I was afraid to pull men vs women salary data @ my company

Update 3/7/2018 — we’re going to update this annually, so scroll to the bottom to see our newest #’s.

Saying you are data driven is the new thing, but I find more and more that people don’t want data, because it’s a proof point. If the data has a chance of telling you your idea sucks, do you want it? NOPE.

Data makes you accountable, and many of us only want data that fits our world view. Public data makes you VERY accountable. So regardless of how my numbers on pay equity ended up, I decided I was going to share this post.

I had this exact same fear about pay equity at Seer. I had ZERO idea where we would land. How can I go into the world telling clients to be “data driven” if the FEAR of pulling data on my own company was keeping me from doing the same things I ask of them?

Here’s How It Started…

This article came out saying that Comcast threatened to sue the city of Philadelphia over our attempt to stop employers from asking people their previous salary. Sounds like a good idea to me, since we know that asking people what they made before impacts what they get. It also continues to widen the pay gap because if someone starts off being paid less, then you asking this can perpetuate keeping them low.

I was pissed that this got such push back, and as another Philly founder, Chris Cera, and I talked about how this was bullshit and we should do something…I got a lump in my throat.

Those in glass houses…

I was pissed that the Chamber and Comcast would sue to fight against the law, but had NO idea where my own company landed. So I asked Emily, our People Ops champion who leads our salary transparency initiative, to check our data. I hoped and prayed it would come back with something I could be proud of, but had no idea.

So I prepped, what would I say to my company if the pay equity numbers were shit? This is my outline:

Be Honest: Tell the team what the numbers are, tell them what you think about them, and share with the team what you are going to do about it.

Be Consistent: So who cares what the number is this time, if the number is good or bad, make sure its purposeful. Swallow that pill, tell the team, and then commit to posting the numbers at a regular interval internally to let people know we aren’t running from this issue.

Be Open / Get Support: Start asking companies, who are hitting pay equity (or desire to get there) how they manage offers, offer negotiations (get rid of them), raises, etc. There are little gems in their work that might lead you to start making an impact.

Note: 4 years ago I wrote this and I believe that laid a groundwork and expectation for our people ops team that I didn’t want us asking salaries, not because of the gender impact, but maybe that example is what has lead us to being in an acceptable range.

Forgive yourself: These things are NOT done intentionally, you didn’t wake up one day and say I want to pay women less for the same work. There’s bias, there’s issues that impact peoples’ pay and how they perceive pay well before they got to your company. You didn’t start the ball in motion, but looking at the data is the first step, and you owe your conscious to know that the buck stops with you!

Celebrate: Celebrate? What if my numbers suck. You should still celebrate, why? Because now you know, you’ve shared it, and that makes you start the process. To be honest, at least your team may say…my company cares enough to look into this, and let us know where things land. Obviously if your company isn’t big enough these numbers don’t mean much, but check anyway, can’t hurt. It leads you to be purposeful.

Create a goal: Only you can know given your population what is a range you can sleep with — 3%, 5%, 10%, 15%? Anything is a better start if you are better than the national average. Knowing is better than not knowing.

The Data:

More recent statistics show in 2014 that women’s median pay has increased to 79 cents, according to the Institute for Women’s Policy Research.[50]

Luckily, I found that men at Seer only make 1% (a number I can live with, this number is obviously in a state of flux) more than women as of “Equal Pay Day” on average, and women make more than men in some of our higher experienced roles (where we had large enough sample sizes). We now can start the process of using the thoughts above to be purposeful so we never accidentally slip into a place and not even know it, or not even be in the position to stop and question ourselves. I do think that this approach to ending offer letter negotiations that I wrote about 4 years ago helps pave a path. I hope we continue to stick with that as a company (I don’t do the hiring much anymore).

God knows, the federal government ain’t gonna do it. Comcast, I know you are working hard on your image, I love having you in this city, let’s try to fix this. It would be a great first step to have your support.

2017: Seer men, on average, make 1% more than women
2018: Seer women, on average, make 2% more than men

Extra: Thank God for Execs & Friends Like This

We’ve gone on a journey of more and more salary transparency as a company, and once you do it makes it easier to do things like this. If you want to know how we did it and how you can start to do it too, here’s a post. Emily is a DAMN PIONEER in HR, love having her with me on this push. It’s a lot of work to be transparent, it’s easy to keep shit to yourself so no one knows and no one can hold you accountable.

I was also mega proud of this guy Sayf Sharif for writing that piece linked above, gave me more courage to write this.

Sheryl Sandberg you continue to be the foundation for much of my inspiration on how I can try to be a great supportive husband to my wife as we both have challenging careers, which leads me to being a more empathetic manager. Keep pushing us.

Lastly THANK YOU Chris Cera, for bringing this to my attention. I would never have thought of looking if we didn’t have that conversation.

I Struggled to Write This

It would be easy to flash our numbers at the top and say look at us, and how great we are, that wasn’t why I wrote this. I want this post to be about the fear of my numbers being shit, even though I would never want that to have happened, the fear of transparency and other people knowing our numbers were shit, how as companies and executives, if we’re going to be public about our beliefs and transparent, we have to push for it even in times where we aren’t happy with what we’ve built. That is why I intentionally buried our #’s and instead shared the journey.