- People Leaders at Glassdoor’s Best Places to Work companies see limited risks to talent retention as pay transparency becomes increasingly widespread, but also have mixed views on the upside for talent acquisition.
- Three in four (76%) people leaders surveyed believe greater pay transparency will lead to a more frequent reevaluation of compensation benchmarks.
- Pay equity analyses are a near universal practice at the Best Places to Work, though more so for gender (97%) than for race/ethnicity (79%).
- More Best Places to Work companies are transparent about pay with job candidates (59%) than they are with their internal teams (31%).
People Leaders at Glassdoor’s Best Places to Work companies see limited risks to talent retention as pay transparency becomes increasingly widespread, but also have mixed views on the upside for talent acquisition according to Glassdoor’s inaugural Best Places to Work People Leader Survey: 55% of respondents “disagree” or “strongly disagree” with the suggestion that greater pay transparency will make it harder to retain talent. With respect to the benefits of pay transparency for talent acquisition, 34% “agree” or “strongly agree” that open roles with salary information or pay bands attract a higher quality applicant pool while 37% “disagree” or “strongly disagree.”
There is broader agreement about the overhead costs of pay transparency. A majority (66%) of Best Places to Work People Leaders who responded to the survey agree that greater pay transparency will be burdensome to implement – suggesting that pay transparency efforts could push up fixed costs or will involve transition costs for companies – although nearly one-third disagree. Still, respondents’ written commentary suggests that many People leaders believe that it is worth the effort despite these additional costs. This was the most polarizing question of the survey: Only a very small share of respondents (3%) were neutral on this question – neither agreeing or disagreeing.
Perhaps more importantly for the broader labor market and economy, three-quarters (76%) of respondents believe greater pay transparency will lead to a more frequent reevaluation of compensation benchmarks. From the perspective of an economist, this finding has potentially sweeping implications for the inflation outlook at a time when there is an active policy conversation in many countries about the relationship between wage growth and consumer price growth.
Pay equity analyses and diversity training are near-universal practices at the Best Places to Work. Nearly all (97%) of the respondents conduct annual (or more frequent) company-wide pay equity analyses to ensure they pay employees of different genders equitably, and almost four in five (79%) do the same for employees of different races/ethnicities. Similarly, nearly all of the companies surveyed (93%) provide diversity training for employees who manage teams or are responsible for interviewing job candidates.
Pay transparency is less widespread than training and equity analyses, with external pay transparency twice as common as internal pay transparency: 59% of the respondents publish salary information or pay bands for open roles (one respondent indicated they will begin doing so soon, and another indicated they only do so where legally required). In contrast, just 31% of companies surveyed said they share salary information or pay bands internally so employees have a sense of their pay relative to their peers. One respondent noted that they share this information with their teams upon request, and another respondent said they engage in proactive employee communication regarding pay practices and data in addition to internal pay transparency.
These results suggest that even the most seasoned People teams view internal pay transparency as a much more fraught exercise than sharing salary information or pay bands with job candidates. However, there is some evidence to suggest that employees appreciate the effort. Respondents who share salary information or pay bands with their internal teams (i.e., internal pay transparency) generally ranked higher on Glassdoor’s Best Places to Work List than respondents who share these data only for open roles (i.e., external pay transparency): On average, internally transparent companies ranked 32 (median rank 7) on the list while externally transparent companies on average ranked 52 (median rank 50).
As companies navigate a historically challenging moment in the labor market, with growing pressures – from employees, from job candidates, and in some cases, from legislators – to push the frontiers of pay transparency, the collective wisdom of People leaders at Glassdoor’s Best Places to Work suggests that many of these companies view pay transparency as a central part of how they respect and retain their teams, but are also cognizant of the management and operational complications that pay transparency can raise. Their responses are an important reminder that pay transparency does not happen in isolation, and is most effective when bundled with robust employee communication and education.
Summary responses
Survey respondents were asked to what extent they agree or disagree with each of the following statements.
Respondents were also asked to rate how confident they were in their responses on a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 is “not at all confident” and 10 is “extremely confident.”
Individual responses
Methodology
Glassdoor’s Best Places to Work People Leader Survey is a quarterly, invitation-only expert panel survey of the awardees recognized by Glassdoor’s 2023 employee-choice Best Places to Work and designed to guide People Leaders as they navigate a historically challenging moment for talent management.
Responses were collected from Best Places to Work awardees in the United States (Large 100) and United Kingdom (50) between January 19th and February 24, 2023. For companies recognized on both lists and where applicable, we attempted to identify distinct People leadership in each country. Where there is a unified people leadership for both countries, responses were double-weighted. A total of 29 weighted responses were received.
For each question, respondents were asked to rate their confidence in their response on a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 is “not at all confident” and 10 is “extremely confident”. Aggregate results are reported both unweighted and confidence weighted.
Respondents included C-suite executives (Chiefs), Senior Vice Presidents, Presidents, and Senior Directors responsible for People, Human Resources, Recruitment, Employer Brand, and Workplace Experience functions. About two-thirds of respondents are Senior Directors or above. They represent companies including: Cardinal Group Companies, Boston Consulting Group, Insperity, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Intel, Qualtrics, Deloitte, BlackRock, and Dell Technologies among others.