The company denies allegations made against it, despite coming to a resolution.
The lawsuit against the tech giant was made in 2021 by former Google employee, Ana Cantu, who left in September 2021.
Cantu stated that employees from Hispanic, Latino, Native American and other ethnic backgrounds started on lower salaries and job levels than their white and Asian counterparts. She also stated that Google's actions violated the California Equal Pay Act, as reported by Reuters News Agency.
Managers and HR leaders must ensure that performance management systems are designed as fairly as possible, according to occupational psychologist Binna Kandola.
He told HR magazine: “For employees from underrepresented groups, good performance is often attributed to external factors, such as having a strong team or being fortunate, while poor performance is seen as a reflection of their individual abilities.
“This means that performance management systems must be designed to be as fair as possible, and managers must be trained to apply them effectively. Too often, organisations view management training as an unnecessary expense.”
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Melissa Blissett, senior consultant in pay gap analytics and financial wellbeing at financial consultancy firm Barnett Waddingham, emphasised the importance of using gender and ethnicity pay gap reporting in order to mitigate any risks.
Speaking to HR magazine, she said: “HR teams should take action as a result of this lawsuit. To date, without any legislative requirement to report on ethnicity pay gaps in the workplace, many employers have chosen to wait for this compulsion. We know this is on the horizon, as Labour committed to introducing ethnicity and disability pay gap reporting in the last King’s speech, but the timeline is yet to be announced.
“The message to take from this news is that risks of gender, ethnicity and other pay gaps and any potential for equal pay litigation, should be included within an organisation's risk management.”
Last month, Google became the latest firm to scrap its diversity recruitment goals. Meta, Amazon and McDonald’s have all also rolled back their DEI policies in the last two months.
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Blissett added: “As with gender pay gap reporting, an ethnicity pay gap does not mean you are paying one group less for the same job role. Increasing diversity in recruitment, particularly in early careers and lower paid roles, while best practice, may in the short term widen any pay gap.
“Therefore, early preparation of a project plan for the introduction of ethnicity pay gap reporting, including integration with business strategy, alignment with corporate governance codes, risk management, talent management and communication strategy will be essential.”
Google has been contacted for comment.
A Google spokesperson, Courtenay Mencini, told Reuters News Agency on Tuesday (18 March): "We continue to disagree with the allegations that we treated anyone differently, and remain committed to paying, hiring and levelling all employees fairly."
