We invite your organisation to be a champion for equal pay by ending the practice of asking for past salary. This is a simple measure to implement and more importantly, it works.

Many states in the US have already banned the practice of asking for current salary history.

In states where the salary history ban has been enacted, there was a 8-9% increase in salaries for women who switched jobs.

It is harmful:

• It is a self-perpetuating system that maintains the historical gender and ethnicity pay inequality

• Salary is not pegged to the job scope but an individual’s perceived worth and negotiating abilities. Both negotiation and perceived worth allows biases (gender, race, class, etc) to creep into the system, undermining other company-wide inclusivity, diversity and equality initiatives

It makes little sense:

• It penalises candidates who have taken time off work (which most women do) or those moving from a less expensive area to a more expensive one

• It is a futile exercise as there is no way to verify the veracity of the amount and people usually lie

It breaks trust between prospective employees and organisations:

• Over 70% of respondents on our salary history survey have said that responding to this question makes them feel moderately uncomfortable

• 90% felt this was an unfair way to determine salary

• It makes salary determination a zero-sum game with organisations allowed to make the lowest possible offer to te candidate as opposed to a fair and equitable offer