2023-07-11 16:16:58
An offer which, well presented, can be attractive. (Photo: Alexander Gray for Unsplash)
DAMNED JOB! is a section where Olivier Schmouker answers your toughest questions [et les plus pertinentes] on the modern business world… and, of course, its quirks. An appointment to read tuesdays and the thursdays. Do you want to participate? Send us your question at mauditejob@groupecontex.ca
Q. – “Salary transparency is in vogue, and I believe it’s a good thing. I would like our company to display its salaries during the hiring process, but the problem is that these are not really competitive with our competitors. What to do?” – Beatrice
A. – Dear Béatrice, we might say to ourselves that a priori it is better not to show a “defect” in plain sight, in this case a salary scale that does not match those of the competition. But we should not jump too quickly to such a conclusion.
A recent article from the Swiss daily The weather provides an overview of the different ways to practice pay transparency. I’ll be happy to give you the highlights.
To begin with, there is the so-called “absolute” salary transparency, which consists of disclosing the salaries of all employees, also indicating the function of each of them and the number of hours worked each week. Few Swiss companies do such a thing, but among them are the Swiss Alternative Bank and the digital agency Liip.
It is that such a practice presents a number of potential dangers. For example, there is the risk of internal bickering, if ever some find out that they are paid less than others who they believe do less than them. Another example: if the gap between high and low salaries is large, those at the bottom of the salary scale may take offense. This would force senior management to readjust their salaries for the sake of fairness. This would lead to a substantial increase in the payroll, and it might even harm the finances of the organization.
In short, the “absolute” version presents significant dangers. Hence the interest of the so-called “light” version.
This time it is a question of making public, for each position, the starting salary for a new recruit without particular professional experience as well as the salary range, the highest amount of which corresponds to the salary that one receives. when you reach the maximum experience level. In Switzerland, this is practiced by, among others, La Poste, the insurer Helsana and the telecommunications company Swisscom.
The advantages of this formula are numerous. Internally, it does not reveal anything specific regarding colleagues, which largely eliminates the risk of argument. Externally, it gives the right time without suffering from a lack of salary competitiveness compared to the competition: knowing the maximum salary that we can, one day, receive can even be attractive, especially for new early career graduates.
Added to this is the fact that playing the pay transparency game gives an avant-garde image to the company in question; and therefore, an attractive image, not to say seductive. Because, I emphasize, such transparency still concerns only a minority of companies: according to data from the Swiss recruitment agency JobCloud, only 2.2% of job advertisements currently mention the salary offered for the position. attach.
There you go, Beatrice. If you really want to bet on pay transparency, think regarding it, thinking above all regarding the “light” version. In doing so, also take into account that it might be really beneficial for the image of your company, and therefore give it the opportunity to have an asset in your hands that your competitors do not have!
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