With an increased focus on equity in pay across genders as well as a need to ensure the organization is not (even inadvertently) discriminating, more and more organizations are beginning to consider greater payroll transparency.
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Payroll transparency is the simple act of making pay and benefit information more widely available, and it can be implemented in multiple ways, with varying levels of true transparency. For example, this could be as simple as publishing pay ranges for each job or role internally, without divulging individual salaries. Or it could go as far as making every individual’s salary public information.
Pros of Payroll Transparency
There are several benefits to bringing greater transparency to payroll information:
- By bringing this information out in the open, it allows the organization to have means to ensure that like roles are paid like amounts—thus reducing the risk of inadvertent pay discrimination.
- By disclosing salary information up front, the organization is more likely to get applicants who have aligned expectations in terms of how much they will be paid. The alternative—having job applicants in the dark about the salary range on offer— can lead to wasted time on both sides when an applicant needs a higher salary than the organization is ready to provide.
- Transparency can give employees a sense of fairness if they can see outright that their own salary is in good alignment with other similar roles. This can, in turn, influence overall job satisfaction and even productivity if employees perceive the organization as a fair workplace.
- It can remove the tendency to gossip about presumed salaries, which can improve the working environment.
- Greater transparency of all roles can encourage employees to pursue growth options by giving them a clear salary goal to pursue with another job on their career path within the organization.
- It can—theoretically—be a recruiting tool if applicants see the transparency as evidence of a fair compensation philosophy.
Cons of Payroll Transparency
Despite all of the potential benefits described above, payroll transparency does have some potential drawbacks, too. Here are some considerations:
- Some employers fear this will increase payroll costs because they will be forced to pay at the higher end of their own self-imposed salary ranges. This fear assumes applicants will use this as a negotiation tool—even if they would have otherwise accepted the job at a lower salary within the range (before having the payroll knowledge).
- Some employees may feel uncomfortable with this type of information being available to others. It could lead to problems and even resignations if not handled well. Some employers who believe in transparency still opt to use ranges rather than exact figures to temper this issue.
- Before publishing any salary information, the employer will have to do the hard work of ensuring that salary levels are fair and consistent. Otherwise, making this information widely available is simply opening the door to frustrations over inequalities in pay rates—and could even open the door for potential lawsuits.
- There are often good reasons for differing salary levels, even among people in the same or similar roles. For example, someone who brings many more years of experience to the role or who has achieved specific certifications related to the role may command a higher salary level than someone else in that role without those qualifications. As such, it can be cumbersome to defend differing salary levels, even when those levels are justified. In essence, publishing these disparities can open the door for a lot of questions, which takes up a lot of administrative time, even if there are no problems to be found.
- If salary levels are perceived as unfair for any group—including executives—that may cause that group (or others who now perceive their own salary as too small in comparison) to consider leaving. Even if those who perceive their pay as unfair do not leave, their performance may still suffer merely from this knowledge affecting them subliminally.
- New applicants/employees may be wary of having their salary information published for fear it will reduce future negotiating power.
Has your organization considered bringing more transparency to the pay and benefits structure? What other considerations are you weighing in this decision?