Pay Transparency Makes Headlines as New Laws Proliferate

As companies respond to new legislation in New York City (effective November 1), California (effective January 1, 2023) and other locations requiring the inclusion of salary ranges on job postings, the media has taken notice, with both Bloomberg and the New York Times requesting submissions from affected employees about their experience. Companies have been called out for disappearing jobs, obvious errors and overly wide salary ranges as recruiting teams scramble to comply with the new rules.

Aside from the fact that every state and city seems to have a different set of regulations (see Syndio’s helpful cheat sheet here), many companies are struggling to meet requirements while simultaneously aligning with internal pay ranges and practice. For companies where this level of pay transparency is new, existing job architectures may not be “camera ready” and people managers may be unprepared to deal with employee and applicant questions regarding how pay (and positioning within pay ranges) is determined. A recent Orrick webinar provided key decision points and best practices gleaned so far, such as implementing training and talking points for managers, auditing actual compensation against disclosed ranges, and ensuring pay equity analyses are up to date throughout the process.

We will discuss these questions and more on December 13 during HR Policy Association’s upcoming webinar, Pay Transparency and Company Responses. The panel will feature pay transparency expert Mariann Madden of Willis Towers Watson as well as Joanna Daly, VP of Total Rewards at IBM, and Teresa Mello, VP of Global Compensation at American Express, who will share learnings from their companies’ journeys. We hope you will join us!