Columnist

Are you ready for salary transparency?

Salary can end up being the last thing discussed in a recruitment process. 

Candidates apply, interview and invest time and energy, only to then discover whether the role is genuinely viable for them. 

Employers, meanwhile, can spend weeks in dialogue with someone who was never going to accept the offer. 

There is also the candidate market employers never see: the people who choose not to apply at all because the lack of salary information makes the opportunity feel uncertain, unrealistic or not worth the risk.

The Government’s proposal to require employers to include salary information in job adverts feels logical. 

It saves time, improves candidate experience and brings a level of honesty to the process that many jobseekers have been asking for.

To me, the more interesting point is not whether salaries should be published; it is what publishing them forces businesses to confront.

In a significant step-change, the job advert could become the place and time for internal pay decisions becoming external. 

This shines an uncomfortable spotlight on inconsistencies and makes them much harder (and probably impossible) to ignore.

Salary transparency has potential, but only if it is handled properly. 

If an advertised salary range is too broad, it can feel meaningless. 

If it is higher than existing employees are paid, it can damage morale. 

If managers cannot explain how pay is set, it risks creating more questions than answers.

Negotiation is also a point deserving attention. 

Many businesses do not work to rigid salary bands. 

They make decisions based on a combination of factors, including market conditions, candidates’ experience and individuals’ worth to an organisation. 

In practice, that can sometimes work in candidates’ favour. 

A business may start a recruitment process with a broad budget in mind, then offer more when they meet someone exceptional. 

Equally, some candidates negotiate strongly and secure a package that exceeds the employer’s original expectations.

If salary ranges become fixed and publicly advertised, negotiations may become more constrained. 

Candidates may focus on the published figure, rather than the wider value they could bring, while employers may feel less able to flex beyond the range they have disclosed. 

Ironically, a change designed to improve fairness could, in some circumstances, limit opportunities for candidates to achieve higher salaries than they might otherwise have secured through negotiation.

For business owners, this is a useful prompt to look within. 

Is there appropriate consistency? Is pay benchmarked, realistic, fair and explainable?

The organisations that handle this well will be the ones that strengthen their reward practices, improve internal confidence and show candidates that fairness is more than a statement on a careers page.

Employers: don’t wait until transparency is mandatory to start preparing for it. 

Lauren Bathan is associate director - HR Partnership at Newcastle, Teesside and Leeds-based recruitment and outsourced HR services provider Jackson Hogg

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