In the quest for equal pay for equal work, it appears North American small businesses still have some work to do with new data on employee compensation from social human resources management software vendor TribeHR finding a significant gap between men and women.
Based in Waterloo, Ont., TribeHR is a developer of social HR software that designed specifically for the needs of small and medium-sized businesses. It recently completed a Pay Raise Index report that found that, while women received numerically more pay raises during the first nine months of 2012, men earned larger compensation increases.
Not that either gender are getting a lot of raises these days. According to TribeHR, which analyzed data from 20,000 employees at 2,200 SMBs, just 7.4 per cent of women and 6.2 per cent of men received raises. Men, though, were three times more likely to get a raise of 25 per cent or more, at 60 per cent that received raises to 38 per cent of women. Overall, the average salary increase was eight per cent.
“The new TribeHR Pay Raise Index reveals a mixed picture when it comes to fair pay,” said TribeHR CEO Joseph Fung in a statement. “It’s interesting to see that women seem to be overtaking men in terms of the number of pay raises given but there’s still a stark imbalance in the size of salary increases awarded. Employee satisfaction and workplace culture play an increasingly large role in a business’ brand reputation-and those who pay fairly and amply recognize employee contributions will reap the benefits when it comes to hiring and talent retention.”
