Salesforce's Annual Equal Pay Assessment — Statistical Pay Audits and Adjustments for Gender and Race

Salesforce runs an annual statistical equal pay assessment of its global workforce, comparing employees in similar roles and adjusting pay where unexplained gender differences (and, in the US, race/ethnicity differences) appear.
According to Salesforce, the 2022 assessment covered about 70,000 employees; 8.5% received an adjustment, 92% of them on the basis of gender and 8% on the basis of race or ethnicity in the US, at a cost of $5.6 million. Cumulative spending since the programme began was reported as more than $22 million. Stock grants were added to the analysis in 2021. In 2024 Salesforce reported that 3% of employees received an adjustment and that, after adjustment, similar jobs were paid on par across genders globally.
Salesforce's 2019 proxy statement (SEC) records about $10.3 million committed by then to eliminate statistically significant gender-associated pay differences and dates the formal assessment to fiscal 2017, whereas Salesforce's own communications date the first assessment to 2015.
Caveats: all results are self-reported by the company and not independently audited; methodology details and the pay gaps found before adjustment are not published; and Salesforce itself notes that equal pay is only one component of pay fairness.

Read the full analysis: https://www.salesforce.com/news/stories/2022-equal-pay-update-the-salesforce-approach-to-pay-fairness/