Exposing Pay : Pay Transparency and What It Means for Employees, Employers, and Public Policy

Should employees be allowed to discuss their pay with other employees? Should managers explain the logic underlying pay structures and decisions to employees? Should companies disclose more information on pay for particular positions or even an individuals' actual pay? Pay equity has become a hot topic in recent years with pay transparency viewed as an important way to narrow gender and racial pay gaps. However, pay transparency policies and practices remain highly controversial, with divergent attitudes based largely on conjecture or anecdote. In Exposing Pay, Peter Bamberger provides evidence-based insights into how pay communication policies and practices impact outcomes at individual, organizational, and societal levels. Bamberger reviews findings from the recent surge in pay transparency research to help employees, managers, and policymakers better understand when pay communication policies and practices might enhance organizational performance and address social inequality and when such practices can lead to harmful consequences. Starting with a short overview of how companies have addressed the question of pay transparency over the past century and a brief summary of contemporary transparency regulations in dozens of countries around the world, Exposing Pay presents findings on the various forms of pay transparency on such outcomes as individual task performance, employee retention and turnover, citizenship behaviors such as helping, counter-productive work behavior, and pay dispersion or spread. An honest assessment of the good and the bad of pay transparency, Exposing Pay gives policymakers, managers, and HR specialists the perspective and information they need to make fair, sensible, and informed decisions. "Pay, and particularly others' pay, is a topic of interest to all of us. While we may deem it inappropriate to ask our boss what others in the organization are earning, that doesn't mean we wouldn't like to know. Nor is this due merely to curiosity. Knowing the figures on others' paychecks is important because, lacking such information, it's difficult for us to assess how fair our own pay is, whether we are justified in seeking a raise, or whether it's worth our while to seek our fortune in some other organization or career. Moreover, we might look favorably upon greater transparency in pay-related matters not only as employees, but also as citizens. Greater pay transparency might serve as a means to (a) better ensure that labor markets efficiently match individuals with those employers most able to leverage their talent, and (b) make it harder for employers to discriminate, whether intentionally or not, against women, minorities, and other disadvantaged groups with respect to pay"-- Provided by publisher