Legal privilege plays a key role in pay equity analysis

Pay equity has put compensation and HR managers in the hot seat for some time. Hopefully, they've gotten comfortable with being the center of attention because the focus on pay equity isn't going away—at least not anytime soon.

Addressing the persistent wage gap

The needle doesn't seem to be moving on the stubborn and persistent wage gap. Women still earn about 80 cents for every dollar paid to a man, and the differential is even greater for women of color. African-American women earn just 63 cents and Hispanic women earn a mere 54 cents for every dollar earned by a man. While some sources have noted that the pay gap is shrinking, it's disappearing at a glacial pace.

That brings us to the point of this article: the role of attorney-client privilege in an employer's attempt to address the wage gap. What does addressing the pay gap have to do with the attorney-client privilege? Everything.

Traditionally, information related to employees' pay and employers' compensation practices was the black box of the employment world. Those days are quickly becoming a distant memory. Employers are under increasing pressure from all sides to be more transparent about their pay practices and to close the pay gap in their own workforce.