Google addresses pay gap, spends $9.7m on over 10,000 employees

In trying to correct the gender pay gap in the organisation, Google discovered that some of its male software developers were being paid less. They were found to have received comparatively fewer bonuses and hikes than the women in 2018. The gap was at once corrected by the Company, which is reported to have shelled out more than $9.7m on over 10,000 employees in the process.

On close examination of pay across departments, it was discovered that at some point, more women software engineers received bonuses or pay hikes from their senior managers throughout 2018.

The study was actually undertaken to determine whether the women of the Company and those belonging to minority groups were being paid less. In the process, it was found that some male software developers had actually received a lot less compared to their female counterparts in terms of hikes and bonuses last year, for doing the same work.

Google is among other Silicon Valley companies being pressurised to address sexual harassment and pay gap, among other gender issues. It is being presently sued by many former women employees who claim they were paid lesser than the men for doing the same job and with the same qualifications.

The Company has all along maintained that it has not been paying its women staff less. It also felt that pay packages among similar positions or job titles was not the most accurate way to measure equity.

While fixing the salary of an employee, it is the general practice at Google to use an algorithm involving performance, job, location and other such factors. Then, the subjective factors are taken into account, such as whether the concerned employee will do well in the future; whether she is being paid similar to others who contribute the same amount of work, and so on. The decisions are based on the rationale offered by the managers.

While Google is resting easy after having addressed the gap, the fact remains that the hike is hardly appropriate considering what some of its women staff would have earned had they been placed in the right pay grade at the very beginning of their tenure.