Pay Transparency: Why You Should Add Salary to Your Job Postings
Money can be a taboo topic. Whether that’s between the company and the employee, or even between two close friends, it’s not always easy to disclose how much you make or are willing to pay. Traditionally, employers keep salary information to themselves to maintain their negotiating power. Some also do it to avoid competition between current and new employees.
However, I’d argue that the bigger concern here is to attract the very best candidates available in this tight job market. Top talents will move past a job posting altogether if they don’t see a number that is worth applying to. Knowing that we’re in a state where hiring is slow and talents are hard to find, it is worth making the change and including compensation in your next job ad.
Hiring for Money-Fit
There are a number of things to consider when hiring someone new. Education and experience are important, and so is the growing trend to hire for job and culture-fit. However, what isn’t talked enough about is “money-fit”. In other words, are you paying what your candidates are expecting?
Most people have choices when it comes to the job market and they wouldn’t want to waste their time on a role where the pay is not in-line with what they’re after. Sure, some modern firms make up for the lack of pay info by polishing up their job ad with enticing benefits and perks. That works quite effectively especially with the younger audience. But a study has shown the prevailing truth that money is still the no.1 motivator for 67% of job seekers and employees all around.
If your reason for not disclosing salary info is because you’re worried about overpaying your employees, chances are – you’re not paying them enough. More often than not, we come across candidates who are more than qualified for what we’re willing to offer for the role. Listing income, therefore, allows people to self-filter themselves out if the pay rate is not aligned, and that ends up helping recruiters save time and build a better fitting candidate pool.
Ensuring Pay Equality
Equality has been the center topic in HR for years, but despite efforts put into improving diversity in the workplace, women and minorities still earn considerably less than their male, white counterparts, and remain under-represented in senior roles. In a perfect world, a potential employee should be considered based strictly on their unique skill set and experience. In practice, however, this can be harder said than done.
The implicit bias we encounter based on race and gender is often an obstacle to work diversity. While it’s good having that flexibility to control how much you pay your workers, keeping salary hidden means employers can conveniently ‘rig the game’. By having the salary range in the job posting, it sets an expectation of pay, effectively creating a level playing field for talent regardless of individual backgrounds.
The Key Takeaways
To summarize, listing compensation in job ads can help you:
- Attract the appropriate talents
- Spend less time on negotiating
- Improve diversity and inclusion
- Boost your company’s brand
Remember that the ‘money conversation’ is inevitable. No matter how hard you try to play hide and seek with your salary listings, candidates will find their way through other platforms such as Glassdoor and LinkedIn to get a glimpse of that number. So isn’t it better to just have accurate and competitive information available right from the source?