Today is Equal Pay Day in the U.S. and we at Chef would like to add our voice in highlighting that, on average, women earn $.78 for every $1.00 a man earns.
We appreciate being part of the growing conversation around compensation equity. Our clear goal at Chef is to be at the forefront of fair pay practices.
Digging deeper into the gender pay gap, you will find several key issues including:
Equal pay for equal work. Chef is proud to report that for employees doing similar work, at similar levels, there is no gender-based pay-gap. In December, with help from Littler and Syndio, we conducted a comprehensive gender pay equity study. Our Employee Experience team spent several months working with Littler to analyze our pay practices and compare the salaries of men and women in similar groups and levels. I’m proud of both the work that our team did and the results of our study. Because the compensation environment is always changing, we will continue to conduct these studies annually.
Eliminating the penalty for prior pay gaps. As a leader in our industry, Chef no longer asks for salary history from candidates. Salary history can perpetuate historical pay differences by both gender and race and it can also penalize candidates that may have meaningful, relevant experience but have worked in lower paying industry sectors. Similarly, we no longer look at internal salary history when it comes to determining compensation increases for employees. Salary increases are based on an employee’s impact to the business and potential in their role.
Muting the impact for gaps in work history to care for family members. Women’s pay is disproportionately impacted by time taken off to care for family members during during key earning years. This has both an impact on pay and leadership opportunities. Chef has one of the strongest parental / caregiver leave policies (for both women and men) for companies of our size. We provide up to 12 weeks of fully-paid parental leave for both primary and secondary caregivers, combined with a variety of flexible return-to-work options. In addition to providing industry-leading levels of parental and caregiver leave, we work with employees to take the time they need without slowing their career progression at Chef.
Women in high impact and high paying leadership positions. Chef is seeking to improve our representation by women in leadership across the company. We have implemented a number of things designed to make our culture a desirable one for high performers of all genders and races. A very important element of this is removing bias from candidate screening and interviews which we’re working hard to do. It also entails, among other things, onboarding, sponsorship, and development. We’re also conducting a periodic Inclusion Survey to help us identify gaps that may be blocking us from obtaining our full potential as a high performing organization.
If you have ideas, suggestions, or comments on this topic please send them to [email protected] (Employee Experience). Let’s keep the discussion going.
More information here:
About our company values: https://www.chef.io/about/
A great blog by our own Ben Oaksmith: Creating a More Equitable Interview in Three Simple Steps: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/creating-more-equitable-interview-three-simple-steps-oaksmith-sphr/
And if you like our point-of-view, come join us: https://www.chef.io/careers/
Barry Crist
