The Secrecy of Salaries - Guest Article by Cyreta James
Let me set the scene, you have just separated from your last role or your current situation is not giving you that tingle like it used to.
So, you decide to start searching for a new opportunity. You peruse the usual spots – Indeed, Totaljobs, Reed, LinkedIn, etc. and then, you have a match!
That rush of adrenaline hits you, and you quickly start clicking the job link – you are one step closer to what could be the next chapter in your career.
You start reading the advertisement:
- Job title – CHECK
- Location – CHECK
- Industry – CHECK
- The company – CHECK
It’s like this role is made for you.
In your head, you’re already starting your first day and as soon as you get to the section about the salary, that excitement evacuates you quicker than if there were an actual fire in your work building (after you realise it is NOT a test) and it just took two to three words:
‘Competitive Salary’ or ‘depending on experience’.
Some readers may think I’m being dramatic and for those who believe that, it is your opinion but, it’s a bugbear of mine.
Why do some companies not disclose salaries when advertising a role?
Whilst doing research for this article, I discovered that this has been a topic of discussion since 2015.
Jonathan Samuels wrote an article in 2017 ‘Here’s Why Companies Don’t Like To Post Job Salaries’ on LinkedIn which explained that;
- Current company employees could use this information to justify a mass exodus if they see the salary
- Candidates would assume they should be paid at the higher end of the salary range
- By disclosing the salary in roles, it could compromise the company’s competitive edge
Fast forward to an article written by Brendan Fluckiger in 2021 titled ‘Why Employers Aren’t Posting Salaries, and Why They Should’, reasons why employers are:
- Transparency creates a lack of competitive advantage
- It could upset the workforce and could make it harder to find someone with a cultural fit
- Applicants would expect to be paid at the higher end of the mentioned salary range
Despite both articles being written four years apart, the reasons why companies don’t disclose the salaries are more or less the same, so I have given reasons WHY companies should.
Upsetting the current workforce
If a company conducts a job evaluation to decide what salary should be linked to the role, it should consider external factors year after year. Companies should be able to show salaries or salary ranges for the position posted with no fear. If not, be prepared to be called out by the current staff and be ready to make changes.
Also, are the employees not discussing their salaries with their peers within and outside the company? According to Glassdoor, 25% of employees feel comfortable discussing salary with their managers, and one in four speak to their co-workers about salaries.
We also have platforms such as Glassdoor and Indeed, where current and former employees disclose information about their companies in a very candid way, including salaries.
As an employer, trying to be everything to everyone in your company is complex if staff leave, whether one by one or in mass, it could be more to do with knowing what OTHER companies are offering in contrast or other underlying factors.
So rather than waiting for a former employee to share their opinions on a public platform, companies should create a culture of transparency, and use employee surveys to express their views about everything, including salaries.
Applicants will assume they expect to be paid at the higher end of the salary banding
I don’t know why that is an issue, but this is a sweeping assumption to make. A candidate and the hiring manager may differ in opinion regarding the expected salary and the salary offered, but this is the reason why both parties can use the recruitment process to negotiate. Pay transparency should be an integral part of the recruitment process. The article ‘UK work culture discourages employees from discussing salary‘ by Nosa Omugui in May 2022, highlighted a survey conducted on Glassdoor, and 75% of the respondents said they were more likely to apply for a role that disclosed the salary in the job advertisement.
This actually made me remember an occasion in one of my previous roles. The HR Director changed the recruitment process by mentioning the salary banding in the job ad. The senior leadership team were concerned that this would have an adverse effect on the number of applicants. In fact, it did not and as a result, it shortened the recruitment time. The applicants were less likely to turn down the offer and the company was less likely to have to readvertise.
What’s the moral of the story?
MONEY TALKS, and by disclosing a salary, more applicants would talk back.
Loss of competitive edge
The information available on the Internet about companies makes it relatively easy to find out what companies in the same industry offer similar roles. Recruitment companies such as Hayes and Robert Half, publish annual salary reports and trends, so disclosing salaries would not necessarily ruin a business- this could help a business to attract talent. If you are aware of what a competing company is offering, this should encourage an employer to make the required changes. This could be used not only to solve pay equity inside the company but also as a tool to attract talent.
Summary
To those companies who include the statement ‘competitive salary’, what may be competitive to you may not be for me, and where is the evidence to back up that statement?
Salaries based on the average wage within the industry and job level are comparative, NOT competitive. COST OF LIVING and INFLATION has always been the competition.
Currently, salaries are getting the odd jabs in, whereas the cost of living has been floating like a butterfly and stinging like a black mamba, and inflation is itching to be tapped in.
2022 had been identified as the ‘Year of Pay Transparency’ and with salary disclosure legalisation being rolled out across the US, I am hopeful that pay transparency will be more than a trend, but part of a transformation.
So, COMPANIES- SHOW US WHAT YOU GOT!
I, and many others, WANT TO SEE WHAT YOU GOT!
