When it comes to employment, compensation is a highly sensitive topic most people like to stay away from. For many years, employers created policies against speaking about salary and maintaining any kind of salary transparency within a workplace. However, this allows for employees to be discriminated against or become victims of unfair pay practices. In all actuality, speaking with one another about compensation can create an open and trusting environment among your organization. If you're paying everyone what they're worth, that is.
Posting salaries in job descriptions adds a lot of value to your organization. Look at recruitment for instance. When the salary is already presented to job applicants, the applicant can decide for themselves from the beginning whether this is a good fit for them. Plenty of time and money can be wasted by going through multiple interviews, assessments, and back and forth emails just to find out your budget for this role does not align with their desired salary. Although candidates are in the job market to become a part of an organization they believe in and further their career, at the end of the day, employees need the necessary income to cover their household costs. Most people will not leave a job for the same salary when they have already accrued seniority at their current job. Therefore, posting the job's salary in advance can help avoid a laborious interview process. Also, job responsibilities vary across organizations, so you can’t make assumptions about what a manager, associate, or director title means. Salaries tell potential employees if the job is right for them regardless of the unique title structure your organization may have in place.
The biggest issue with a lack of salary transparency is the emphasis on a gender, racial, and intersectional identity equity issue. Most underrepresented groups systematically have not been supported in learning to negotiate or given positive responses to their attempts, therefore the act of negotiating their salary, something that is already uncomfortable, does not come as easily or naturally. Over the last couple of years, diversity and inclusion has become an integral part of employment and many organizations have really pushed for a more diverse workforce. In fact, just recently, New York City Human Rights Law has made a new pay transparency law that makes it an “unlawful discriminatory practice” for an employer to advertise a job, promotion, or transfer opportunity without stating the position's minimum and maximum salary in the advertisement. While pay transparency may not exactly close the wage gap, it is a step to create and enforce diversity within your organization.
We know we haven't reached full pay transparency yet, but it is great to see organizations and laws push for implementing pay transparency policies. This will essentially improve both the candidate experience, as well as the employers'. At Innosphere, with our experience in recruitment and tech, we understand the value of posting the job's salary. This has made recruitment run a lot smoother for us, from time, to money, to employee satisfaction. By being transparent throughout the entire recruitment process, we were able to attract the right candidates for our jobs!