Welcome to the ASE Pay Equity Assessment Tool (PEAT). PEAT is designed to give guidance to the Human Resource professional on proper pay policy and practice to set in place at an organization.
Background
Early in 2009 the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act became federal law. This law’s intent is to enhance protections against pay discrimination based on gender, race, age or other protected class. In practical terms, the law will compel employers who have not been in the habit of examining their internal pay practices to review their current practices. The purpose of reviewing their practices would be to ensure they are not engaged in pay discrimination, and their policies and practices effectively prevent disparate or adverse impact against protected groups.
What is PEAT?
PEAT, combined with the optional PEAT Report, is a general guide that determines whether or not your organization has basic pay policies and practices in place. The absence of these policies and practices does not mean or even imply violation of anti-discrimination laws. Rather, PEAT simply helps you identify policies, practices and programs that will help your organization avoid practices that could lead to pay discrimination in the workplace.
If your organization is an ASE member, you can complete and submit PEAT online. If your organization is not an ASE member, you can
order your PEAT online. Once your order is verified, you will receive a link for the PEAT online assessment, followed by a report detailing the pay practice areas that require your further attention. Each area identified in your PEAT report as needing further attention will include an explanation of how addressing that area will help your organization avoid pay discrimination. Further, this report will detail resources, programs and services that you can enhance your organization’s pay equity practices.
Pay Equity Analysis
ASE further recommends that you regularly review the current pay levels of your incumbent employees by gender, race, age and other protected classification, in order to get a more complete look at your current pay practices. ASE can assist with this detailed pay analysis through its more comprehensive Pay Equity Analysis. This service consists of ASE compensation specialists reviewing your actual pay levels to identify specific individual cases that may be perceived as constituting pay inequity.
This feedback, combined with the feedback from your PEAT report, will give you the basic blueprint you need to update your pay program(s) to protect yourself from claims of pay discrimination in the future.