Canadian tech companies follow Unbounce’s lead toward equal pay

Credit: Courtesy of Unbounce

Unbounce conducted a thorough review of its 185 employees to find a gender pay gap

The Vancouver firm’s Pay Up for Progress initiative turned some heads

Today, a host of Canadian tech leaders announced their intention to join forces by signing a pledge to prioritize gender pay equality.

The Pay Up for Progress initiative is the brainchild of Vancouver-based landing page creator Unbounce, which recently analyzed its own pay gap. After documenting how it found and closed the gap, the company worked with many partners, including the Minerva Foundation for BC Women, Cicely Blain Consulting and the Forum for Women Entrepreneurs, to build the program.

Now businesses like Burnaby-headquartered Salesforce consultant Traction on Demand are following Unbounce’s lead. In Vancouver, Thinkific, an online education platform, marketing tech firm Allocadia and accounting software outfit Beanworks, among others, have also joined the cause by taking the pledge.

There’s some catching up to do. A woman in this country makes 92 cents for every dollar earned by a man, according to recent data from Statistics Canada, even after adjusting for differences in industries, occupations, and rate of part-time work.

“Having navigated this complex process ourselves and found a pay gap that we were able to close, we understand how daunting this work can be,” Leslie Collin, VP people and culture at Unbounce, said in a release.

“It’s especially difficult for small and medium-sized businesses which have limited resources and don’t know where to start,” Collin added. “Pay Up for Progress is our way of sharing what we’ve learned and giving our peers a road map to take those first steps and ultimately achieve and sustain gender pay parity.”

To that end, participating companies will come together to support and learn from each other, and to hold each other accountable. Besides including those businesses in an active Slack community, the organizers will invite them to attend two virtual workshops where they get access to experts in compensation, diversity and inclusion, and advancing women in leadership.

The formal portion of the Pay Up for Progress campaign will wrap in early February 2021. Other organizations can take the pledge here.