New Toolkit Helps Small to Mid-Size Businesses Achieve Pay Equity

Change The Story, a partnership-initiative funded by the Vermont Women's Fund, proudly announces the release of the LEEP Toolkit, a free resource designed for small and mid-size employers to ensure gender and racial pay equity within their organizations.

The LEEP (Leaders for Equity & Equal Pay) Toolkit is part of Change The Story's campaign to advance women's economic status and pay equity in Vermont. Produced in collaboration with Sadowski Consulting Services and seven Vermont employers, the LEEP Toolkit empowers employers with easy-to-use, tested methods needed to conduct gender and racial pay equity reviews.

“This is groundbreaking work for Vermont employers,” explains Meg Smith, director of the Vermont Women's Fund. “While leading U.S. companies are addressing wage inequity with new methodologies, up until now there's not been a way for small to mid-size businesses to begin to address this major issue. The LEEP Toolkit is right-sized for Vermont and empowers organizations to do this work internally and create their own core competencies without consultants or outside help.”

The Vermont Women’s Fund is one of three organizations that launched Change The Story in 2015 to advance gender equity statewide alongside the Vermont Commission on Women and Vermont Works for Women. 

The LEEP Toolkit includes:

• The Equity Management Tool (EMT), an Excel-based resource for small and mid-size employers (< 400 employees) to run their own in-house, ongoing gender and racial equal pay reviews.
• A companion 60-page resource written by compensation expert Frank Sadowski. “The Pay Equity Playbook: Tools for Small and Mid-Size Organizations” highlights context and issues behind pay inequity, shares case studies, guides readers through the use of the EMT, and offers how-to’s for change.

To learn more about the LEEP Toolkit, contact Meg Smith at msmith@vermontcf.org or 802-388-3355 ext. 301.