I love having kickoff calls with employers where we discuss the project and deliverables. I have two of these calls this week. 

It is inspiring to focus on improving their compensation programs to ensure they are meeting the needs of the business.

Everyone is enthusiastic about how they will contribute and looks forward to making a difference.

More and more employers are focusing on pay equity and transparency. But the end goal isn’t just to have this occur in relation to pay. 

The ultimate goal is to impact workplace equity positively and to have more transparency in the workplace. 

When I partner with an employer, I look for ways to improve their performance using compensation programs and communications.

That means that there are problems to solve. 

And sometimes the most difficult step in the process is determining what to solve first.

I use a business case framework focused on the following:

The founder of The Pledgettes (thepledgettes dot com), Jenn Uhen, asked me to provide money advice I would give to my younger self so she could share that with her members.

The Pledgettes is a financial community of incredible women who are pledging to take an active role in their financial journey. Because every individual money move you make has a ripple effect on a more equitable future.

Here is my advice:

I remember the first time I communicated a promotion to one of my team members. I was delighted to give them the good news and they were excited as well. 

Behind the scenes I had worked for more than six weeks to get the promotion approved and the pay increase that went with it.

Who had to approve and/or review my request to promote someone on my team?

Time is more valuable than money.

You can’t get more time. You can earn more money.

Freedom is the ability to use your time how you want. The ability to focus your time on activities or people that cause you to smile and feel good is priceless.

pay communications. 

I don’t like that we have had to have laws passed to force employers to share the base salary range and incentive opportunity as well as benefits offered on job postings.

I wish that employers would have just shared that information openly with candidates and employees when asked.

Talking about pay is a way to support the well-being of your employees.

I attended a pay transparency webinar recently. The panelists were compensation and legal experts. 

They talked about how the laws in the U.S. were focused on requiring employers to share base pay information with employees and candidates. 

They also discussed the challenge of including variable pay in pay equity audits and postings. Are you sure that your assessment of performance is objective related to your incentive payouts?

Candidates know when you offer them a base salary that is below market. And if your bonus or sales incentive is also low, that’s just another checkmark in the No column.

Your recruiters and hiring managers know when you are offering low pay. It just makes their job more difficult.

So, your ability to attract the talent you need is broken.

There are many choices employers must make related to pay transparency.  You can choose to deliver partial pay transparency or be fully transparent.

Partial pay transparency examples:

·        You share a job’s base pay range when it is posted. 

Employees want to know how much they will be paid for doing what. And they care that the amount they earn is aligned to their needs for things like housing, food, clothing, safety, security, etc. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is the image below so use that as a reference for what people care about.

Employers want to know how much they will be paying for people who will do the work they need to have completed. They need to balance competitive pay with internally equitable pay decisions and their budget.

The compensation foundation that any employer needs is:

Pay compression happens when the pay of an employee is very close to the pay of more experienced and higher performing employees in the same job or those in higher-level jobs like manager jobs.

How do you solve it?

1) You look for it. You do a pay compression analysis at least once a year and look for these scenarios. (And don’t forget to consider overtime for direct reports to managers.)

We determine what is fair by considering not only our own situation, but also the situations of others whom we use as comparisons to ourselves.

We want pay-related decisions that are impartial and just. We want pay-related decisions that are without favoritism or discrimination.

Tell your employees the following:

Most of my employer clients spend less than an hour with me initially to share the scope of work they need to have completed.

I send them a proposal and after a few edits it is signed, and we schedule a kickoff call.  The compensation project moves forward, and the work gets done in the estimated timeframe and within budget.

Occasionally I talk to a potential employer client about the compensation work they need to have done and six months or more later, we are still talking.

If you want the potential you see in someone to become a reality you need to:

1.      Set expectations. Provide feedback regularly.

2.      Be the example you want them to follow. In other words, role model the behaviors you want from others. Consistently. No excuses.

I was in my 20s and my manager told me to stop rescuing people who were making mistakes.

She said that by saving them I was not allowing the consequences of their actions to teach them lessons they needed to learn.

I have never forgotten that lesson. 

Currently, about 1 in 4 workers is covered by some form of U.S. pay transparency legislation. At least 15 states are considering pay transparency laws in 2023. An effective pay transparency strategy requires a focus on 4 principles:

1.     Presence – The act of being present requires focus.  It is an intentional way of being that is focused on this moment.

Anyone can find out how much anyone else is paid.

A list of everyone's net income, net assets, and the tax they had paid could be found in a book on a shelf in the public library. 

Then in 2001 this information could be found by looking it up online. You could look it up anonymously.

You demonstrate your potential when you interview for a new job and so do the people with which you interview.

We all know that our best behavior during an interview isn’t what will occur each day on the job.

We also know the employer’s leaders describe their work environment in a way that is 100% positive and not like it actually is.

Yes, I said this about a senior leader once. Bill (not his real name) was being discussed at an HR meeting because a few of us had a difficult time influencing him. He didn’t listen, wasn’t self-aware, and was generally a pain in the patoot to work with.

I asked the question to get everyone to laugh because the conversation was heavy. 

He wasn’t thought of as a good leader by HR, by his boss, or by his peers.