Exposing Pay

Abstract

Abstract Should employees be allowed to discuss their pay with other employees? Should managers explain the logic underlying organizational pay structures and decisions to their employees? Should companies disclose the mean or median rates of pay for particular positions, or perhaps even individual employees’ actual pay? Concerns over gender and racial disparities are increasingly driving organizations to liberalize restrictions on pay communication. But the forces driving such moves have, to date, been based more on conjecture than science. Accordingly, the aim of this book is to offer evidence-based insights into how pay communication policies and practices impact outcomes at individual, organizational, and societal levels. For example, at the individual level, the book examines the impact of pay transparency on task performance, helping and collaboration, and counterproductive work behavior. At the organizational level, it examines how pay transparency impacts employee turnover rates, pay dispersion, and reliance on idiosyncratic deals. Finally, from a society level, the book explores pay transparency’s impact on gender pay disparities. Summarizing findings from the recent surge in pay transparency research, this book aims to help employees, managers, and policymakers better understand how pay communication policies and practices may be leveraged to enhance organizational performance and address social inequality, while at the same time highlighting for them why and when such practices can generate potentially harmful, unintended consequences.

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