Kristin Faris believes there is progress being made in closing the pay gap and other workplace inequities between men and women.
Faris, senior vice president, Customer Success, Solutions & Partnerships at Checkr, just thinks – as many do – that the gaps are closing far too slowly.
And if recent studies are to be believed, she’s certainly not alone.
According to a study conducted by the American Association of University Women and analyzed by Checkr, a modern background check platform, some 67% of women believe they’re paid less than their male colleagues for the same work.
The same study showed that 16% of women don’t believe they are paid fairly and that gender bias plays a role in that.
And a study from Forbes shows a 16% pay gap between men and women, who are making 84 cents for every dollar paid to a man.
It also shows progress in this area isn’t that swift. According to the survey, a woman in 1963 made 59 cents to the dollar. It climbed – slowly – to 77 cents and now sits at 84 cents.
According to the survey, the pay gap isn’t going to close until late this century. Faris – as many do – thinks it needs to close much quicker than that, and she hopes the report Checkr did on the survey helps facilitate that result.
“This is not only a statistic but also a reminder of … inequalities in our workplaces,” Faris said. “In some organizations, women continue to face unjust wage differences, hindering performance development and professional relationships. We hope the findings of this report will urge businesses to foster inclusive environments and implement equal practices to unlock the full potential of their employees.”
According to the AAUW study, the pay gap isn’t the only thing that concerns women in the workplace. It’s also about how women are perceived at work, their chances for advancement and how they’re treated.
Consider (according to the study):
• Only 11 percent of women believe their male colleagues respect women in the workplace as much as they respect men.
• Some 69 percent of all women agree or are unsure about management choosing a male colleague over a woman for a promotion solely because of gender.
• Gen Z women (58 percent) are least confident in managers showcasing women in the workplace to ensure the same visibility as men. Millenials (68 percent), Gen Xers (66 percent) and Baby Boomers (59 percent) are more confident in management.
• Only 38 percent of Gen Z women strongly believe women are well-represented in management roles. Millenials (51 percent) Gen Xers (47 percent) and Baby Boomers (41 percent) feel the same way.
• Only 54 percent of Gen Z women believe they have as much of a chance as men to earn a management position at work. They’re the least-confident of all generations on this point.
Those last two statistics are borne out in the biannual study done by Inforum Michigan, an organization dedicated to increasing opportunities and removing barriers for women in the workplace. The group’s 2024 Women’s Leadership in Michigan Public Companies study – the study Inforum does every two years – shows that while women are making progress moving up the corporate ladder and into leadership positions in Michigan’s public companies, the progress is coming slowly.
Terry Barclay, resident and CEO of Inforum, noted noted the progress from Inforum’s first report – produced in 2003 – to now.
“It’s been two decades since 2003, and progress hasn’t been fast enough, especially in executive suites, and especially for women of color,” Barclay said. “We’re seeing progress since we first began doing this.”
The report tracks the advancement of women in prominent leadership roles – boards of directors, executive officers and named executive officers – within the largest publicly traded companies in Michigan.
It tracks results in 83 companies of varying sizes, which Inforum has broken into tiers:
• Tier 1 – Minimum market cap of $2.5 billion or $5 billion in revenue. There are 31 companies at this level.
• Tier 2 – Minimum market cap of $150 million or revenue of $100 million (26 companies).
• Tier 3 – Companies too small to meet Tier 2 criteria (26 companies).
The 2024 study showed progress for women in leadership roles over the 2022 study. Among the 83 companies, women made up:
• 26% of seats on boards of directors, up from 24% in the 2022 report and up from 9.6% in 2003.
• Women made up 23% of executive officers, up from 20% two years ago and more than double the 10% from the 2003 report.
• Women made up 18% of named executive officers, up from 14% in 2022 and up from 7.1% in the inaugural 2003 report.
• Women of color made up just 4% of directors and 3% of named executive officers.
One trend Barclay found disturbing was the number of first-time directors who were women of color. That number dropped from 61% two years ago to 31% in the 2024 report.
“I think the lack of progress and the low numbers (for women of color) are alarming,” Barclay said. “There needs to be more intentionality, not because it’s a ‘check the box’ activity, but because it means you’re leaving talent on the sidelines. It’s a good place to look to find great talent for boards. It’s an opportunity.”
While Inforum has been doing its report for two decades, the analysis of the AAUW study is the first of its kind for Checkr, whose mission, according to Faris, is focused on is bringing thought leadership to customers and to the market around broader HR trends.
Checkr has a mission around fairness, she said, which makes fair-chance hiring the “core to our business, which is really providing individuals who are formerly incarcerated with an opportunity for employment.”
“When we think about fairness more broadly, we also think about diversity and inclusion in the workplace as a company core value,” Faris said. “So, the report really for us is an interesting lens on diversity and really trying to bring … some thought leadership to our customers in the broader HR market.
“In an era where representation is celebrated, it is concerning that Gen Z women feel a lack of confidence in the workplace — only 38% of women believe they are well-represented in management roles and only half (54%) feel that they have equal opportunities for management positions,” Faris added. “The sentiments held by the younger generations highlight how the places where we spend a chunk of our day — work — need to address how the environment is affecting young women in the workforce. There’s a confidence gap where there shouldn’t be.”
Is the issue generational? Faris thinks it could be. The results of the AAUW study seem to indicate the younger generations are more skeptical about things like the pay gap.
And Faris said that could simply be a matter of timing,
“I think there’s interesting nuance there … different generations have different experiences when entering the workforce,” Faris said. “Gen Z is just at the beginning of their career journey. They’re kind of coming into this post-pandemic sort of economy.
“There’s lots of new changes in the workplace around hybrid models, whereas the Boomers or even Gen X are really well established in their careers,” she added.
Folks at McKinsey & Co., which produces a study with LeanIn.org, says the lack of advancement for women can be traced directly to one place: That first promotion.
Their study describes it as the “broken rung” syndrome. And Inforum’s 2024 report shows that 48% of employees at entry level are women, and that percentage drops precipitously at every step up the ladder.
In other words, women aren’t getting as many chances at advancement as men.
“It’s a career ladder that disadvantages women starting with the very first opportunity for promotion,” Inforum’s Barclay said. (McKinzie’s) 2023 report notes that, although women have made significant gains … the broken rung continues to mean women have fewer opportunities than men to advance.”
The body of research done by groups like Inforum and McKinsey, Barclay truly believes, shows that broken rung to really be the “crux of the problem” when it comes to advancement for women in the workplace.
“We start to see that bifurcation with a very first promotion that a lower percentage of women are getting those first promotions,” she pointed out. “I do think that the general wage gap is a reflection of the fact there is a gender difference starting with a first promotions.”
Controlled vs. Uncontrolled gaps
When it comes to the wage gap, a study Forbes wrote about in March used the terms “controlled” and “uncontrolled” when describing pay gaps. Forbes described “controlled” as being a comparison between men and women doing the same job, while “uncontrolled” is described as more of an “overall” comparison.
Barclay thinks it’s important to have as close to a direct comparison as possible.
“It is appropriate to make sure when we’re discussing the wage gap that we’re trying to get as close to an ‘apples-to-apples’ comparison as we can,” Barclay said. “And to do that, you have to not speak in generalizations, but start to get more specific. It’s complicated. I think people inherently want to know that we’re thinking about this in a fair way. So it’s like, are you comparing the same jobs with the same jobs?”
During its research, Faris said, Checkr tries to do its part to reduce the gender pay gap by adding some transparency to salaries of the companies it is researching.
As much as they can, Checkr tries to make it possible for employees to look at company profiles in order to be able to compare roles and pay ranges, etc.
“One of the things that Checkr has done to bridge the gap between perception and reality is pay transparency,” Faris said. “Things like that can really help to narrow the gap around perception and reality for women … to really understand where they sit rather than it being this really kind of opaque compensation black box.”
Problems can arise, she noted, when companies don’t want to reveal that kind of information. The work climate is different than it was years ago, she also noted, when employees didn’t necessarily talk about things like pay.
“When I was younger in my career, it just wasn’t something that we talked about,” Faris said. “There’s a lot of things we didn’t talk about. (Now) there’s a feeling of empowerment. As a woman, I’m not going to get fired for saying I questioned the fairness here, whereas 25 years ago that may not have been an environment in corporate America that gave the same level of empowerment.”
There’s also a sense that women pay a price because managers might pass them up for promotions based on perceived child-care responsibilities.
For instance, the AAUW study shows that 75 percent of women agree or are unsure of that perception.
“Because it speaks to what kinds of professions are women entering, what types of promotional opportunities do they have there?” she added. “When the term ‘mommy track’ was first coined … back in the ‘80s where they talked about women being funneled into basically non-promotable positions because they had to balance caregiving opportunities. Well, we have come a very long way since then, particularly because caregiving concerns are concerns for men and women. It’s not just gender specific. It was not that way back in the day.”
There are other disturbing statistics in Inforum’s report. For instance:
• Women lead only six of Michigan’s public companies and represent 18% of the top-five corporate positions across all companies.
• 29% of the companies have no women executive officers, up from 28% in 2022.
• 48% of companies have no women among the top-five compensated officers.
“The good news here is that that number was 54 percent in 2022 and nearly 60 percent in 2020,” Barclay noted, “so it is improving.”
Inforum has a “triple checklist” that tracks the number of companies who have at least one female director, executive officer and top-five compensated officers. They also have a “triple zero” list of companies who have no women in any of those positions.
Of the 83 companies Inforum tracks, 41 made the “triple checklist” (up from 32 two years ago) and only four companies are “triple zero” companies with no women in any of the three positions.
“We know more companies are making an effort,” Barclay said.
While the report shows definite progress, Barclay said, there are steps companies can take to level the field, particularly for women of color:
• Put more practices in place to ensure promotions are equitable. That means expanding training to reduce bias in performance reviews.
• Track representation and hiring. “Sometimes it’s as simple as … knowing your numbers,” she said. “Most companies track their numbers for women; fewer do so for women of color.”
• Hold managers and senior leaders accountable for progress on diversity goals.
• Senior leaders need to frequently and visibly champion inclusive workplaces and provide more training to create that culture.
“What senior leadership does and is seen to do really matters,” Barclay said. “We really do have optimism for the future. We partner with more than 120 companies that support our vision of a culture that embraces women leading and succeeding.
“Effective leaders know that learning to assess and value the entire talent pool is not just an exercise in ‘checking a box’ or hitting diversity numbers,” she added. “It’s an investment in the future success of the company.”
