I was honored to participate in a panel discussion regarding pay transparency with Curo Compensation - compensation and pay equity specialists who provide HR technology (Saas solution) that make compensation decisions easy and fair.  This topic of pay transparency has become a global conversation – what does that term really mean and how far do we really need to go to be “transparent”?  Does it mean sharing everyone’s salaries openly or just salary ranges?  

​The events of the last couple of months have caused the world to look at and re-think the meaning of equality.  Human Resources professionals have been considering equality in terms of hiring practices and pay for many years.  Initially, HR was concerned about compliance because of legislation surrounding fair pay and non-discriminatory hiring.  However, I have seen a shift starting with the millennial generation where the focus is more on “doing the right thing” in terms of equality and non-discrimination rather than doing those things because the law says it must be done.

​I am sure many of you have heard about the Google doc heard round the world containing the salaries that Microsoft employees shared anonymously in a spreadsheet so that they “can all get paid more together”.  Employees shared years of experience, tenure at Microsoft, merit %, base pay, bonus, and stock information.  Almost 400 employees provided data.  This phenomenon prompted a website to be created for engineers at different companies to share their salaries – a unionizing type of approach to increase compensation across the tech industry.