on how different systems affect the gender pay gap. “Review all salaries in the job family when negotiating a retention bonus. Establish narrower pay scales – recommended by select committee.”
Companies should also offer flexible working from the word go and make it really transparent if there’s a pay gap between men and women. And it shouldn’t matter if it’s a commercial organisation or not. The DCMS report notes that the BBC has now outsourced a number of programmes to its commercial arm, BBC Studios. And as it’s a commercial entity, BBC Studios argues that its salaries should not be transparent as its public sector parent company.
The report’s authors disagree, as does Rubery: “Outsourcing is also used to take low paid women off the books, such as cleaners, to improve the reported gender pay gap. Pay transparency should apply across the board to companies, so that salaries in BBC Studios and comparable companies would also have to be reported – not necessarily named individuals as in the BBC itself but by range and gender.”
Consider quotas or targets
Yes, quotas that ensure some of the top jobs go to women are an option, says Smethers. She says that “equality won’t happen on its own – we have to make it happen.” But the approach isn’t without controversy. Take Norway, where the government introduced quotas for top management, but that failed to narrow the pay gap, never mind end inequality, at lower levels of the corporate ladder. “Equity targets must be implemented across different levels of businesses and results should be frequently reported to employees,” says Sophie Newton, COO of Brainlabs, a performance marketing agency.
Companies, however, should not half-heartedly opt for quotas just to brush up their public image, she adds. “Being aware of the numbers is crucial, but they should serve more as a signal to tackle the root cause, not the symptom.” There is also the issue of men perceiving quotas as unfair, which triggers accusations of ‘reverse discrimination’ and strengthens negative stereotypes, says Margit Osterloh, a professor at the University of Basel. “This danger is the bigger the more men today are anxious about their masculine role.”
Also, quotas often simply force companies to go just far enough beyond their comfort zone to check a box and that's it. “I prefer targets,” says Y-Vonne Hutchinson, the founder of Ready Set, a diversity solutions firm in Oakland, CA. “If you are going to have targets, they can't be just women. They have to reflect the totality of the talent that is missing from your company – older workers, ethnic minorities, those with disabilities, and so on.”
Have clear pay bands
It’s important to have a set pay structure in place “so that salary decisions are not made solely on the whims of the person making the hiring decision, which makes them more vulnerable to bias,” says Hutchinson.
Tackle (unconscious) bias
Men aren’t necessarily better paid by design. Instead, they may get a boost by unconscious biases that favour typically ‘male’ behaviour. Companies have to recognise such bias and know how to eliminate it. Take recruitment: women tend to apply for jobs only when they are confident to meet 100 per cent of the recruitment criteria; men, in contrast, tend to apply even if they meet just 60 per cent. “Men tend to be hired and promoted based on potential, whereas for women it’s based on experience. Women are much less likely to ask for promotions or pay rises. Sadly, the list goes on,” says Newton.
Also avoid asking for salary history when hiring. “The pay gap is systemic and by matching your salary to another employer (who might have had their own bias) reinforces the systemic nature of the gap,” says Hutchinson. And, she adds, if you are not a woman, but work with women, be open about what you’re making. “Where you see a discrepancy, put pressure on those in charge to change it individually or collectively.”
Equalise pay
Several women at the BBC are now earning more than before; just a year ago, the highest female ‘celebrity’, Claudia Winkelman, was making £450,000-£500,000 per year (whereas the highest male ‘celebrity,’ Chris Evans, was getting paid £2.2 million). Figures reported by The Times say more than 300 staff at the BBC who questioned their salaries after the scandal have had pay rises.
Rubery thinks that bringing down high pay is more important than equalising by women moving up. “You will never achieve an equality goal if overall wage inequality is rising,” she says. Quotas on shortlists should be considered, too, she adds – this may result in token shortlisted candidates, but “women can surprise interviewing panels, so can make some difference.”
Ask for a raise
Workers have to get pro-active too. Women often find it awkward to ask for a pay rise or find out what male colleagues are earning. It’s not that women think they are not qualified or don’t deserve the money; rather, it’s “because women who win in competitions and negotiations are disliked and often perceived as bitchy,” says Osterloh. Indeed, DCMS's BBC report mentions a female presenter who found out that the existing male presenter was being paid 50 per cent more than her per programme. When she asked for the pay gap to be corrected, the line manager told her “the BBC doesn’t do equal pay”, and that in raising the issue she was being ‘aggressive.’
Minimise competition
What if companies were to shortlist job candidates randomly? Osterloh calls it “focal random selection” – a suggestion to motivate qualified women to throw their hat into the ring. The idea is that women are more inclined to apply for a leading position if there is a shortlist of candidates out of which a random selection will take place. “The female winner of such a random selection will not trigger negative feelings with their colleagues or partners, (male) losers will keep their self-confidence,” says Osterloh.
Push for salary reviews
Rubery says that female workers should ask employers about the real pay range for jobs like theirs, and for evidence that they are in the right spot within this range – especially if they started at the company on a low salary. “Those who enter on a low salary often are not able to catch up as bonuses may be linked to salaries as a percentage, and the focus is on rewarding everyone for their recent efforts rather than looking at the actual fairness of the salaries paid,” she says.
Mentorship is important
Women in male-dominated workplaces may feel like they are on their own, so it’s great to mentor younger women and make them feel that there is a place for them, says Sarah Cooper, a former Google employee-turned-comedian and writer who comments on women leadership in the workplace (and even wrote a book titled How To Be Successful Without Hurting Men’s Feelings). It’s important that women “feel like there are people on their side. It will help more women stay in the workforce instead of checking out,” she says.
The DCMS report, for its part, also has a few recommendations up its sleeve. They range from more transparent pay structures and better training for managers to make sure they understand their legal duties on equal pay, all the way to the appointment of independent arbiters who can investigate pay grievances.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
