In 2013, among full-time, year-round workers, women made 78 percent of what men were paid. We knew this. What we didn't know, however, is that KPMG wants us to think about why women are paid less than men.
Speaking today Ingrid Waterfield, director of KPMG’s people powered performance practice, said it was crucial that the underlying reasons behind the pay gap were properly addressed.
“The fact is that numbers, alone, mean nothing and cannot be compared. They might show who earns what, but this knowledge will do nothing to address the fundamental cultural issues that still need to be tackled,” Waterfield said.
“Managers who make decisions about pay and promotions who need to be educated to ensure their assessments are free from bias.
“Better communication on how decisions are made is vital to help employees understand why they are paid what they are.”
In other words, maybe you make less because you deserve less. Maybe you aren't as skilled as your colleagues who make more. Maybe you screw up a lot. Maybe you use too much of your PTO to spend time with those small humans who resemble you and share your last name. But leave your ovaries or lack thereof out of it.
Waterfield does have a point, in that comparing different people with different skills among one another using simply "male" or "female" as the comparison point ignores the fact that each one of us brings something different to the table. Each of us give a varying level of a rat's ass. Some of us are driven, others are just there for a paycheck.
Still some of us decide — gasp — that our families are more important than our careers. Like the PwC manager who won a sex discrimination case recently when the firm wouldn't let him spend reasonably requested time with his young daughter. Remember, it goes both ways. If we're going to take gender out of it, we need to take it all the way out.