Reflecting on gender and racial pay equity on Hispanic Heritage Month.
As a proud Latina with European heritage, I've been taking some time to reflect on the significance of Hispanic Heritage Month. It's a time when we celebrate our culture, our achievements, and our contributions to society.
But it's also a time to address some uncomfortable truths.
One of those truths that has been weighing on my mind is the fact that only two female Latino CEOs have ever made it to Fortune 500 companies, AND the fact that for every dollar earned by a non-Hispanic white man, a Latina earns just 57 cents.
It's hard to believe that in this day and age, we still have such a long way to go when it comes to diversity and inclusion at the highest levels of leadership.
In the spirit of Hispanic Heritage Month, my commitment is to shed some light on this reality and encourage companies to move beyond surface-level celebrations and truly commit to creating a more equitable workplace for all.
Here are a few actions I believe are critical:
- Equitable Advancement Opportunities: We must ensure that Latinos in our organizations have the same opportunities for growth and advancement as their peers from other ethnicities. This means breaking down any barriers that may exist and creating an environment where talent, performance, and potential are the only factors that matter.
- Bias-Free Performance Reviews and Hiring Practices: It's crucial that we actively work to remove gender and ethnic bias from our performance review processes and hiring practices. Fair evaluations and hiring decisions based solely on merit and skills are fundamental to achieving true diversity and inclusion.
- Building a Diverse Executive Pipeline: True diversity goes beyond gender; it includes representation from various ethnic backgrounds. We should invest in cultivating a leadership pipeline that more accurately reflects the diversity of our workforce. If Latinas represent approximately 17% of the female labor force in the US, I would expect to see more than just around 3% of them having a board seat.
Hispanic Heritage Month should be more than just a calendar event. It should serve as a catalyst for meaningful change in our organizations.
I want to look back 20 years from now and be able to tell my son and my daughter that even though Mommy made 57 cents less than her white male counterparts in 2023, they will not have to fight this battle because we have reached not only gender pay equity but also racial pay equity.
Data source: https://blog.dol.gov/2021/10/20/5-facts-about-latinas-in-the-labor-force
