Friction has always existed between employers and employees, but trust and contention are more pronounced now than ever. With
Needing to balance business priorities while advocating for employees, HR's unique position can help address this contention. The role of these teams can be more strategic, guiding business decisions to
As
HR can bridge the gap in trust. The first step is embracing authenticity and transparency.
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Employees want authenticity and transparency
In a popular Instagram and TikTok format, users' truth-baring videos are cued up with the memeified soundbite, "Say the weird thing. People are desperately seeking realness." Building trust in any organization requires realness, authenticity and transparency from its leaders.
It can be easy for organizations to make the mistake of communicating a change or objective without the real reason 'why.' Employees are savvy, understanding, and always digging for the deeper business reasons or 'the real reason.' They're perceptive of corporate jargon and insincerity. They want transparent answers and to be treated as partners in the business' success.
While transparency has been a hot topic in recent years with regard to pay transparency laws, it's not just about compensation. Transparency means a commitment from the company to be candid about what's going on in the business. It means having an authentic and human conversation to ensure that everyone understands the truth — good and bad.
Authenticity and transparency start with leadership and should be interwoven in communication throughout the organization. Because the organization is committed to transparency, that filters through into other efforts like compensation and pay communication.
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Create confidence in compensation
Through all the back-and-forth between an employer and employee market, one truth has become clear: Employees know their worth. They have more salary data at their fingertips than ever before, and they're prepared to talk about it.
Employees demand transparency when it comes to pay. Equipped with new knowledge, they're emboldened to have conversations with their employer that they might have previously avoided. And when they feel their organizations aren't listening to their feedback or being transparent with them, they're willing to be loud, both internally and externally. We've seen examples of this with trends like quiet quitting, coffee badging, or posting to social media to share their concerns.
Employees are confident. They're coming into performance conversations ready to discuss pay, supported with facts.
The same can't be said for leaders. According to
HR can help by inspiring confidence with everyone in the organization. This starts with assessing what people in the organization need, then demonstrating authenticity themselves in interactions and conversations with leaders:
- Leaders need confidence in their organization's pay strategy. They must make sure that the organization's pay strategies drive high performance.
- Managers need confidence in communicating that strategy. They need to have productive conversations with employees that connect pay and performance.
- Employees need confidence that their organization is calculating that pay fairly. They need to understand how their performance impacts their compensation.
This confidence is the cornerstone of a trusting relationship between leaders and employees, and its effectiveness hinges on authenticity and transparency.
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Transparency initiatives build trust, especially in pay
Building trust extends to more facets of the business than just pay. However, every business objective can be linked to compensation, making pay transparency the center of the friction.
Pay transparency encompasses more than listing salary ranges on job postings. When it comes to fair, transparent pay, success isn't always about paying more — it's about paying right. Right means that you have an intentional and thoughtful compensation approach to balance what is right for your business with what is right for your employees. In resolving employer-employee tension, everyone needs to understand how pay is calculated and the 'why' behind their pay.
This is how HR can connect individual employee performance with the success of the business. When employees understand how their pay is calculated and how it relates to their performance, pay practices drive higher performance.
Company goals, employee performance and financials are all intertwined. HR is in the best position to show the organization how. There are four things HR can do to bolster confidence and reduce contention, starting with pay:
- Align compensation with company goals
- Communicate the organization's pay philosophy
- Be transparent about company financial performance
- Connect pay with individual performance
Pay transparency isn't just a trend — it's an inflection point for trust in the workplace. Trust requires organizations to embrace transparency and authenticity. When organizations are transparent about their pay processes and can have confident compensation conversations, they can break down the barriers to building trust.
HR can step up into this strategic role to lead this effort, instilling confidence in business decisions and guiding the organization to new highs.
