DBATR · Work & pay structure · Zero discrimination, everywhere
Pay the job. Not the person doing it.
The wage gap is not a mystery and it is not a market force. It is a pile of private, one-off numbers that nobody has to explain. Publish the band, delete salary history, correct upward, and most of the gap is gone before the week is out. Age, race, gender, disability, recovery status, conviction record, accent, immigration status — none of it is an input to a rate. Anywhere. Whatever the local floor allows.
Same work, same rate — and a better floor for everybody.
The rules that make the rate a fact
Each of these is written to be copied. None of them require a bigger budget to start — they require the number to stop being a secret.
The job carries the rate
Every role has a published band with a floor, a midpoint and a ceiling. Two people doing the same job at the same level are inside the same band — no exceptions, no side deals.
Why: Most of the gap is not one manager being unfair. It is a thousand quiet, private, one-off numbers. A published band makes the number a fact instead of a negotiation.
No salary history, ever
We never ask what you made before and we never accept it as an input. Offers are built from the band and the level, and nothing else.
Why: Salary history copies yesterday's discrimination into tomorrow's paycheck. Break the chain once and it stops compounding.
Levels are scored on written criteria
Leveling uses a written rubric — scope, judgment, risk carried, people affected, technical depth. The rubric is public. Level decisions are reviewed by two people who did not source the hire.
Why: If the ladder is vague, bias fills the gap. If the ladder is written down, it can be argued with.
Raises are formula-first
Movement inside a band comes from time in role, demonstrated scope and a rubric score. Discretionary add-ons are capped and must be written down with a reason.
Why: Discretion is where gaps regrow after you close them. Cap it and log it.
Same rate for the same work, any employment type
Part-time, per-diem, contract, temp, seasonal and returning-from-leave staff are paid the same hourly equivalent as full-time staff at that level, and accrue the same benefits pro-rata.
Why: Second-class employment categories are how equal pay gets undone without anyone technically breaking a rule.
Care and leave don't reset you
Parental, medical, caregiving and recovery leave hold your level, your band position and your raise clock. Coming back does not mean starting over or proving yourself again.
Why: The biggest single driver of lifetime pay difference is time out for caregiving. Freeze the clock and you remove most of it.
Accommodation is not a pay event
Disability accommodations — schedule, equipment, remote work, assistive tech, a service animal, a quieter room — never change your rate, your level or your eligibility for anything.
Why: Accommodation is how the job gets done. It is not a discount on the person doing it.
Age is not a rate
A 17-year-old and a 60-year-old on the same task earn the same rate. No youth sub-minimum, no quiet late-career markdown, no 'overqualified' pay cut.
Why: Both ends of a career get squeezed by the same trick. One band closes both.
Location is transparency, not punishment
Cost-of-living adjustments are published as a factor and applied to everyone in that geography identically — never renegotiated per person, and never used to reduce someone who moves for care or safety.
Why: Geography pay becomes a loophole the moment it is applied case-by-case.
Zero discrimination, anywhere we operate
Gender, race, national origin, immigration status, disability, age, religion, orientation, gender identity, recovery status, conviction record, housing status, language or accent are never inputs to pay, hours, promotion or scheduling — in any country, whatever the local floor allows.
Why: We hold one standard globally. Where local law is weaker, we hold ours anyway. Where it is stronger, we meet it.
You may talk about pay
Discussing your pay with anyone is explicitly protected. No policy, contract, review or manager conversation may discourage it.
Why: Secrecy is the only thing keeping a gap alive once bands are published.
Audit twice a year, publish the number
Two scheduled pay audits a year by role, level and demographic. Any unexplained gap is corrected upward within one pay cycle — never by holding someone else back — and the result is published.
Why: A gap you don't measure is a gap you're choosing. A correction you don't publish is a promise nobody can hold you to.
The rollout, night by night
Walk it in order. Each night has one output you can hold up and check.
Step 1 of 6
Night one — list the work
Write down every job as work, not as people.
Pull every role into a single sheet: what the job does, what decisions it makes, what risk it carries, who is affected if it goes wrong. Strip out names, tenure and titles that describe a person instead of a task. This is the whole trick — once the work is described independently of who is doing it, the gap has nowhere to hide.
Proof it happened: One sheet. Every role. No names on it.
Better benefits — measured from the bottom up
Equal pay on a broken floor still leaves people short. These raise the floor for the lowest-paid role first, and they reach part-time, per-diem and contract staff on purpose.
Health coverage from day one
No 90-day wait, no hours threshold that quietly excludes part-timers. Mental health and addiction treatment are covered at the same level as physical care, with no visit cap that a person in recovery would hit in month two.
Paid leave that includes caregiving
Parental leave for every parent regardless of gender or how the child arrived. Paid leave for caring for a parent, a partner, a sibling or a child, and for your own treatment or recovery. Level and raise clock hold while you're out.
Predictable, posted schedules
Schedules posted two weeks ahead, no on-call unpaid hours, no clopening, and premium pay for last-minute changes we cause. Unpredictable hours cost caregivers their jobs more often than any policy does.
Child care and rides handled
Child care support and transportation are treated as job infrastructure, not perks. A missing ride and a closed daycare are the two most common reasons a good worker loses a good job.
Accommodation by default
Assistive tech, schedule flexibility, remote work, quiet space, interpreters and service animals arrive without a fight or a diagnosis interrogation, and never touch pay or advancement.
Retirement and ownership for everyone
Employer retirement contributions for part-time and per-diem staff too, vesting fast, plus a profit-share that reaches the lowest-paid roles first instead of last.
Fair-chance hiring, real footing
A conviction record, a gap in work history, housing instability or recovery status does not change your band. Background review happens after an offer, is job-related only, and never reprices the role.
A pay question line with no retaliation
One place to ask 'am I in the right band?' and get an answer in writing within five business days, with a documented no-retaliation guarantee and an outside reviewer if you want one.
What we publish
Raw numbers, twice a year, including the ones that don't flatter us.
- Unadjusted median pay gap by gender, race, age band and disability status — published raw, not only 'adjusted'
- Share of roles with a published band, and share of job ads that show it
- Number of pay corrections made upward, and total dollars moved
- Median days from a pay question to a written answer
- Promotion rate and leveling distribution across every demographic
- Return-to-work rate after parental, medical or recovery leave, and pay at 12 months after return
- Share of part-time, per-diem and contract staff at the same hourly equivalent as full-time peers
- Accommodation requests granted, and median days to fulfill
This is our own operating standard and a template for others. It is not legal advice; wage and hour law varies by jurisdiction, and where local law gives workers more, local law wins.