A female job seeker takes part in a job hunting counseling session with advisers during a job fair held for fresh graduates in Tokyo, Japan, March 20, 2016.
A female job seeker takes part in a job hunting counseling session with advisers during a job fair held for fresh graduates in Tokyo, Japan, March 20, 2016. Reuters/Yuya Shino/File Photo

As studies have revealed, gender pay gap remains alive and well, despite the remarkable strides that women’s rights have made over the past few decades. Last month, Facebook announced it has completely eradicated gender pay gap among its employees, while Microsoft was close to fully eliminate the gap. But what about other employees?

A look at the studies made by Dr. Andrew Chamberlain, Glassdoor’s Chief Economist, makes us aware of very sobering realities. In the United States, across all industries and on the average, American male employees earn 24 percent more than their female counterparts; this roughly translates to the lady employee earning 76 cents for every one dollar that her male next-cubicle neighbour makes. The same trend can be found in the male-female-salary ratio in the other industrialised countries: Women in France earn 71 percent of what a male earns; in the UK, it’s 64 percent; in Australia, it’s 61 percent; and in Germany, 51 percent.

Chamberlain’s study continues to say that the widest pay gap in the US can be found in “aerospace and defence; agriculture and forestry; biotech and pharmaceuticals; travel and tourism, and restaurant, bars, and food service.” The gender gap has narrowed a bit in industries like “health care, insurance, mining and metals, transportation and logistics, and media industries.”

The New York Times ascribes the reasons for a wide gender gap to discrimination. Organisations run by men tend to see women as wanting more flexibility because they take care of families. Female employees are also seen as less competitive than male workers. Perception, both of the capabilities of the female employee, as well as that by the decision-maker creating the salary structure, plays a role in the scale of the gender gap created in the office.

Author Iris Bohnet confirms that preconceived notions and beliefs, even unconsciously, can affect how a workplace is run. A quote from her book, “ What Works: Gender Equality By Design ,” appears in Knowledge@Wharton’s literary review: “Bias is built into our practices and procedures, not just our minds.” Her recommendation to address this issue is to create gender-neutral parameters and policies in the office that can stem the biases of the individual members of the workforce while promoting equality in the organisation as a whole.

The Knowledge@Wharton article gives an example of how specific performance criteria led to pharmacology being singled out as the third highest-earning industry for women. The sector specifically gives bonuses and promotions based on performance, without ascribing premium to the number of working hours. Employees who pulled in overtime work were not distinguished from part-time workers; it was only the results that mattered. Given this clear line of measurement, employers who consciously or subconsciously discriminated against women who preferred flexi-hours were prevented from putting their biases on the eventual performance evaluation.

Bohnet lauds Google for applying their own version of “people analytics” into their recruitment and evaluations methods. Objective standards that rigorously check performance and do not include traits and qualities that may have gender bias have made the Internet leader one of the most progressive employers on the planet.

Objectivity and fairness in measuring performance have become easier with the emergence of online journalism and content management. Employers who manage writers, editors, artists and web developers who are based in other parts of the world will only look at the quality of the work, the ability to meet deadlines punctually, the capacity to be a team player, and the willingness to change in order to adapt to the evolving digital landscape. Gender, civil status, age and religion will not have a bearing on the individual’s performance, or on their immediate supervisor’s evaluation of them.

Dom Einhorn, who employs dozens of online journalists for his news site Born2Invest, says that he intentionally cultivated a meritocratic workplace from the time he launched his first office. Employees are evaluated according to their performance, and those who deliver quality work consistently are rewarded and can be considered for promotion.

“Our teams are international because we report international news 24/7,” Einhorn elaborates. “In a virtual work environment such as ours, you can immediately see based on the work submitted to you how much value the employee can bring to your organisation. After some time, you will see if he or she has enough passion and commitment to want to grow with you for the long haul. Anything associated with gender – like names, children and civil-status titles – does not come into the picture once performance evaluation time comes.”

Another industry that is creating headway in closing the gender gap is the military. Female military officers in the US have been serving their country as part of logistics and administration. However, Military reports a historic move that will see women infantry soldiers being transferred to the front lines to serve in open combat side-by-side with male soldiers. The actual implementation of the program will happen in 2017. The new procedure will also pair the new lady infantry soldier with either a male or female fellow colleague who has years of experience working in the armed forces. The assigned pairs will also be observed and trained before being sent out as a living, breathing fighting unit.

Col. Ann Weinberg, deputy director of the Marine Corps Force Innovation Office, says this approach will streamline the adjustment of soldiers with opposite genders into the same unit. The overall goal, though, is to build a strong gender-neutral united military unit

While no wage rates are disclosed at the moment, Weinberg does point out that placing gender-neutral parameters in a work environment can strengthen relationships by building the kind of trust that high-risk organisations like the military lean on for success.

Weinberg says, “… it doesn't matter if you're the same sex. What matters is that you've trained together, you know each other, and you trust each other. So you have that task cohesion ... I trust that you can do your job, you trust that I can do my job, we go into a unit together, we get assigned to the same unit, we all vouch for each other."

Although the US colonel does not name them, respect for a colleague’s value and recognition of his or hard work are results of this gender-neutral, meritocratic approach. These values can be nurtured in a workplace that promotes equality and fair pay, replacing biases and prejudices that have disempowered women for a long time. The final touch would be to design guidelines and procedures that can keep those more positive values in place, helping women and men alike rise up the ranks and reap the rewards that their hard work and performance have earned for them.

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