Dow Jones: Salaries don’t vary due to gender or ethnicity

Mark Musgrave, the chief people officer at Dow Jones & Co., the parent of The Wall Street Journal, MarketWatch.com and Barron’s, sent out the following to the staff on Wednesday:

Dear Colleague,

Over the past few months, I’ve had many thoughtful and constructive conversations with colleagues across the company about diversity and inclusion, especially regarding compensation. I value the candor with which we can have these discussions and have taken your feedback seriously.

As you are aware, we have been working through a comprehensive internal analysis of our pay practices, led by the People Business Partners, as well as an external analysis by Willis Towers Watson, a company that has successfully worked with a number of organizations on similar programs. I’m grateful for your patience as we worked through this process. Now that the assessment is complete, I’d like to share the results as well our next steps.

Importantly, the analysis shows that employee pay did not vary because of gender or ethnicity. These findings, however, will not make us complacent in our ongoing commitment to ensuring that Dow Jones provides a fair and transparent workplace for all employees today and in the years ahead.

The assessment did show that less than three percent of our employees, a group that included both men and women and spanned multiple ethnicities, needed adjustments to align their salaries with those of colleagues as well as the overall marketplace. The adjustments for non-union employees were reflected during the annual salary planning process. We will make any necessary adjustments for IAPE member employees by early January.

We are dedicated to fair and equal pay for all employees and will be conducting a follow-up salary analysis, in conjunction with Willis Towers Watson, during the first quarter of 2017. The results will help ensure our continued forward momentum in this area.

In addition to compensation reviews, we are examining all aspects of our culture to identify opportunities where we can embed improved standards around diversity and inclusion, nurture authenticity and align our culture with overall business goals, to drive towards future growth.

Over the next few weeks, the Diversity and Inclusion working group, which we launched over the summer, will be working with the People team to facilitate focus groups with employees across the globe. Your insights are essential for developing new, impactful culture building initiatives as we align with WSJ2020 initiatives.

We invite you to participate in shaping the future of Dow Jones by sharing your experiences in a focus group. Please email Meredith.Lubitz@dowjones.com by Tuesday, December 13. The team is working towards meeting with a representative sample of 10% of the global employee population by the end of January, and shortly thereafter, we will announce new cultural values aligned to our business strategy.

The work we have been doing over the past several months is only the beginning. We know that our employees’ unique backgrounds, experiences and perspectives are integral to creating plans that will grow and improve our efforts in these areas. We are eager for your help in taking the next steps to move our business forward.

As always, I welcome your thoughts and feedback.

The union representing journalists at Dow Jones issued a study in March noting that the company paid women less then men.