Get Pay Right: How to Achieve Pay Equity That Works
Kent Plunkett and Heather Russing, with Steve Boese, George La Rocque, Madelin Laurano, Sarah Morgan, Trish Steed, and John Sumser
SHRM (Juy 2024)
How and why paying all employees fairly “is the gateway to organizational excellence.”
Kent Plunkett and Heather Russin define pay equity as “equal pay for comparable work that is internally equitable, externally competitive, and transparently communicated. This holistic view of pay equity shifts compensation analysis from pure market pricing to a broader equity approach that is sustainable, fair, and designed for business success.”
Years ago, Southwest Airlines’ then chairman and CEO, Herb Kelleher, was asked to explain why his company was more profitable and had a greater cap value than all of its major competitors…COMBINED. His reply? “We take great care of our people, they take great care of our customers, and our customers take great care of our shareholders.” This is precisely what Plunkett and Russing had in mind deciding how to organize and then present the inf0rmation, insights, and counsel that are provided in Get Pay Right. Keep in mind that compensation includes but is not limited to pay.
These are among the passages oƒ greatest interest and value to me, also listed to indicate the nature and scope of Plunkett and Russing’s coverage:
o What Is Included in Pay for Pay Equity Analysis? and How Technology Is Changing Compensation Practices and Pay Equity, George LaRocque (Pages 4-5 and 121-122)
o Wage Gap; Inequities In Pay Often Reflect Bias (Pages 13-22)
o The Gender Pay Gap (14-16)
o How Power Dynamics Perpetuate Bias, Sarah Margan (25-34)
o Compensation Philosophy and Strategy (35-52)
o Seven Questions to Ask for a Successful Compensation Strategy (37-41)
o How to Audit Pay Equity: The Plunkett Pay Equity Framework, Kent Plunkett (53-74)
o Ten Steps to Find and Eliminate Bias in Job Descriptions (60-61)
o Addressing Pay Equity (75-86)
o Why Confidentiality Matters (77-78)
o Transparency of compensation (89-94)
o Discussion of money (95-98)
o Family size and the US labor shortage (105-106 and 111-112)
o Talent Acquisition and Recruitment, Madeline Laurano (112-120)
o Competencies and pay equity (134-137)
It is no coincidence that companies annually ranked among those most highly admired and best to work for are also annually ranked among those companies that are most profitable and have the greatest cap value in their industry segment. However different they may be in other respects, all of them have a compensation philosophy and strategy that, in Plunkett and Russing’s words, “meet the fundamental needs of the organization and the people who work there.”
Here are Kent Plunkett and Heather Russing’s concluding thoughts: “We are dealing with a labor shortage and an increasingly diverse working population. The reality is, we need everybody. A commitment to pay equity [i.e. compensation] and DEI is crucial to the successful organizations of the future. Organizations that have both survive and thrive will be the the ones who are committed to the values, actions, and outcomes for pay equity.”