Paycheck Fairness Act: You Decide Is This Necessary?

I and several other bloggers have written about the Paycheck Fairness Act which the Obama Administration is trying to get passed. Primary among this is a post entitled Paycheck Fairness Act Part II. This post points you to a position paper written by Camille Olsen of SayfarthShaw that is one of the best analyses of the case on the Paycheck Fairness Act. This legislation is very alive today. In the Sunday Atlanta Journal Constitution on the OP/ED page there was one of those Should We Pass The Paycheck Fairness Act pieces that had a proponent and an opponent. Of course the proponents argument was that wage discrimination needs to be totally eliminated and this law will do that. The opponents argument was that we have a law, the Equal Pay Act, that already offers that protection, so there is no need for a new law.

Rather than offering my opinion in this post (if you are a constant reader you have read my stand before anyway) I am going to tell you the major provisions of the legislation and I will let you decide whether we need this law or not. And then I would like you to take a minute and express that opinion in the comments section. So here we go.
Major Provisions:

• Amends the Equal Pay Act amendment to the FLSA, which allowed bona fide pay differentials for factors such as education, training, experience, difference in the quality or quantity of work, a merit system, a seniority system, or geographic differences. Gender differences was not an allowed factor.  States that the bona fide factor defense shall apply only if the employer demonstrates that such factor:
  (1) is not based upon or derived from a sex-based differential in compensation;
  (2) is job-related with respect to the position in question; and
  (3) is consistent with business necessity.
• The defense is not allowed however,  where the employee demonstrates that:
  
  (1) an alternative employment practice exists that would serve the same business purpose without producing such differential; and
  (2) the employer has refused to adopt such alternative practice.
• Prohibits retaliation for inquiring about, discussing, or disclosing the wages of the employee or another employee in response to a complaint or charge.
• Makes employers who violate sex discrimination prohibitions liable in a civil action for either compensatory or (except for the federal government) punitive damages.
• Any action brought to enforce the prohibition against sex discrimination may be maintained as a class action in which individuals may be joined as party plaintiffs without their written consent.
• Requires the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs to train EEOC employees and affected individuals and entities on matters involving wage discrimination.
• Authorizes the Secretary to make grants to eligible entities for negotiation skills training programs for girls and women. (If everything is going to be equal what has to be negotiated?)
• Amends the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to require the EEOC to collect from employers pay information data regarding the sex, race, and national origin of employees for use in the enforcement of federal laws prohibiting pay discrimination.

Those are the major provisions. There are some minor ones as well. You can read the whole bill here. To summarize, under this bill:

• You have to explain the business necessity of all pay differentials
• You have to defend that business necessity as the only method
• You can be sued by one employee which then automatically gets you sued by all the women in your workforce (The plantiff attorneys are lobbying big time for this one)
• You will have keep more records which will then have to be turned over to the Federal govenment so they can then prosecute you
• Women will be trained to be better negotiators.

OK, maybe my biases came out that summary. But you are big enough to make your own decisions.

So the options are:

1. YES we need this law. Discrimination is active and needs to be eradicated
2. NO we have a law in place that provides the protection needed.
3. Maybe, maybe not I am a fence rider and I don't want to make waves. (Ok, not a real option.)

How Old Are the Men In HR?

Last week I wrote post entitled Are Men In HR Going the Way of the Dinosaur. I ask the question, based upon some research, whether men are a dying breed in HR. Evidence certainly points to that. Statistics from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that, depending on what study you read, women hold anywhere from 65% of management jobs to 70%+ of all HR jobs today. The data is not clear on how many of the CHRO jobs are female, but these numbers show that most in the future will be held by women.

A corollary to this is the wages earned by men versus women in the field of HR. Over at Kim's HR Potpourri she lists The 10 Worst Management Jobs for Women, on this list is "Human Resources Manager: Women earn an average annual salary of $57,744, which is 69% of what male peers earn."
One of the interesting things about statistics is you can all kinds of different numbers. This is supposedly a BLS number, yet the studies I looked at show much higher numbers. These figures show women in HR management postions making 79.3% of male counterparts and in specialist postions making 73.4%. Still not on par, but as was shown in 77 Cents and Gender Discrimination: The Wrong Conclusion, written by Stephanie Thomas, there are multiple reasons.

One reason I believe, at least in the field of Human Resources, is age. Given the declining number of men you find it the field, I bet we would also find an increasing average age for men in human resources. And with age generally you see a higher wage. So as the average age of men goes up and the average age of women in the profession goes down statistics will show a wage gap. This may eventually go away as men go away from the field, or at least get reduced in the percent in the field.

I have no numbers to back this up. This is my impression and best guess from what data I have looked at. What do you think? Or better yet what do you know? Anyone have figures on the average age of men in HR versus the average age of women in HR?

You Don't Have To Be Crazy to Have This Job But It Helps: The HR Personality

Human Resource Executive magazine just published its February issue with the cover story being The HR Personality. They asked the question of how HR executives differ in personality from other company executives. The findings were interesting, though not really suprising. And despite my catchy title they did not find that being crazy helps.

What they did find is that executives of all varieties share more personality traits than they differ in. But the ones where there were differences were significant. HR executives (VPs) were less strategic, less rational/logical, less directing, and less enterprising. On the positive side they were more accepting, more resolving and more self-assured. What this means it that HR VPs were:

• less visionary and less focused on the long-term
• less focused on numbers, logical systems and hard facts
• less task focused
• less competitive
• less interested in selling and spotting new business opportunities
• less inquisitive
• less ambitious
• less manipulative
• more of a team player
• more prudent
• more empathetic, good listener and more interested in others
• more comfortable with resolving conflict and dealing with angry people
• more confident
• more balanced and a greater self-worth

What makes this list critical is that the CEO is the key executive from which the HR VP differs. Subsequently the VP may not be taken as seriously or be as highly valued as is the other VPs with whom the CEO more closely matches in personality. They ask the question "Can the HR VP be more like the CEO?" The answer was YES. But it requires a true self-knowledge and the ability to take that knowledge, understand how you differ and be able to put a plan in place to change behavior. As one consultant said "Have a plan. Determine what behaviors you need. Practice those behaviors. Get feedback. And keep focused on your objectives. It can be done. I may not be a shark, but I can think like a shark."

By the way, one thing mentioned in the article is that HR levels below VP show even greater levels of divergence from the executive suite. To me this leads to much less credibility for HR with executives. But this can be overcome as well with a recognized behavioral change.

One thing not mentioned in this article was the subject of gender. Given that the field of HR has a high number of women in HR and HR executive positions I wondered if this gender difference might account for some of these personality differences. It might be an interesting personality study to compare female HR execs to female CEOs and see if the differences are still as apparent.

Your thoughts? Leave a comment.