In 2016, California, Maryland, Massachusetts, Delaware, and Nebraska passed fair pay legislation. And at the federal level, both the EEOC and OFCCP have identified pay equity as among their top enforcement priorities. Fair pay means that employees who perform substantially similar work (not always within the same job title) receive the same level of compensation.

Fair pay legislation dictates that jobs which are similar in skill, effort, responsibility, and working conditions should be combined for pay comparison. The most defensible and effective basis for grouping jobs is through a formal job analysis which gathers quantitative data to determine which jobs are “substantially similar” enough to warrant combination.

We use a rigorous job analysis approach, conduct detailed assessments of the overlap in skill, effort, responsibility and working conditions to create job groups, design statistical analyses to model your organization’s pay policies and perform a quantitative analysis of pay differences to ensure legal defensibility. Not only can this work be used for pay equity, the job analysis information can also be used to align HR practices ranging from performance management to employee selection to learning and development.

In response to changes in pay equity legislation, the U.S. Department of Labor has developed a Pay equity interactive map that outlines equal pay and pay-transparency protections by state.