How Microsoft measures the gender wage gap

UK models a new way to measure the gender pay gap

What you probably already know: There are several ways to measure the pay gap and, as companies increasingly release their statistics, it’s important to understand the differences. Often, these reports will take into account employee levels and experience, and display their pay gaps based on these metrics. At Microsoft, for example, when you control for these factors, women actually make slightly more than men across the whole company, according to Kristen Roby Dimlow, who spoke at a Women at Work summit in Seattle on Wednesday. But that metric doesn’t tell the whole story. And that’s why Roby Dimlow has started measuring Microsoft’s median unadjusted pay.

Why? Median unadjusted pay takes into account the simple truth: Women are often in lower-paying roles like marketing and HR, compared to men in more technical engineering roles. The U.K. recently began requiring companies to report this and companies like Microsoft that have employees across the globe are adopting this statistic to measure the true wage gap for their employees. In fact, Syndio has a handy tool companies can use to compare themselves against 10,800 other businesses.

What it means: At Microsoft, Roby Dimlow said women make about 90% as much as men in the U.S., and it’s closer to 87.5% globally. “We need to do a better job on representation,” she said. That means starting with the pipeline of young people, making sure girls see themselves in these high-paying roles and have opportunities to get the training they need to get there.

What happens now? When the U.K. started measuring this about eight years ago, more women started showing up in leadership roles. Roby Dimlow pointed to the shame factor as one reason for that phenomenon. When companies see the gap in their own workforce, they seek to change it to improve public perception. She includes Microsoft in that group. The company publicly releases its median unadjusted pay gaps in its annual report. “I do feel like there’s a real spirit of holding ourselves accountable,” she said.