Diversity Beyond Tokenism by Swati Jena and T N Hari, An Excerpt

Diversity Beyond Tokenism: Why Being Politically Correct Doesn’t Help Anyone by Swati Jena and T N Hari  is a book which talks about workplace diversity and inclusion An excerpt on Equal Pay for Equal Work... Is Not the Solution:

This brings us to the critical question—what about the inequity that exists today? How do we ignore the fact that certain sections of the society are lagging behind? How do we bridge the gap? Take the example of pay parity between men and women. During a leadership summit, two leading actors of India, Akshay Kumar and Kareena Kapoor, were asked about gender pay disparity in Bollywood. Kapoor said she would like to get paid as much as Kumar. The latter said he was actually a partner to the producer in their current movie together. Further, he offered Kapoor the opportunity to be a 50 per cent partner in the next movie, not seeking remuneration for her acting, but taking half of what the movie made at the box office. What this conversation reveals, is that pay gap is not merely a gender-bias issue - and the solution is not as simple as paying women more.

A case in point is Grand Slam prize money for male and female tennis players. Over the years, major Grand Slams have transitioned to equal prize money for male and female players. However, the debate is far from over. Male players have continued to argue their reasons of why they should get paid more than their female counterparts. Novak Djokovic said, ‘Women should fight for what they think they deserve and we should fight for what we think we deserve.’ Arguments, in general, include longer match time and audience pull of male players, etc. Of course, these arguments get countered as the debate continues—with both sides using examples that suit their point. Leading female players like Serena Williams and Martina Navratilova have said that women athletes should play 5-set matches. Apart from prize money, disparity in other areas such as media coverage of male and female players continue to be discussed. The debates are raging in every sector. A sexism debate in start-up world is why a small fraction of venture funding goes to male founders as compared to female founders. There are multiple arguments on both sides. Those claiming sexism say, investors have a bias towards women founders. Others say that women themselves may present themselves conservatively during pitches while men exaggerate their qualities. Recently, funds specifically focusing on female founders have cropped up. However, is that a sustainable solution? How do we deal with this never-ending debate, in every sector? First and foremost, we need to define the context of such debates, clearly. Are we talking in strict business terms or from the perspective of larger social good? For a business context, we need to consider business parameters. For example, some opine female founders should not have to change themselves to get investment, but investors should meet them half way. From a utopian, equal-and-just-society point of view, that makes sense. However, putting oneself in an investor’s shoes, from strict business point of view, one will invest money based on expected returns. Hence, the long-term solution in the business context will be to understand and resolve what keeps female founders behind while seeking investment, instead of setting up special funds, to ‘meet them halfway’. We are not saying some additional efforts are negative. Our point is that, in a business context, the root causes of discriminatory practices need to be addressed, taking a practical view instead of expecting utopian scenarios.

During a leadership summit, two leading actors of India, Akshay Kumar and Kareena Kapoor, were asked about gender pay disparity in Bollywood. Kapoor said she would like to get paid as much as Kumar.

Another key aspect to consider while dealing with discrimination in remuneration, etc., is that the decision variables are not shared transparently. Whether it is actor’s pay or chief experience officer (CXO) salary or tennis players’ earnings—the parameter should be defined and made public by decision-making authorities. Allocation of courts is a major issue in Grand Slam tournaments, leading to gender debates on who should get to play in major courts. What if the organizing team were to make their criteria officially known? What if media houses were required to publish how they decide the coverage of male and female matches? What if producers of movies were to announce their criteria of deciding the pay of male and female actors? What if organizations were to share their compensation formula? What if investors had to be transparent about their funding decisions? What if organizations needed to state their rejection and selection parameters clearly? For example, if organizations were to share transparently that they will pay anyone returning from a break less than others, with reasons. Or if media houses were to publish their internal assessment of ratings of players based on which they decided to cover player A twice as much as player B. Or investors were to say upfront that they did not fund a female entrepreneur because they thought she would not be as available to work, as they would expect her to be. This radical truthfulness will lead to multiple outcomes. The very need to publish their decision parameters will put greater accountability on decision-makers to examine whether they have defined clear, fair criteria and have a systematic decision process in place. Making the criteria public also helps in fruitful discussions, instead of endless rhetoric. For example, if it is transparently shared and widely understood that any actor who takes a share of profits as a pay-out model, instead of a fixed compensation, has a chance of earning more, the discussion will move beyond ‘why male actors get paid more than female actors?’. If it is declared that viewership of a match is a criterion for player earning a pay-out model can be re-looked at and applied uniformly to male and female players. If indeed women entrepreneurs are consistently found to be underplaying business plans, we can further look into whether a change is required in how women entrepreneurs pitch; or whether an unconscious bias is at play in the investors’ mind, which needs to be addressed; or, a third possibility of male entrepreneurs consistently over-playing business plans. The idea of such radical transparency might seem uncomfortable to begin with. However, if we can build the appetite to both tell and hear the truth, it can lead to fact finding and real solutions.

A study by a Wharton professor of two large stockbrokers found that saleswomen were earning less than salesmen, despite a system of merit pay, because they were being given smaller accounts with lesser commission and lesser support in terms of staff, mentors and amenities. Here the wage gap was not the problem. It was a symptom of the real problem (i.e., women not being entrusted with more challenging accounts). Hence, merely levelling-the-pay cannot be a solution in this case. Why was the account allocation as such? Was there an actual bias at play? Was there a genuine capability gap? Or some other challenge? If the company had an obligation to be transparent about the principles it used to allocate accounts to male and female employees (just like tennis authorities were to share their principle of allocating courts), the company would be forced to be accountable. They would be compelled to address the actual root cause. In short, the solution to remove discrimination needs to begin with defining and sharing of decision parameters, and the uniform application of it, to all stakeholders. Such radical transparency can make many in position of authority jittery. But transparency is what can drive accountability and fairness. The final piece of reducing the gap caused by historic discrimination is capability development including government–industry– academia collaboration. In the last few years, there has been a thrust for companies to have a gender balance in their boards. This has led to many notable appointments of female CXOs, which is well and good. One also comes across lot of articles on the ‘need to promote more women’. However, if there is an overall shortage of women at senior roles, is mere promotion going to help? What happens after the existing talent pool has been tapped? The rest of the companies will either struggle or, worse, have to compromise on the candidate. This might be an ‘oouch’ observation, but let’s look at it with clinical objectivity. We have categorically stated in the chapter ‘Women in Senior Management’ that there is no basis to speculations that female board members are in any way less capable than male board members. Hence, our point here is not in the least to suggest women leaders are lacking in anyway. It is simply that there needs to be real investment in increasing the talent pool of women to bridge the wide gap that exists because of historic discrimination. Merely promoting women (and other protected groups) will not help in the long run; however, preparing them will. There is only so much female-founder-specific funding that can happen. But helping them learn new behaviors necessary for the domain is what will put them on equal footing with male founders, on a larger scale.

There are disgruntled murmurs in organizations that affirmative action is another kind of discrimination and means a ‘compromise on meritocracy’. We have refuted these faulty arguments in the book. However, if affirmative action does not include capability building at a war footing, naysayers will be proven right in the long run, hurting the cause of diversity and anti-discrimination. We acknowledge that the aforementioned is a delicate argument to make and can be easily misunderstood to be downplaying the pay gap. If aspects of diversity were so straightforward, it wouldn’t be fraught with tokenism in the first place. By suggesting that we need to focus more on preparing women better, rather than on maxims such as equal-pay-equal-work, is not to refute the gap. In fact, if anything, the pay gap leads to social inequality, much beyond organizational discrimination. Gender equality in society cannot be achieved, unless women are financially at par with men, for which the pay gap has to be levelled. What we are saying is that we cannot limit ourselves to it. Instead, we need to aggressively build the capability of women at all levels so that they can make different career choices and silence all excuses that have been made earlier to justify the gap. Even further, focusing on pay-for-outcome means women need not only limit themselves to the goal of getting paid equal to men but aspire to get paid more. Businesses don’t exist in isolation; they are a part of society. One aspect that does not get spoken about often is discriminatory behaviors by customers themselves. The society, in general, who might be outraged with any organizational discrimination on Twitter, could be the same people demonstrating bias in their behavior while seeking a product and service. This dichotomous behavior is the final reason why businesses cannot take the approach of tackling discrimination based on public opinion, which can be fraught with double standards. Organizations will be unable to sustain the piecemeal, incident-based and issue-specific approach to discrimination. The solution has to be about fair principles. Hence, if Kareena Kapoor can take more business risk than Akshay Kumar, and if Serena Williams’ matches get sold out faster than Djokovic’s, then they should claim to get paid, not just equally, but even more than their male counterparts. Much in the same way, if they don’t, they should be okay to not get paid as much. The alternative to discrimination isn’t so much - equal pay for equal work. True equity, especially in high-stake roles, will come from equal pay for equal outcomes.

An excerpt from Diversity Beyond Tokenism: Why Being Politically Correct Doesn’t Help Anyone by Swati Jena and T.N. Hari. Published by SAGE Publications India. 2021, 300 pages, Paperback, Rs. 550 (ISBN: 978-93-91370-63-3), SAGE Response.

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