Gen Z is again leading the charge on issues affecting the workplace. Throughout the pandemic, it was this group of people who confidently showed the rest of the working population what they really wanted to do. Research shows that this generation is most value-driven and wants to know that the companies they work for strongly support diversity goals and have an innate need for work-life balance.
Gen Z is also a TikTok generation. Many other things in their lives are broadcast on social platforms, as are clips of their workdays. On #WorkTok, all aspects of career-related issues are organized into easily shareable video packages. Employment attorneys share information about employee rights; techies walk you through their day; the phenomenon of quiet exits is here—and now, a new trend is emerging: wage transparency.
Creators on the platform are talking about money. They encourage wage transparency among colleagues as they share wages to help identify wage gaps and prevent discrimination.
This is eye-opening. But perhaps that’s not surprising: A recent survey found that only 15% of Gen Xers discuss salary, compared to 37% of Gen Zers. We traditionally avoid talking about money for a few reasons – people may feel judged or looked down upon, or they worry about getting into trouble if coworkers get annoyed at their reduced income – of course, for employers good results.
Now, things are changing. In the EU, work is underway on the Pay Transparency Directive. One of its goals is that EU companies with at least 50 employees should be fully transparent about pay, and the European Parliament wants them to address any potential gender pay gap. Because not talking about money tends to penalize women (working women in the EU earn on average 13% less than men for the same job), companies will be obliged to expose any existing gender pay gaps in their organisations.
In the UK, executive pay transparency measures came into effect in 2019, meaning large companies must disclose the pay of their executives and show how they differ from the average worker. The move has had some success: property development firm Persimmon let its chief executive Jeff Fairburn leave once his £75m bonus was in the news, and when the BBC released its salary list, the public was not impressed by the disparity impression.
Approval at the legislative level Pay transparency is important to formalize (and normalize) it, but what about the trickle-down effect? Most companies still do not provide compensation information on job advertisements and other recruiting materials.
It’s a long way off, but there are already some bright spots: Social media management tool Buffer has a full list of everyone’s salaries on its website. The company has been doing this since 2013 to ensure pay equity, including gender equality.
While Amazon does release salary information for some of its positions—for example, its warehouse and logistics opportunities—it is unlikely to provide information about jobs such as software engineering or AWS jobs for its technical roles .
Reykjavik-based Aranja is another company that uses a transparent pay system, with salary bands based on market interest rates – in Iceland, this is close to the highest paid in the tech market.
Since 2018, when software company Glitch began offering pay transparency, the company began sharing the pay range for each position with its employees. Glitch CEO Anil Dash wrote on Medium: “We often talk about how everyone in the company should use the company’s money as if it were their own money. To do this, we must provide everyone with Enough information to understand the cost of our employees.”
Of course, there is another easy way to understand what people are earning. If you work in the tech industry, it’s less difficult to find, as companies tend to compete for similar positions. Companies and salary comparison sites like Glassdoor are your friends. Insert the company you want to research and see where jobs, titles and salaries are. Since the information is user-generated, it is believed to be fairly accurate and updated regularly.
There are tons of jobs to scroll through and check salary information at the Talent House Job Board – what are you waiting for?
