Pay Transparency Shouldn’t Make you Uncomfortable

46% of workers feel underpaid. We have all wondered how our pay stacks up against coworkers, however, we feel uncomfortable asking. There is a stigma associated with pay transparency in the workplace. In Why You Should Know How Much Your Coworkers Get Paid, David Burkus states that pay transparency can increase the feelings of fairness and collaboration inside a company; noting people are more inclined to feel underpaid when they don’t know how their pay compares to peers.

Employees feeling underpaid does not equate to productivity. In the workplace, 4 out of 10 people feeling underpaid can hurt efficiency and collaboration. Burkus offers reasons as to why pay transparency is avoided in the workplace, notably, information asymmetry. As stated, information asymmetry is when one party has much more information than the other. If employees had the same information their managers did, imagine how salary negotiations would go. They would be more informative, fact-based discussions than a negotiation.

Burkus states pay secrecy leads to discrimination. There is no denying there is gender, age, or race-based wage discrimination in every industry. It’s a sad truth of the workplace today and at NeoBloom we are working to help resolve these pay disparities. Being more transparent in pay data limits the ability to discriminate. Openness leads to fairness which keeps us and our coworkers honest. When we feel valued at a company, that is when we perform our best.

Burkus notes some companies are taking steps to become more transparent with their salary data. Whole Foods posts employees' salaries on the company intranet. While there may be secrets behind pay, it is no secret pay transparency results in happier and higher performing employees.

With Hiring Accelerator™, NeoBloom is working to resolve many of the pay transparency issues. Not only is Hiring Accelerator a platform in which you can hire faster and easier, but access salary data in every metro area. This data isn’t only available to hiring managers. We make this data accessible for all individuals. Want to know how much a coworker makes (or should be making), we provide that data for you! Feel like you are underpaid in your current job? We can help! You no longer have to feel uncomfortable about your salary. You deserve the right to know, and so do your coworkers.

You can learn more about how NeoBloom provides the solution for pay transparency at www.NeoBloom.com.