The Advisors' Blog

Pay equity is a topic that we’ve been covering on this site for over a decade (here’s a list of a bunch of blogs that address it). What’s fascinating is that the notion of what “pay equity” means continues to evolve and be driven by different factors. This Perkins Coie blog highlights four recent trends to monitor, which could affect where we go next on this issue:

1. Evolving focus and complexity. Audits are expanding their focus on evaluating racial and ethnic pay differences in light of recent social movements. Moreover, organizational shifts, from acquisitions to job architecture changes, may cause havoc with ensuring fair pay throughout an organization.

2. Changing labor market. The tight labor market makes it important that starting salary and retention pay decisions follow established principles of pay equity.

3. Greater pressure to disclose. Employees have become far less shy about sharing information about their pay, and many states require disclosure of starting salary data. Recently, the EEOC has signaled a renewed interest in obtaining pay data from employers. These efforts trigger intricate issues related to how companies typically disclose information and how long-standing legal privileges are evaluated.

4. Aggressive government enforcement. We are seeing unprecedented coordination among Biden administration officials to investigate and enforce laws related to pay equity. In addition, states like California and Illinois have put into place very robust compliance and enforcement obligations with enhanced penalties for violations of the law.

Visit our “Gender & Racial Pay Equity” Practice Area for checklists and other resources that will help you stay on top of this area of changing regulations and demands.

We’ll also be covering the compensation committee role in overseeing pay equity audits & shareholder proposals at our virtual “Proxy Disclosure & 19th Annual Executive Compensation Conferences” – coming up in only two weeks, October 12th – 14th. There is still time to register! Here’s the agenda – 18 essential sessions over the course of three days. Sign up online (with the “Conference” drop-down, and the “PDEC” options), email sales@ccrcorp.com, or call 1-800-737-1271. Bundle your registration with our “1st Annual Practical ESG Conference” and get a discounted rate!

– Liz Dunshee