HR's Pay Disparity

HR's Pay Disparity
The number of women in HR may dwarf the number of men in the profession, but when the numbers talk turns to compensation, the disparity is quite different, according to a recent analysis. Male HR leaders earn far more than women overall because there are far more men in senior-level positions, experts say. By Tom Starner
It probably comes as no surprise that women outnumber men by a healthy two-to-one margin in the HR profession. But it may be somewhat shocking to know that, despite the clear numbers advantage, women in HR make more than 30 percent less than their male HR colleagues.
Using a U.S. Department of Labor Women's Bureau 2008 analysis as its foundation, Forbes.com recently ranked and reported median weekly earnings (full-time wage and salary workers) to uncover the best-paying jobs for women.
The good news? Women HR professionals hit the top 10, coming in at No. 8, with an annual median income of $59,124 ($1,137 weekly). The bad news? Women in HR earned just 68 percent of what men working in HR were paid.
Of course, statistics can be tricky. Yet, it seems odd that a two-to-one advantage wouldn't translate into gender equity for women in HR when it comes to bringing home the bacon.
For the curious, the top-ranked profession for women, based on DOL median income statistics, belongs to pharmacists, checking in at $1,647 per week, followed by chief executives ($1,603), lawyers ($1,509), computer software engineers ($1,351), computer and information systems managers ($1,260) and physicians and surgeons ($1,230).
But why the disparity between genders in the HR profession? Very simple, say some former HR executives and business experts: Men still dominate the high-paying HR executive positions.
"There's no question there are more women than men in the HR profession, but this only holds true with entry- and mid-level HR professionals," says former HR executive Johnny C. Taylor, Jr., author of The Trouble with HR: An Insider's Guide to Finding and Keeping the Best People. "A closer look at senior HR professional level positions, however, reveals a far different picture."
Taylor, a former chairman of the Society for Human Resource Management, is CEO of Rushmore Drive, a new IAC/InterActive Corp. Internet business.
Women may dominate the profession in numbers, but they trail in compensation because the senior HR roles -- which pay significantly better than junior and mid-level roles -- are dominated by men.
"The big challenge confronting the profession is how to bring women in and to develop them so that they are prepared to assume senior HR roles when they become available," says Taylor, who previously held senior legal and HR roles with companies including Blockbuster, Paramount Pictures and Alamo Rent-A-Car.
Kate Sweetman, a Boston-based principal and consultant with The RBL Group, an HR and executive consulting firm, calls the finding "terribly ironic" because HR should play a key role in helping women and organizations make changes if the "leaky pipeline" to leadership, as she calls it, is ever to be patched.
Until then, Sweetman, a former editor at the Harvard Business Review and research associate at the Harvard Business School, says there are some ways to narrow or eliminate the compensation gap, including:
* Mentorship -- Sweetman says no one succeeds without mentors and it is harder for women to find and cultivate mentors who can really help them (the gender politics of older men-in-power and younger women can feel awkward for both parties).
"This is one reason why it is so important to have more women at the top," she says.
* Networking -- Women tend to network less effectively than men. While men tend to network for career advantage ("Can this guy get me what I want?"), women tend to network for more personal reasons ("Do I like him or her? If so, I will network with them. If not, I won't.").
* Career development -- Women tend to make fewer of the right moves, a combination of holding themselves back for a variety of reasons (such as raising a family, etc.) and/or because the organization assumes what she does or does not want, or will or will not do (relocate, for example).
* Managing the home front -- This is the "second shift" phenomenon, says Sweetman, noting that even women with demanding jobs tend to do more around the house than their mates
* Self-concept -- Women are more likely to be conflicted or second-guess themselves about their careers; they are less driven than some of the male competition because of traditional roles, etc.
"I believe that this is one key role of HR in the 21st century, because diversity is one of the key challenges of our times," she says. "If HR truly wants a seat at the table of the modern organization, this is something they need to fix."
Sweetman says HR gender disparity issue, both in median income and executive position, should be owned HR, but closely linked to the business lines.
"HR needs to create the business case and help find practical ways for gender equity to happen all the way to the top," she says. "HR has failed if they don't have it from top to bottom."
On a more personal level, Lee Miller, an executive coach and trainer; a former top HR executive at TV Guide, USA Networks and Barneys N.Y.; and the author of Get More Money on Your Next Job ... In any Economy, and A Woman's Guide to Successful Negotiating, says a significant part of the HR compensation disparity can be linked to the lack of training and experience in negotiating.
In addition, she says, women often aren't as comfortable negotiating as men and thus, don't negotiate compensation as often or as well as men.
"This may be more of a problem in HR than in some other areas because women who are successful in operations or law, for example, have had to learn to negotiate," Miller says, adding that women in HR change jobs less often than their male counterparts -- which heightens this disparity because whenever an individual changes jobs, he or she typically negotiates a salary increase.
"The unwillingness to negotiate is exacerbated in a bad economy because of a myth that you cannot negotiate in a bad economy, which women take to heart more than men," she says.
Miller says this also is true because, historically, men in HR came from labor relations or executive recruiting, two HR-related areas where negotiating skills are critical
Taylor notes that he remembers reading an article reporting that of the Top 50 highest-paid HR executives in the U.S., just 14 were women, a three-to-one advantage for men among the HR executive elite. And of the top 15, only three were women, so the ratio drops down to five to one.
"When the top HR executive, a man, is making $9 million a year and an HR field manager, typically a woman, makes $40,000, you will never make those numbers work," he says. "There are a number of other reasons why the pay disparity [exists], but that is the most telltale fact."
Taylor adds that, whether it is in HR or any other area within a company, bias against women, the proverbial glass ceiling, is still very much in effect.
"That No. 1 job is still more likely to be a man than a woman," he says. "Heck, we're still making a big deal today when another woman is going to be on the Supreme Court. HR is not that different than any other area within a company."
Of course, some women in HR leadership positions understand the historical reasons why men have dominated the top-paying positions, because they have lived it.
Kathleen Weslock, senior vice president of human resources/chief HR officer for Sungard Data Systems Inc., in Wayne, Pa., in began her HR career more than 30 years ago, when, she says, the vast majority of senior HR executives were men because they had the academic background and training in other fields, such as finance, labor relations or operations, that allowed them to slide over into senior HR roles.
"Many of the women in HR, until they had access to more educational opportunities and training, came up through the administrative track," she says, "and they came en masse because those were the jobs available to them given their background at the time."
While those historical underpinnings still are in evidence, they are changing, Weslock says, as women continue to become more empowered and develop the skills needed to take more senior, strategic positions in HR.
Women also are going into more complex HR specialty areas critical to business success, she says. Pay disparity aside, the No. 8 ranking for women on the list of highest-paying jobs is positive, but it's not all that matters.
"With that said, I think anyone who makes a choice to go into HR based purely on money is making a bad career move," Weslock says. "HR people have a different calling and it is not all about the money. At the end of the day, human resources is still centered around the 'H' in HR."
July 27, 2009
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