Mercedes Johnson likely had no idea she’d be a viral sensation after she posted on Facebook about a recent salary negotiation with a job candidate. But 34,000 retweets and 200,000 “likes” on Twitter later, she realized she’d struck a nerve — and not in a good way.
Mercedes told her Facebook community that she offered an employment candidate “$85,000 for a job that had a budget of $130K.” But after someone posted a screenshot to Twitter, Mercedes found herself at the center of a debate over salary transparency and fair pay negotiations.
The criticism comes at a time when companies are reaffirming commitments to pay equity and recalibrating their company culture as employees walk off jobs in search of an enhanced work-life balance that includes flexibility and better benefits.
Still, many employers continue to grapple with whether to be up front about pay. A common thread of the compensation debate is about the need for mutual trust between prospective employers and candidates. Recruiters and hiring managers are balancing budget considerations with the need to properly value applicants’ skill sets and experience. Meanwhile, job seekers are looking to limit the blind spots of salary negotiations while finding an employer that’s willing to invest in their career growth and happiness.
Mercedes, who lost her job and has taken accountability for her words, said during a telephone interview that she isn’t “pro or against salary transparency.” She says she feels candidates “should never request less than a penny of their professional worth.” But she also has compassion for recruiters like herself who are under pressure to preserve hiring budgets.
“What if hiring managers can’t say the max they could pay?” Mercedes says. “But they can promise the candidate will love their job? I’m a talent recruiter who firmly believes loving your job is more important than pay, so a job is more than a number. Satisfaction is a priority over compensation.”
A seasoned recruiter’s recommendation: Demand what you deserve
Laurie Ruettimann, a seasoned hiring and human resources consultant and the host of the popular Punk Rock HR podcast, says there are lessons to be learned from Mercedes’s post — both for employers and candidates.
Laurie, who interviewed Mercedes on her show, acknowledges a long-standing culture that has often rewarded recruiters for cost savings.
“The reality is that, when I was making my way through HR,” Laurie says, “if the top range was $130,000 and we paid someone $85,000, I might get the difference as a bonus. Others in the HR space would be praising me for my efforts, yet Mercedes is receiving negativity for doing just that, and it’s not fair.”
Laurie calls on job seekers to assess their professional worth amid a persistent lack of access to information and education.
“It’s messy out there,” she says. “And when I google a job and I try to find out how much it pays, one job on the Internet may say it pays 30 grand, and then you go to a different site, and it may say 60 grand.”
Mercedes recommends candidates get up to speed on sites, like LinkedIn, Glassdoor, and Salary.com, that have a good reputation for sharing accurate salary ranges.
It pays to be transparent about pay
The benefits of sharing salary information are worth weighing. When companies release salary ranges from the start, they can:
- Streamline pay negotiations later.
- Give their company a competitive advantage in a tight job market.
- Boost their employer brand in the eyes of the talent.
- Filter out candidates who would decline job offers based on pay alone.
Buffer, Glitch, and Starbucks have all reported benefits from embracing pay transparency, including increased job applications and improved employer brand.
Salary transparency can help close systemic disparities
The gender pay gap has long been a global issue and it remains largely unchanged, despite calls to level the playing field. Women, worldwide, earn 77 cents for each dollar men earn, according to the International Trade Union Confederation. And for women of color, women with disabilities, and migrant women, it’s even worse.
But research done by the software firm PayScale found that transparency had a significant effect on shrinking the gender pay gap. PayScale’s report noted that some sources estimate that, at the current rate of progress, it will be over 200 years before gender pay equity is attained — just in the United States. “Fortunately,” the report adds, “when analyzed against pay transparency, the gender pay gap completely disappears.”
An extra boost: States move to legislate pay transparency
Lawmakers are also helping to press the issue. At least 14 U.S. states have laws that ban companies from requesting applicants’ salary history. And some 20 states and Washington, D.C., legally safeguard workers who discuss pay.
Most significantly, perhaps, a new law in New York City requires “all companies hiring in the city to list expected pay on job listings as of May 15.” More states — Connecticut, Maryland, Nevada, Ohio, Rhode Island, and Washington — are following suit with similar pay transparency legislation.
Final thoughts
Mercedes’s post and the resounding backlash shined a light on why hiring managers and recruiters might want to consider publicizing salary ranges in job posts. Studies show companies that engage in pay transparency can better attract, retain, and grow talent.
In today’s evolving work world, employers and employees are exchanging trust (say, embracing remote or hybrid work) for accountability (get the work done, wherever and whenever you tackle it).
And very little says trust quite like sharing salaries or salary ranges from the get-go.
*Photo by Andre Taissin on Unsplash
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Topics: Candidate experience HR Community voices Compensation
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