The hot topic on everyone’s lips right now, and should be on your mind when considering your next workplace and overall career satisfaction is that of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI)... more specifically, equal pay. With the hiring of women in tech steadily gaining traction, the DEI dialogue has taken precedence in building the culture of the tech industry, and the gender pay gap is much more apparent, sitting at an average of 18.45% in Europe. Taking salary data into account, we calculate that women in tech would earn an average of approximately €400,000 less than men over their working life.
It is clear and evident that old mindsets, strategies and frameworks that were built based on the legacy of the tech labour market need to be dismantled and rebuilt to reflect the renewed reality of the tech industry: there are women in tech and they need to be paid their worth.
Amongst many reasons that may vary depending on factors such as geographical location, culture, societal norms and social environment, these are 4 universal factors that significantly contribute to the gender pay gap in tech:
As difficult as it may seem, adopting a genuine diversity and inclusion policy requires overcoming sometimes historical obstacles, habits and one's own unconscious biases. And to question the real reasons that prevent women from achieving equal pay.
The task may seem daunting. However, with the current changes in the world of work, the new expectations of employees, their quest for corporate responsibility and the commitment of their leaders, this is a real window of opportunity to initiate major change. Many tech companies have understood this and are taking action to close the gender pay gap. This article highlights 50inTech’s most active partners leading the way for equal pay.
An exemplary example of a company that has achieved pay parity in tech at a global scale is Criteo. Their equal opportunity policy/non-discrimination-policy forbids any form of discrimination prior to and after the recruitment process regarding career progression, salary increases & benefits on the basis of any intersectional identity. As a result, in 2021 they have succeeded in closing the pay gap to 0% and reaching full pay parity regardless of gender.
How?
Contribution by Nancy Siba, DEI Programs and Partnerships Manager, Criteo.
Criteo is on a mission to “power the world’s marketers and media owners with trusted and impactful advertising” join them!
Malt have a transparent policy towards wages with a very clear career path to avoid any favoritism or unequal treatment. They are building transparent pay grids for every team, meaning that Malters have line of sight on not just their careers, but the possible salary evolutions as well. Malt finds it helps to remove bias in the recruitment/promotion process. People don't get higher salaries because they ask for them, salaries increases are based on merit.
Think Malt could be your perfect match? Join them.
Malt “connects businesses with digital freelancers, finding the perfect match for every project.” With 50% of women in the workforce, and a rare 50% representation of women managers in their teams, they have already made strides in terms of inclusion and diversity. With their many internal policies, Malt facilitates gender equity, starting with their unbiased recruitment process.
To ensure equal pay Swan is implementing a salary grid. They use tools allowing them to have a consistency of salaries according to the level of responsibility and skills developed.
Swan is in it’s fast-growing phase and plans to recruit 60 people in the next 12-18 months. Have a look at their job offers here.
Swan, dubbed a top "European fintech to watch in 2021" by Sifted, is a start-up FinTech company founded in 2019, that offers an embedded finance platform for European companies to seamlessly integrate banking services (accounts, cards, and IBANs) into their own product. Committed to fostering a company culture that reflects the values of diversity and inclusion, they are working towards implementing diversity actions that improve equality.
With a women salary increase of 48% in 2020, Onikar is raising awareness around equal pay internally, and they are implementing a salary grid.
The company is now on the track to fast growth, if you wanna catch a ride, have a look at their latest opportunities here.
Ornikar’s mission is to make driving a positive and safe experience for everyone. They are improving efforts in the deployment of their Diversity and Inclusion programme by adding diversity actions to their objectives and forging partnerships with diverse communities.
With a Gender Equality Index of 97/100 in 2020, the world’s leading digital music companies, Believe offers fair pay such that everyone holding the same position, the same level of performance and the same skill set receives a fair wage.
Sounds like music to your ears? Find out more, here.
Believe’s mission is to develop independent artists and labels in the digital world. Diversity is built within the company’s DNA, as a result Believe has a good gender equality ratio.
To support equal pay, Meilisearch has a salary grid that applies to everyone and clearly and transparently states salary expectations depending on where one stands in the framework, the scope of their role and responsibilities.
Representation matters, Meilisearch has 100% of women in managerial positions and 46% of women in tech roles - learn more here.
Meilisearch provides an “Ultra relevant, instant and typo-tolerant full-text search API”. Their technology is fully open-source, ensuring a democratized search experience. As a young company with great potential to effect positive change, diversity and inclusion has been embedded within the company culture from the outset.
Preligens implemented an objective salary grid based on the level of the role and the number of years of professional experience to ensure that remuneration is decided objectively, and to eliminate negotiation bias.
Would you like to pioneer AI for a safer world? Check out some of their job offers here.
Founded in 2016, Preligens uses Artificial Intelligence to automate the analysis of multi-source data to provide its Defense and Intelligence (D&I) customers with strategic knowledge regarding mission critical areas of interest. Diversity is a key priority at Preligens, amongst their diversity actions is the implementation of a salary grid within their policies.
Through the implementation of a salary grid Didomi ensures that employees with the same position are compensated equitably regardless of gender. Didomi is in a high growth phase with new offices recently opened across the globe, maybe it's your next workplace? Check them out on 50inTech.
Didomi is an innovative French company that develops a SaaS platform for privacy management. Based on a relationship built on trust, they help their customers to comply with their regulatory obligations.
In order to reach its objective of achieving like-for-like pay equality by 2025, Orange has a tool and methodology for pay gap analysis. Action plans, including dedicated budgets, are implemented to reduce any gaps identified. Want to join a world-leading telecommunications company? Join them.
Orange is a leader in global telecommunications, and has been working on gender equality issues for over a decade. In 2019, the company signed a global agreement with the UNI Global Union, on worklplace gender equality, combatting discrimination and violence, and work-life balance. In 2020, the Group launched the Hello Women program, a comprehensive plan to attract and retain more female talent in tech positions.
Deepomatic has developed a skill matrix so that year-end reviews can receive unbiased evaluations and decides on pay raise on career growth fairly, based on performances. Women are actually slightly paid more than men in the company. Sounds like your type of company? Join them.
Deepomatic brings image recognition into solid business solutions. With their Founder & CTO establishing that "it is easier to maintain a diverse team if it is a core focus early on", it’s sure that Deepomatic has made inclusion a priority.
With 33% of women in leadership and managerial roles, diversity & inclusion is a top priority for Swile. Their goal is to increase the diversity of their talent pipeline. They put in place salary grids where all output is rated on a leveling / scorecard, with a 100% focus on skills. Thanks to this concrete action, women's salaries increased by 30% in 2020. If you need a reason to smile, check out Swile.
Swile, a play on the word smile, is short for "smile at work". They are committed to using technology to bring teams together, and determined to progress in their efforts and grow the diversity of their talent pipeline by partnering with communities like 50inTech, AdaTech and Fireside.
For Indy, reaching gender parity is not an option but a non-negotiable, this is reflected in their company data. With equal pay, transparency and flexibility are already in place, their next objective is to achieve gender parity; precisely 50% of women in the workforce.
Their salary grid is transparent and open to all employees, which holds to account any pay discrimination that could take place. They also make sure that everyone gets a salary raise every year, regardless of their job position or past experience.
Currently at 44% of women in the workforce, with a goal to reach 50%, perhaps there's an opportunity for you.
Indy, previously Georges.tech, is a saving grace for the self-employed as it simplifies their lives by automating their accounting.
Steps to close the gender pay gap
As part of the equal compensation and growth framework at Inato, for each role, a scorecard is put in place. It provides very specific criteria of what the person needs to achieve. Each skill that is matched, automatically corresponds to a salary grid.
Join Inato if you’re interested in inclusive and efficient clinical research.
Inato is a ‘Tech for Good’ company that describes their mission as “building a global clinical trial marketplace to create greater visibility, access, and engagement across a more diverse population of doctors and their patients.” They support and sponsor the work of researchers engaged in the development of drugs and effective treatments for diseases.
In 2019 CEO, Vera Kempf created the pay grid to eliminate gender bias in decisions about pay and promotions, ensuring parity across all levels of the company. The result? Women's salaries increased by 65.38% in 2020! Does Singulart catch your eye? Join them.
Singulart “An online art destination that curates a selection of original works from around the world.” has a near 50-50 gender balance for their board of directors, and 64% of women in managerial roles. Furthermore, their diversity actions support their vision to support an open-minded and highly international team culture.
With Aurore Malherbesak, CTO and co-founder, Padok aims to ensure that the presence of women in the company is the same as that of men. To make sure everyone is considered fairly according to their performances, a grid-compensation system has been implemented. With an objective to reach 17% of women in tech roles in 2021, Padok has several job offers available on 50inTech.
Padok is on a mission to “to eliminate the waste that ruins the productivity of development teams”.
Develop Diverse is true to its mission with its own multicultural and gender balanced team – including its three female co-founders. They use their own tool Develop Diverse to eliminate unconscious bias in job ads and attract more diverse candidates independently of age, gender and ethnicity AND continuously evaluating rewards and pay to make sure there is no gender pay gap, how cool? Join them.
Develop Diverse enables companies to attract and retain diverse talent by helping them create an inclusive culture through inclusive communication. They believe that the recruitment process is key to building a diverse team - with objective parameters to evaluate candidates based on skill and a diverse hiring team present throughout the applicant's journey.
Mirakl embraces and values the range of perspectives and expertise that diversity brings and cultivates a company culture that reflects empathy and care. Mirakl has pay equity in all of their locations and an Equal Pay Index of 97/100. Newly launched on our site, learn more about Mirakl and join them!
As the pioneering and most advanced enterprise marketplace SaaS platform, Mirakl has grown significantly since its establishment in 2012. They are “the marketplace platform chosen by leading enterprises, across industries, to scale eCommerce at the speed they demand.”
Zenly have implemented grid-compensation and grid-evaluation systems to make sure everyone is considered fairly according to their skills. In 2020 they had a 14% increase in women’s salary, and a 0% gender compensation pay gap. For a place that prioritises your needs and shows it through their actions, Join them.
Zenly is a live map of your friends and family. Building with a diverse team is the only way to build a product that truly serves their diverse audience of millions of people around the world. In short: Zenly needs to be as diverse as its own users.
Tech companies have to lead the change in diversity, that’s why we provide job offers from companies signatory of the 50inTech pledge which attests to objectives and tangible evidence of their DE&I policy. We still have a long way to go to close the gender pay gap, but all these emerging initiatives show that companies are determined to change the game.
At 50inTech, we create the match between women in tech and inclusive companies. We believe that companies must adapt and change while empowering women with tools to supercharge their careers. We need to act together—now.
Did you know that 15/40 of the Next 40/120 French Tech companies are dedicated to being inclusive to #womenintech? Partnering with us at 50inTech means that these 15 companies have strong commitments to the following: equal pay, fair career path, flexible working and anti-discrimination policies.