Make Pay Transparency Build Trust in HR Compensation

At Underdog I centered our pay transparency on regular pay audits and used their findings to decide which pay ranges to publish and where compression risk existed. Those audits informed clear, banded salary structures and highlighted where adjustments were needed to preserve internal equity. We focused disclosure on ranges tied to audit results rather than individual salaries to balance openness with fairness. The single step that most improved trust was committing publicly to recurring audits and to act on their findings.

We have chosen to publish salary ranges, that are based upon standard local market rates for all administrative/clerical/billing positions. In order to avoid pay compression, we created a rule that prohibits new hire starting salaries from being greater than the median salary of currently employed team members in comparable positions. Should we be forced by the labor market to pay above the median then we will automatically make an equity adjustment to our currently employed team.

The action which increased employee trust in management the most has been to give our employees a yearly "total compensation statement." The total compensation statement shows not only what the employee is paid but also the entire monetary worth of their benefits and education/training stipends; therefore, showing the employee the true, complete picture of how much the company invests in each employee's career.

We determined to use realistic, minimum to mid-point salary range numbers for all administrative and billing jobs, to create clarity in our pay transparency approach as opposed to using wide bands that can be confusing. As we established this salary structure, we used a semi-annually scheduled salary review process which automatically adjusts the current salaries of our employees as any increase to our initial hire rates occur. Creating an anonymous feedback vehicle for compensation-related inquiries, has been the greatest contributor to improving employee trust. By providing our team members with a safe, no-penalty way to inquire regarding salary ranges or other compensation-related issues, and answering them directly using factual, transparent information, we demonstrate that we are very fiscally responsible and have created an atmosphere of respect among all employees within our offices.

By publishing local salary ranges for each of our administrative job openings, using objective data from third-party compensation resources to establish those local benchmark salary levels, and by implementing an objective "compression buffer" to guarantee that a certain percentage-based difference exists between our new hire entry-level employees' and our senior coordinators' base salaries, we have implemented two steps to prevent pay compression. When the market drives up the entry-level wage, we will also increase our senior team's wages to maintain this same percentage-based gap in their wages as well.

The one action that had the greatest impact on building trust among our employees was establishing transparency into how our salary structure is determined. We published our salary formula directly within our company intranet. Transparency regarding how we manage the salaries of our employees, has resulted in no speculation or gossip about fairness and equity of salaries among our employees. As a result, it has created a highly professional environment where there is strong collaboration throughout the organization.

We decided to share pay ranges only after redefining what the range actually meant. Many companies publish bands that are so broad they create more suspicion than confidence. We narrowed our ranges into practical levels that reflected developing, established, and advanced contribution. This gave people a clear view of where they stood without turning compensation into a guessing game.

Preventing pay compression required one difficult but necessary step. We reviewed legacy pay first, especially for steady performers whose salaries had fallen behind newer hires. Transparency without correction can hurt culture more than keeping pay private. We also kept promotions and market adjustments as separate decisions so people understood that fair pay did not depend only on a new title.

Employees are a lot more comfortable with pay imbalances if we can explain each raise and show them a clear path towards earning what their higher-earning peers are. We tie every raise to clear, explicit factors like longevity, specific performance benchmarks, or expanded job descriptions. The one step we'll take towards equalizing pay is when we bring in new hires. In cases where we need to raise our offer to get candidates, we'll give equalizing raises to any current employees making less than that.

Two years ago I made the mistake most founders make with pay. I thought transparency meant publishing a flat range for a role. On a small founder-led team with no HR department, that backfired fast. The moment everyone can see a range, everyone anchors to the top of it. A person doing narrow, well-defined work and a person carrying broad scope and real risk both read the same top number, and both expect it. The range compresses the differences that should exist between those two roles, and honest gaps in scope start to read as unfairness.

The fix was to stop publishing the range as the headline and start publishing the criteria that move someone through it. I wrote down what actually earns more: the size of the problem you own, the impact when you get it right, whether you need direction or set the direction for others, and what specifically would earn a raise in the next six months. Those four things separate two people on the same team, and they were invisible when all anyone saw was two endpoints. Compression is not a pay problem. It is a communication problem. When people cannot see why a difference exists, they assume it should not.

The step that changed trust was not the document. It was being willing to defend any single number against those criteria, out loud, in a one on one. If someone asks why a teammate earns more, I can point to scope and impact rather than tenure or who negotiated harder. When a number cannot survive that conversation, the number is wrong, not the question. That willingness to be questioned did more for trust than any spreadsheet. People do not need to agree with every number. They need to believe each one has a reason they could hear.

We still have no formal bands. On a team this size, formal bands would be theater, a structure borrowed from companies ten times our headcount to look rigorous. What we have instead is written criteria and one rule: every number has to trace back to them, mine included.

Here is the lesson. Pay transparency does not mean showing people the range. It means showing them what moves you through it. A published range makes everyone reach for the ceiling and resent the gap. Published criteria let people see why two honest numbers differ, and agree that they should.

A friend will tell anyone what he paid for his car but goes silent when you ask what he makes. Money is what people compare in the dark. That is why transparency is hard. The comparison was always happening, with worse information.
We did not publish exact salaries. We published the band for each role. Compression showed up fast. A newer hire sat close to someone with 4 years in and no story explained the gap. So the bands say what moves you inside them, scope and depth, not time served.
The step that moved trust was boring. We told people why they sit where they sit in their band before they asked. You can argue with a number you did not choose. It is harder with one someone will explain to your face. Whether that holds as the team doubles, I do not know.

I decided what pay range information to share by anchoring published ranges to the BLS OEWS percentile data for the relevant metro and industry, and for hard-to-fill roles I layered in current competitor postings and local vacancy counts to determine when to target higher percentiles. Using those percentile bands to place new hires relative to incumbents helped prevent pay compression by keeping offers deliberate and aligned to market benchmarks. The single step that most improved employee trust was being transparent about the data and methodology, showing the BLS percentiles and explaining how real-time posting trends affected placement. Because the BLS data comes from employer payroll records, citing it made the rationale straightforward for leadership and easy for employees to understand.

The biggest trust unlock was not sharing bigger pay ranges. It came from explaining the rules for growth in simple language. We gave every manager the same framework for pay conversations and asked them to use it during every review. Employees heard the same message whether they spoke with a team lead, finance, or leadership.

We also stopped treating pay conversations as something that happened only once a year. We made them part of regular discussions about growth, responsibility, and readiness for the next role. When people know what matters and when decisions are made, they spend less time guessing. We found that transparency works best when it removes confusion and gives people clear expectations.

Sharing only the starting salary or range (rather than the full range) is one way to manage pay compression.

The step which improves employee trust (or prevents it from eroding) is consistency: so employees can see little difference between what is documented and how managers actually process starting salaries or pay increases, for themselves. Not easy to do in practice but key.

I chose to post the verified, regional-based salary ranges for each and every office and administrative position, in order to match our categories to regional surveys. In addition to preventing pay compression, I added an obligatory "equity check" prior to making any offer to a new employee. If it becomes necessary due to a highly qualified candidate, then before making the offer, we will add additional money to the current employees' salaries in order to keep them at the top of the pay scale, as well as maintain a fair, tenure-based structure.

I believe that the one thing that has contributed the most to the improvement in trust is when I held a number of small group question and answer sessions with the staff. We went over how our company's finances were set up. By demystifying how our compensation budgets were developed and created by our accounting department, the staff felt confident that our salaries were based upon objectivity as well as being structured to create long-term internal equity.