Once known for sexy Superbowl commercials, GoDaddy has recast itself as a promoter of equality in hiring – and now, equal pay.
The company that once made waves with Danica Patrick ads is now leveraging its “internal culture” and doing more than discuss diversity. Last year at the Grace Hopper Celebration, the web-hosting company disclosed its own employee gender breakdown. This year, GoDaddy today disclosed analysis of its employees’ salaries, a move it hopes further addresses gender disparity by closing the compensation gap among male and female technologists.
In its internal audit of payment data, GoDaddy analyzed like-minded roles to see how men and women were situated in the salary band for comparable positions. Although, company-wide, a woman receives approximately one cent more, women in technical roles at GoDaddy earn about 99 cents on the dollar and females in management positions receive approximately 96 cents on the dollar.
The web-hosting company will dig into the numbers to determine why there is some disparity among the genders, Auguste Goldman, chief people officer at GoDaddy, told EnterpriseTech.
“We’re excited about digging into the data and finding out [more],” he said. “We have enough questions to get answers now. Every year before Grace Hopper we’re going to have another area of transparency to share.”
The company wants to determine, for example, why more men are senior-level engineers compared with men.In researching pay differences, GoDaddy will look at its promotion practices, for example, Goldman said. Another factor could be some male engineers entering the company at a higher rate of pay, he said. The company already uses two levels of performance management to manage technologists’ careers, said Goldman. Half the assessment depends on achieving goals; the other half looks at how technologists accomplished them, teamwork, and other adherence to GoDaddy’s values, he added.
“It’s a vector of how you achieve your goals,” Goldman said.
GoDaddy disclosed women represent 20 percent of GoDaddy’s technical workforce (versus 19 percent in 2014) and 25 percent of the overall company (compared with 24 percent), as well as one-fourth of management (up 2 percent from last year). In addition, women interns and new college graduate hires grew to 39 percent from 14 percent 12 months ago, the company said.
Just as no company can resolve diversity alone, no enterprise can level the compensation field on its own, Goldman said. By sharing salary breakdowns, GoDaddy hopes other technology – and non-traditional technology businesses such as financial firms, hospitality companies, and others – will also share their male and female compensation information, he said.
“I think there’s enough conversation of people talking about this. How fast they’ll come out with data and how transparent is just a matter of time,” he said. “I imagine all the great technology companies will come out with compensation data and how we’re promoting in equitable ways.”