This is the dear corner office podcast where workplace leaders learn why black Latinx and indigenous women, Lee, and how to get them back. I’m your host, Michele Heyward.

Hello, everybody, this is Michele Heyward, thank you so much for joining me. Today is black women’s equal payday. And I have already been asked about what it is, are you sure you have this right? Is it equal payday in March or April? What’s really going on? So I first want to tell you what is black women’s Equal Pay Day? why it matters and how employers can close this gap. So first of all, black women’s equal pay day is different, yet the same for for women’s equal pay. Women’s equal pay is talking about all races of women here in the US, and their average, right pay gap, which is at 81 cents, compared to white men, which is the standard of $1. But as we look at the intersectionality, of race, and gender, black women make less than that 80 or 81 cents, that you see, when we talk about women’s pay gap. Black women, depending on which report you read your follow are anywhere between 62 cents to 65 cents, which is a huge gap from the 81 cents and even a larger gap when you compare it to the $1 baseline compared to non Hispanic white men. So today really marks how many additional days pass a year it takes a white male to to work, right. So it takes a white man, it takes a black woman, one year, plus an additional, almost eight months to make the same amount. As a white guy, it takes a black woman one year, and almost an additional eight months to make the same amount as a white man does in one calendar year. And that’s so really Today marks give a black woman started working January of 2019, she would not make the same amount as a non Hispanic white man until 2020, August 13 of 2020 as that white man made and all of 2019. So think about that, how much further do you have to run or to get to the same place as a white male. So that is really why it’s celebrate on this day to day changes every year as we look at the pay gap. So we are observing, observing it this year in 2020 on August 13. Now, when you focus specifically in tech, and other STEM fields and stem industries, right, what you may find is the gap is smaller. So when we look at Tech, there was a study that came out last year, I want to say pay scale did it black women pay gap in tech, software engineering, or tech tech overall in technical product management, software engineering software development was was 90 cents to the $1. a white man may. So it had a smaller gap, but there was still a gap. And black women among black men, Asian women, white women, Asian men still made less than all of those. So there’s a there is a disparity, and even Hispanic women, and Hispanic man, black women still make less. So you’re gonna see variations, especially as you look in different industries. And of course I focus on science, technology, engineering and math. So looking specifically at disparities really helps organizations understand where they need to focus at least in some of their efforts. Now, so so that is what is equal pay day. Now how do you really close the gap? Right? What can employers do to close the gap? If you haven’t seen the 60 minutes report, where Salesforce CEO and Chief Human Resource Officer went about discussing how they did an internal assessment to determine where they had gender pay gaps. So you have your data internal to your organizations that you can utilize to really determine where you have pay disparities where you have pay gaps, where you are seeing black women, Hispanic women, bright white women, Asian women being underpaid, compared To the white male counterparts, and truly looking at, okay, this is what it’s telling us? How are we now the data is telling you, okay, we have this pig, how are we giving out doing raises and merit increases? And, and even promotions? Right?

What does that look like? How do we remove the bias in that process? So you really need to do is start with an internal assessment on your salaries. And from there go through and look at that process you have internally and truly scrutinize it and take it and determine where are you seeing the biggest issues? Is it with a department and the vision, certain managers that you need to go back through and then implement changes, whether it’s software and or training, right? That you are now literally removing those biases, and you’re correcting so so you can go back? And you do you could implement technology, you can implement training, and so forth. But the other thing you really want to do is go back and level out the salaries. Right? You like Michelle? We could get in trouble? I don’t know. Have you heard about Oracle and the $400 million? They are being sued about for underpaying people of color and women? Would you rather be in a papers like Oracle or which where you’re being sued about about back pay? Or would you rather be upfront and working to level out the pay on your own? And that’s truly truly where it Where do you want to be when it comes to people talking about this. And so you have to make that internal assessment like hey, let’s go through, let’s level everything out, but also put in measures so it does not happen again. So you want to review that salary data. So do your assessments, you want to find out where your problems are, and start implementing whether it’s software training, etc. And really figuring out how do you remove those biases. You also want to create programs that help leverage those promotions. So oftentimes, especially when it comes to black women and Latino women, they do not have access to senior management. make that happen make that a regular thing make that normalize, right. A lot of organizations have er G’s for the ER G’s do not play into getting promotion and raises an organization. Why is that too many too often organizations look at their er G’s as nonprofit centers where they donate money and they’re doing social good.

If you want to do good work, if you really want to do what is equitable in your organization’s you are using those organizations, those er G’s do affinity groups, right? We’re in you are shaping their futures, you are leveling the field, you’re giving them access, you are literally sharing showing them hope we we don’t always invite and we haven’t historically been inviting you to the table, we’re going to help you build tables, we’re going to invite you to the table, we’re going to go from making a round table right instead of a rectangular table. And, and really share and make this part of having access and leveling the leveling the field, but also making sure it’s equitable inside your organization. Right. So what does that look like when you’re involving er G’s access to executive training, access to your executives, access to getting sponsors, access to getting mentors, who at who are in the senior level roles, because they’re not getting pulled aside? Oftentimes, their hard work is like, well, you should be grateful to have a job. No, you should be grateful they bring in the talent and perspectives that they have, that you don’t often have in your organizations. And so they are truly a hidden gem in your organization that you are undervaluing that but they truly bring in essence of an a viewpoint that you don’t often get, and you don’t really truly understand how to harness it. But you are gleaming so much from it. So I challenge all the organizations, all of your leaders outside of HR outside of diversity, equity inclusion departments to do that. I’m not just right now we’re in the midst of social change but for a lifetime. So now you know Equal Pay Day is it is how long it takes a black woman or black women to reach the same pay as a white man. It literally takes him an additional almost eight months plus a year. It were for what a white man makes in one Take some additional eight months to make the same amount of money and eat and you’re like, Well, what does that really mean? It’s about 900 on average about $944,000 944 9000 900,044. Right is a huge number. I’m I like to say it’s a million. It’s across the lifetime of 40 year career, black women lose almost a million dollars in income. Imagine what the world would be like, what life would be like if they had an additional million dollars, I had an additional million dollars. What does that do to my legacy of my family? No student loan debt, mortgage, more home ownership, the ability to invest, right, the ability to leave behind a legacy, a financial legacy that we don’t have from that additional million dollars, we lose income. So it truly changes lives. Not just that single employee, but it changes her life. It changes her family lives. It changes her her grandchildren’s life from just a million dollars by literally closing the pay gap. All right. So happy black women’s Equal Pay Day, because it’s really not a happy moment, because it’s taken us an additional nearly eight damn months. But let’s work continuously to close that gap. There are definitely things employees can do. All right. I will be back next week, we’re going to talk about women’s equality day. Yes, because that is coming up on August 26. But we’re going to talk about it on August 20. Because let’s be prepared and understand what is women’s equality day really mean to black, Latina and indigenous women. Because when things were created, they did include us. So let’s talk about that perspective of what women’s equality day really means. Historically, and then what can it mean for us now? All right, I will talk to you next week. Have a great week. Let me know what your organization is doing when it comes to leveling pay and closing the pay gap in your workplace. Have a great week. Bye everybody. Don’t forget to rate review and subscribe to my podcast. It helps me grow. Visit positive hire.co that’s positive hire dot c o