Dear Affogato HR Consulting Clients and Friends,

Last week!  What a week!
 
First we had International Women’s Day.  Lots of discussion about substantial issues like the contributions that women make in the world.  On my feed, that was coupled with a lot of ads for flowers.  Somehow, that felt like the point had been missed just a bit.

The end of the week brought a real jolt with the failure of Silicon Valley Bank.  We all saw lots of discussion flying around about what this meant for our future.  So many people were caught up in the existential angst of a bank failure, but some of us were thinking “what about pay day”. 

Pay is important.  No two ways about that, is there? 

For me, the practical takeaway from the bank failure was to make sure companies have a way to meet payroll.  It’s not just about having the cash, but making sure that you have the ability to get the money to the right place at the right time.  Depending on your business this may be a complex problem that can’t be solved right away, but it’s better to begin while you have time.  Partner with your financial advisors to come up with solutions.  I’m going to open an account at another bank and link it to my payroll provider, so that I have a second way to fund payroll.  As we all know, states have requirements about timely payment (if you have questions here, your Affogato consultant can help).  What’s more important, though, is that your employees have confidence that they will receive their pay right on time. 

And while we’re looking at confidence and pay stability, this is a good time to look at what you pay your staff.  The gender wage gap got a lot of attention last week, as well it should (just to restate the most relevant fact here, American women typically earn 82 cents to every dollar that men earn, a number that has barely changed in 20 years).  But I think it’s more interesting to look at any wage gap that can’t be explained by legitimate business reasons (things like merit, experience and education, not prior salary, race or gender, for example).  That doesn’t mean that every employee gets paid the same, but it does mean that we understand why there are differences.  If we don’t like what we see, then we figure out how to change it.  This represents another opportunity to provide confidence to your employees that they are paid fairly.

Finally, a compliance reminder:  many employers now need to include the base wage rate in job postings.  In addition, employers with at least one California employee and 100+ employees total will need to file pay data with the state of California by May 10, 2023.  That’s less than 2 months away.  If your company has not collected the required data, this may be a really big undertaking.  Need help?  Let us know.

Hang in there!

Jonna, Lisa, Suzanne, Lisha and Karen