Show me the money | Do you think pay transparency should be mandatory?

New York is among the US states that have made it mandatory for employers to post salary information on job advertisements. The idea behind the legislation is to address inequality in the workplace – experts say that this kind of pay transparency helps mitigate against wage discrimination in the workplace, which mainly affects women and minorities.

However, FastCompany reports that the bill has received pushback from businesses, who have argued that pay should be confidential, and that disclosing salary ranges makes it more difficult to compete for talent as competitors can see what they’re offering and offer more accordingly. In the USA, where laws vary from state to state, there’s also a concern that employers may try and bypass this legislation by hiring remote workers from outside the state.

"Competitive salary"

Advocates for the bill have said that, far from making it harder to recruit, pay transparency makes it easier as it means they won’t waste time interviewing people who aren’t a good fit for the job. Certainly, multiple postings on Linkedin attest to the fact that people are sick of applying for jobs that offer a “competitive salary”, or no salary information at all, only to find out once they’ve spent time and energy on the application process that the compensation for the job is lower than they’d be prepared to take. Indeed, for many, the term “competitive salary” has become a red flag.

This dovetails with recent research by Glassdoor which found that 75% of job seekers would be more likely to apply to a job advertisement with a salary range. Similarly, in a recent poll conducted by Grapevine Leader’s sister title HR Grapevine on LinkedIn, with over 3,300 respondents, 87% said that salary ranges should be posted on job advertisement. Half of those surveyed by Glassdoor also felt that salary secrecy has limited their career options.