What should be done about employees who do not agree their compensation is fair?
Personal finance expert Scott Nelson at MoneyNerd spoke to Dr. Liz Kofman-Burns, Ph.D. Sociologist and co-founder of HR consultancy Peoplism about how employers can become more transparent in order to create a stronger culture of pay transparency.
Dr. Liz Kofman-Burns comments:
-
Do not forget to examine the makeup of your workforce by pay, department and demographics
“If you have limited time and resources, your first step should be to examine the makeup of your workforce by pay band, department, and demographics. You should also look at how long people are in a role before being promoted and see if there are any disparities.
If you see major disparities in these areas, you need to address your hiring and promotion processes.”
-
Make sure your stakeholders understand whether your organisation has an unadjusted or adjusted pay gap
“If high-paying roles in your company (e.g. leadership) are currently filled by majority groups, and lower-paying roles (e.g. admin assistant) are filled by minority groups, there’ll be a high unadjusted wage gap – which can drive feelings of unfairness about pay.
Your organisation could also be facing issues with an adjusted pay gap, whereby one group of employees are being paid more to do the same or similar job to another group of employees.
Investigate if this is happening, and if so, consider setting or re-establishing current pay bands, and make one-time adjustments so that everyone is being paid equitably for doing the same job.”
-
Do not put off evaluating employee salaries against inflation
Scott Nelson at MoneyNerd comments: “Whether you’re an employer or an employee, it’s important to prioritise looking at evaluating your salary against current industry standards.
If you’re in doubt about whether you’re paying your staff fairly, and in line with inflation – make sure to invest time within your financial departments to evaluate fair compensation and pay rises”
Amelia Brand is the Editor for HRreview, and host of the HR in Review podcast series. With a Master’s degree in Legal and Political Theory, her particular interests within HR include employment law, DE&I, and wellbeing within the workplace. Prior to working with HRreview, Amelia was Sub-Editor of a magazine, and Editor of the Environmental Justice Project at University College London, writing and overseeing articles into UCL’s weekly newsletter. Her previous academic work has focused on philosophy, politics and law, with a special focus on how artificial intelligence will feature in the future.
