Acme BBQ pay review
Demographic overview
Who works at Acme BBQ: where people sit in the organization by gender, race and ethnicity, and length of service. Salaried, full-time employees only.
Gender
Gender mix by level
Share of women at each level. Representation drops sharply from L3 to L4.
Gender mix by job family
Families sorted by headcount. Higher-paid families such as Technology are mostly men.
Race & ethnicity
BIPOC includes employees who self-identify as Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, Asian, American Indian or Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander, or two or more races. White means White, not Hispanic or Latino.
Race & ethnicity by level
Share of BIPOC employees at each level. Strong at entry and manager levels, thin from L4 up.
Race & ethnicity by job family
Families sorted by headcount. Culinary and Technology are the most diverse; corporate functions the least.
Gender × race
Who holds senior roles
Mix of gender and race among all employees, compared with Senior Manager, Director and VP roles (L4 and above).
Length of service
Number of employees by years at Acme BBQ.
Pay structure
Is the level ladder doing its job, and are people sitting where they should in their bands?
Band midpoint by level
Each step is one promotion. The label on each riser is how much the band midpoint rises. A step under 10% leaves little room to reward a promotion.
Pay bands and actual pay
Each bar is a band from minimum to maximum; the line marks the midpoint. Each dot is one employee. Red dots sit outside their band.
All job families
Where people sit in their band
Share of employees in each quarter of their band. Restaurant Operations leans toward the bottom; Technology leans toward the top.
New hires vs tenured staff
Median position in band for employees with under 2 years of service and 2+ years. Normally tenured staff sit higher. Technology is the one family where new hires sit far above them.
Pay equity
Overall, how much less are women and BIPOC employees paid? And how much of that remains when we compare people in the same kind of job?
What drives pay at Acme BBQ
Effect of each factor on base pay, holding the others constant. Level and job family drive most of the differences, as they should. Gender still has an effect of its own; race does not. Bar lengths are compressed so small effects stay visible; read the labels for exact values.
Median base by level: women vs men
Within each level pay is close. Women are paid less overall mainly because more of them are in lower levels. L5 and L6 have only a few people.
Median base by level: BIPOC vs White
Same pattern: similar pay within each level, but BIPOC employees are concentrated in L1 to L3.
Gender pay gap in comparable jobs, by job family
How much more or less women are paid than men with the same level, tenure and rating, within each job family.
Why it happens
Promotion rates, last 3 years
Company-wide, women are promoted as often as men. From General Manager to District Manager, they are not.
2025 performance ratings
Women and men receive similar ratings, so rating bias does not explain the gap.
Employees to review
Women paid more than 6% below what the model expects for their level, family, tenure and rating. Adjustment brings each to 97% of expected.
| Employee | Department | Title | Base | Expected | Vs expected | Adjustment |
|---|
Pay for performance
Does a better rating lead to a better raise? And who is performing well but paid low in their band?
2026 merit increase by rating
Average increase for each 2025 rating.
Performance vs position in band
Each dot is one employee. The shaded corner holds people rated 4 or 5 but paid in the bottom quarter of their band, the people most likely to leave for a raise.
Budget impact
What fixing the issues in this review would cost, and how it compares with the normal annual merit budget. All figures are increases to base pay.
One-time cost to fix
Each employee is raised once, to the highest target among the groups they belong to, so people in more than one group are not counted twice. Costs are assigned in order: band minimum first, then gender pay gaps, then high performers.
All at once, or over two years
Phased plan: fix pay below band minimum and the gender gaps first (highest legal risk), then lift high performers the following year.
2027 merit budget options
Annual merit cost at common budget levels, as a share of eligible payroll.
Base payroll, next three years
Projection assuming a 3% merit increase each year. Fixes are added to base in the year they happen.