How to Do a Salary Equity Study: With an Illustrative Example From Higher Education

Regular salary equity studies can be a best practice among employers committed to salary equity and fairly managed compensation. While a well-constructed salary study can identify inequities for amelioration, a poorly constructed study can create rather than solve problems. Organizations may be deterred from doing these studies because of their inherent analytical challenges. We provide a guide for human resource managers describing how to conduct their own salary studies, how to interpret the results, and how organizations can apply the results. We describe best practices across public sector organizations and illustrate them with an example from higher education. We also provide a link to an online appendix containing sample code that can be used to conduct such analyses using two popular software packages. The twin goals of the article are to increase the quality of salary analyses while reducing the barriers to conducting them.

From the President: Productive Engagement in Salary Equity

Former American Library Association President Maurice Freedman launched a campaign of awareness and action during his 2002-2003 tenure. He appointed the Better Salaries and Pay Equity Task Force which published a helpful resource, Advocating for Better Salaries and Pay Equity Toolkit (2003). The task force’s pay equity advocacy program is founded on the reality of a predominately female workforce which is less well paid than those in fields of comparable work dominated by males. Simply defined, pay equity means that all people receive equal pay for work regardless of race or gender. Salaries of librarians regrettably lag behind those of other professions. In 2002, the average estimated salary of librarians was $44,430, according to the U.S. Department of Labor National Occupational Employment and Wages Survey. Pertaining to type of library, the following salaries were posted: