A most sensitive question …

There is no more sensitive a question for the majority of people than “How much do you earn?” As a HR and Recruitment professional, I have had more exposure than most to a broad range of salaries in a broad range of businesses. I therefore, have a professional interest in this subject having spent a large proportion of my career, discussing, comparing, setting and influencing salaries. I also have come to believe it is in the genes as my son started asking about my salary and wanted to know about average earning levels from the tender age of five!

With this natural openness and exposure to earning levels, I do have to keep myself in check, as this is certainly not the norm. After finding myself online dating a couple of years ago, I fortunately did realise that this was not an appropriate first question or indeed second question to ask a potential partner, even if it was a purely professional interest!

Income does seem to be the last taboo, with today’s society seemingly focused on discussing all manner of personal details, activities, thoughts and feelings, yet discussing salary levels remains a subject that the vast majority of people do not want to embrace.

Within the world of recruitment, understanding an individual’s current salary level and desired level is important in terms of matching and managing expectations. However, even in these circumstances we find that many people are reluctant to share this information and some are often quite affronted by the question.

I can understand this reluctance, as income is so fundamental to people’s lives, and many people feel that they will be judged. I suspect that many do judge people’s worth in monetary terms, indeed this allows a direct, and on the surface quantifiable comparison and as a society we do like to compare! However, with many people, especially at more senior levels becoming increasingly concerned with work life balance, arguably this is less important as a measure of success, than time spent doing things you enjoy.

I have been spending even more time than normal thinking about this over the last few months as I been undertaking the research and collation for our annual HR Salary and Benefits Guide. Arguably HR professionals spend less time thinking about their own salary and more about others, trying to get to that often elusive goal of balancing the requirement to remain competitive and getting your reward strategy right. However, it is important for everyone to think that his or her remuneration is fair.

The question of ‘fairness’ I do think is part of the reluctance to discuss pay, as we often start from a point where we feel that others will earn more. However, the move to Gender Pay Gap reporting and the consultation on Ethnic Pay Gap reporting means that more transparency is being asked of businesses on this subject and maybe this will encourage a greater degree of openness on an individual basis.

I am not sure that there will ever be an ideal situation on the discussion of pay, as this is such a deeply personal and emotive subject. However, I do believe that we are in a much more positive place with the discussions prompted by things such as the Gender Pay Gap reports, and a drive to ensure more equality in salary levels.

Now for the next sensitive question from my son…………………..

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