Salary range transparency has become a hot topic in recent months, but it has always held a personal meaning for me.
My first encounter with salary range transparency was back in 2011 when I was looking for a software engineer job in Singapore. I found it odd that no software engineer role on the largest job platform then had a salary bracket. When I did my first HR interview, I asked for the salary range. The recruiter was taken aback by my question, and I too was surprised by her reaction.
Separating the facts from the myth
Since then, I’ve been asking recruiters the reasons they don’t share their salary ranges. The responses I got are the likes of “employees are going to ask for a pay raise and quit”, “competitors will poach our employees with a higher pay”, “candidates will reject the offer if it’s not at the top of the range”, and “candidates will join for the salary and quit as soon as they find a better-paying job”.
Also Read: Who is doing what: Understanding the different job titles in a VC firm
But every time they mention the risk of competitors increasing salaries to hire employees from a company that practises salary range transparency, I can’t get a single real-life example. It seems to be a fear-mongering myth passed down from recruiter to recruiter.
At this point, I’m convinced the only valid explanation is when a public salary range could upset employees who would realise they were underpaid, similar to findings from a study last year.
This, however, is not a good excuse to hide the salary range. All the more, because of existing pay discrepancies, companies have a stronger reason to scrutinise their salary review process before publishing salary ranges.
Embracing transparent salary conversations
When I was given the opportunity to build an engineering team at Wise in 2018, I knew this was the point where I could make a difference.
One of the first things I did was to ask the recruiter to include salary ranges in the roles I was hiring for. She agreed and we never looked back. Today, all tech roles for Singapore and most positions worldwide at Wise have this information.
Publishing the salary ranges was not only a way to attract more candidates, but it was also to prove that, contrary to what most recruiters fear, nothing bad happens when you share the salary ranges if your employees are being paid fairly.
I’m proud to say that out of the 15 engineers I’ve hired at the organisation in the past five years, no one left. There are companies that pay more than Wise, and it’s simply not true that salary range transparency increases flight risk. Studies like The Josh Bersin Company’s pay equity research show it helps in retention and I believe that’s because it enables honest and transparent conversations around salary.
Career maps were also another initiative we had in Wise to help with salary conversations. In 2019, we shared detailed career maps with our teams and published them externally a year later. Last year, I pushed to add salary ranges to the engineering career map for clarity into pay and career progression. I see these career maps as an example that every midsize and large company should follow to retain and grow their employees.
Also Read: How to combat burnout and boost your productivity
Pushing for salary range transparency in a bigger world
In 2018 when I started JobWiz as a fun job portal project because my wife was looking for a job, I made salary ranges and perks compulsory on our platform.
The more I spoke with job seekers and employers, the more I realised there is a very serious problem to solve: a lack of salary range transparency.
I heard stories of people leaving their jobs when they learnt their pay was half of their teammates’ for the same role, just because they asked for a lower expected salary at the beginning. Something needs to be done.
In 2023, I decided to quit my job at Wise to focus full-time on JobWiz, with the mission of making salary ranges transparent and public.
A lot of recruiters are telling me that it’s not going to happen. But I disagree. They might have dozens of years of experience but I have five years of experience in salary range transparency while they don’t have any. They just never tried.
–
Editor’s note: e27 aims to foster thought leadership by publishing views from the community. Share your opinion by submitting an article, video, podcast, or infographic
Join our e27 Telegram group, FB community, or like the e27 Facebook page
Image credit: Canva Pro
The post From job seeking to building a job portal: Turning my beliefs into reality appeared first on e27.