Mind the Gap
Mind the Gap Initiative
When it comes to measuring pay gaps, nothing raises more questions or causes more confusion than where to begin and how to evaluate the data. To provide more guidance around this topic, we have launched Mind the Gap, an initiative to bring together organizations who have done the hard work of studying and correcting pay gaps in order to develop a comprehensive and widely accepted methodology.
Why we are starting this initiative
Employers generally want to do the right thing when it comes to equal pay, but often do not know where to start. This initiative will serve as the most comprehensive review of methodologies to date and will result in a widely accepted guide to how to perform this analysis. Making this methodology widely available should remove any reluctance for organizations to ensure equal pay across all segments and make it easier to achieve equal pay for equal work.
How it works
Over the past several years many companies have signed pledges, or announced they have completed detailed evaluations of their own compensation practices as relates to equal pay. Our goal is to review as many methodologies as possible with the goal of creating a publicly available set of best practices for measuring pay gaps. Our process for achieving this goal is as follows:
Confidentially collect as many methodologies as possible. Organizations who have studied this issue may contact us at mindthegap@goodwellworld.com to participate. The deadline for participation is April 30, 2018.
Compile and review the methodologies for similarities and differences.
Convene a working group of experts who can review the findings and determine the best practices. This working group will consist of experts from the organizations who have submitted methodologies as well as academics and industry experts.
Once the review is complete we will publish Version #1 of the Methodology for Measuring Pay Gaps, which will be available for any organization free of charge. To stay informed about the progress of the report and to be notified when the final methodology is complete, please fill out the form at the bottom of this page.
Currently available public methodologies
Our GoodWell methodology and implementation guide is available to organizations and companies of any size in order to measure and eradicate internal pay gaps in a transparent, open-source way. Our methodology is fairly simple, but factors in:
Equal pay for equal work, which requires organizations to be well organized in how they manage job titles and levels.
Tenure in role, which normalizes salaries to allow for cost of living and tenure adjustments
Geographical differences which can cause large discrepancies due to cost of living adjustments
This methodology is geared toward ensuring that organizations pay equally for equal work, and does not evaluate the macro conditions of pay within the organization.
To view another approach, check out this report from Glassdoor which examines the gender gap using a unique data set of hundreds of thousands of Glassdoor salaries.