Case Study: Pay and Gender
You are the new Compliance Representative in the HR Department. It is your primary goal to ensure the organization is compliant with laws and regulations in all areas including recruiting/hiring new people, employee safety, and fair labor practices for current employees. While you address compliance concerns in all departments, you report to the VP of Human Resources. Read the case study of Sarah Green and provide a two-part response to the VP of HR.
Part One: Read and analyze the scenario below. Write a report to the VP of HR summarizing the case and providing a clear argument that an EEOC act was violated. State which act applies to the case.
Part Two: Prepare an outline of a training session for hiring managers and for the pay and benefits specialists to prevent a repeat of the situation in the scenario.
Case Study
Sarah Green has been an accountant for 12 years. She worked in a small medical practice for two years after earning her BS in Accounting and then chose to work freelance for five years. For the past five years she worked at a large firm, Stokely and Associates, where she brought in more new clients than 92% of her colleagues and received a higher satisfaction score from clients than 90% of her coworkers.
Sarah had to move to a new city to care for her sick mother. This meant finding a new accounting position. She was excited to be hired at the large accounting firm, Parker and Mendez Accounting, LLC, right away. Unfortunately, she learned after 4 months that she was being paid less than her coworkers who had equal or less experience than she did. When she asked the hiring manager about the discrepancy, she was told that the organizations policy is to pay in a range based on previous pay. The hiring manager did admit to being surprised that her previous salary was at the low end of the expected range given her successes and performance reviews, but the policy is there for a reason and making an exception defeats the purpose of the policy.
After researching her industry and old employer, Sarah learned that her previous employer regularly paid women less than men even when the women had more experience or brought in more clients. Her current pay was impacted by this discriminatory practice.
The report to the VP of HR should include two parts:
Part One
A summary of Sarahs case.
Address which of the EEOC acts the previous organization violated.
An explanation of the ethical and legal obligations of the current organization.
A proposed solution for Sarah.
A proposed change in policy for determining starting pay at the current organization.
Part Two
An outline of a training session for all hiring managers and benefits and payroll specialists. Each of these sections should be included and explained briefly but with enough detail that the decision-makers reading the report are fully informed and can approve the training.
