Salary transparency campaign launches

A new campaign aimed at encouraging the recruitment industry to open the debate around salary transparency has been launched by the organisation Liberty Hive.

The talent platform argues that banning questions about past salary history and improving salary transparency are key to diversity and inclusion. The campaign comes after Baroness Stedman-Scott launched a salary transparency scheme in March 2022, backed by the Fawcett Society, where participating employers list salary details on job adverts and stop asking about salary history during recruitment.

Liberty Hive says its data shows that when salaries are displayed, the response time is over 50% quicker; that a post that displays a salary receives around 67% more applications than one that does not and that jobs posted without any indication of compensation makes the matching process 45% less effective as it results in a greater variation in experience of applicants.

It will be encouraging its partners to list a salary range during the recruitment process and when posting job adverts, will stop asking candidates the salary history question and will work with its agency partners to share best inclusive recruitment practice. It will continue to develop and monitor data on job posts with and without salary ranges.

Liberty Hive says that research shows 75% of candidates would be more likely to apply for a role that included a salary range and that 62% of candidates believe they should not be asked about their current or past salary in an interview, a figure which increases to 73% among Asian workers and 75% for Black workers. Meanwhile, 57% of women and 54% of men felt less positive about a potential employer when they were asked the salary history question.

It cites what occurred when 21 US states passed legislation banning employers from asking about salary history, saying direct side-by-side comparisons of these states with their neighbours over three years revealed that the move resulted in an average 8% pay increase for women and a 13% pay increase for Black employees. Meanwhile, turnover rates stayed the same. A study in Denmark found the pay transparency legislation closed the gender pay gap by 13%.

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