Pay Transparency Isn't a Job Ad. It's an Operating Model.

Pay transparency is one of the hottest topics in Talent today, but is listing a salary on every job ad really as simple as many people make it sound?

In this episode, Edan Haddock explores the reality behind pay transparency, responding to the growing narrative that organisations not advertising remuneration are simply getting it wrong.

Drawing on Movember's own journey to full pay transparency and a 0% gender pay gap, Edan unpacks why transparency is the result of years of work across remuneration, job architecture, governance and leadership education, not just a recruitment decision.

This episode looks at what best practice really means, why many organisations can't switch transparency on overnight, and the practical steps leaders can take to move in the right direction.

If you're a Talent, HR, Reward or People leader, this is a practical conversation about turning good intentions into sustainable change.

Join the Edan Haddock - Total Talent community (formerly Rubberband)

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Hello, everybody out there, and welcome back to another episode of Eden Haddock Total Talent. I'm Eden Haddock, your host, head of talent, and people experience at Movember. No guests, no sponsors, just real conversations from someone who spends every day on the tools. And today's episode is one I've wanted to record for a while, partially because I've seen this discussion pop up more and more on LinkedIn. The latest version came from a post where someone explained they were auditing career sites and calling out organizations that don't advertise REM on their job ads. The suggestion was fairly straightforward. If you don't advertise salary, you're doing talent acquisition wrong. Before I go any further, I want to stress this. I actually agree with the destination. At Movember, every single position we advertise, it includes REM, everyone. Now, in some jurisdictions, we legally have to, Ontario and California. But we do that broadly. We do that in every region. It's part of who we are. It's part of how we built pay equity. It's really a huge part of how we've maintained a 0% gender pay gap. And we're incredibly proud of that. But I'm also realistic enough to know that most organizations simply can't flick a switch and suddenly become fully pay transparent tomorrow morning. And I worry that conversations on LinkedIn sometimes confuse aspiration with implementation. Because really, those are two very different things. Today I want to unpack why. Not to defend organizations that avoid transparency, not to give anyone a free pass, but to explain why the journey is much more complicated than simply updating a job advertisement. So we need to stop judging the symptom. One thing I notice in our industry is that we often judge what we can see. We see a careers page, we see a salary missing, we conclude they don't care. And maybe, but maybe not. Sometimes what you're actually seeing is years of technical debt inside an organization. Imagine a company that's been operating for thirty years. Managers may have negotiated salaries independently. Different business units have hired differently. Acquisitions have occurred. People have transferred between teams. Legacy agreements still exist. Things are grandfathered. Individual negotiations have created pay differences. Promotions haven't always followed a consistent framework. Now, somebody says we should publish salary ranges. The first question isn't what number do we put on the ad? It's what actually is the salary? And sometimes nobody knows. And that's not because they're hiding it, but it's because it genuinely isn't standardized. You know, pay transparency starts years earlier. One misconception I hear is that pay transparency is a recruitment initiative. It simply isn't. Recruitment is where everybody notices it. But pay transparency actually begins inside remuneration, inside HR, inside finance, inside organizational design. It begins with questions like: do we have consistent job families? Do we have job architecture? Have we evaluated roles objectively? Do managers understand salary positioning? Do we have clear salary bans? Have we benchmarked the market recently? Can someone explain why one senior manager earns twenty thousand dollars more than another? If the answer to those questions is no, then publishing salary ranges becomes significantly harder. Because transparency doesn't create consistency. Consistency has to exist first. I wanted to share a little about our own experience. At Movember, we advertise salary on every role. And I genuinely believe candidates appreciate it. It creates trust, it removes ambiguity, it saves everyone time. People know exactly what they're applying for. But that capability didn't magically appear. It came through investment, through governance, through leadership commitment, through education, through having conversations that weren't always easy, I'm sure. Because salary conversations never are. When people start seeing ranges, questions naturally follow. Why am I here and why are they there? How do I move? What determines progression? You know, that's healthy. Those conversations are absolutely healthy. But only if the organization is ready to answer those questions. That's the important part. I hate to say it, but job architecture isn't sexy. But it's essential. Could be one of the least exciting topics in HR, job architecture. I know, right? It's not exactly rock and roll. Nobody wakes up saying, I can't wait to review our career framework today. Actually, there's someone in my team that would. I won't say your name, but you know who you are. But truly, it might be one of those important foundations that any organization builds. Because job architecture answers fundamental questions. What makes someone a specialist versus a senior specialist? What's the difference between a manager and a senior manager? What skills increase somebody's value? What responsibilities justify higher pay? Without those definitions, salary becomes subjective. Managers negotiate differently. Employees compare themselves endlessly. Internal equity becomes almost impossible. And eventually, of course, recruitment inherits the mess. So why do leaders need education? The part that's often forgotten is education. You can have the perfect REM framework. You can have beautiful salary bands. You can have benchmarking. But if leaders don't understand it, it falls apart. Managers need confidence explaining salary. They need confidence discussing progression. They need confidence saying no. And also, not yet. Because transparency isn't simply publishing numbers, it's explaining why those numbers exist. And that's where trust comes from. We need to start small. If you're listening today and you're thinking, gosh, we're nowhere near ready, that's okay. The answer isn't waiting another decade. The answer is starting somewhere. Maybe step one is benchmarking every role. Maybe it's introducing salary bans internally. Maybe it's simply reviewing your highest risk areas. Maybe it is checking for pay equity. Maybe it's documenting career pathways. Maybe it's introducing more governance around salary approvals. Now, these aren't glamorous projects and they don't generate thousands of LinkedIn likes, but they're exactly the work that enables transparency later. So if I was building an organization from scratch, and I'm no REM specialist, but for me, best practice would probably look something like this. Clear job architecture, defined career pathways, and I'm not talking up the ladder. I love a jungle gym. It's important. Objective job evaluation, market benchmarking, salary bans, leader education, annual governance, regular pay equity reviews, I mean regular, transparent promotion criteria, and finally transparent job advertisements. Now do you notice something? Advertising salary would be the final step. Not the first. But others desperately want to get there. They're simply carrying decades of organizational history. Those two organizations shouldn't be treated the same. What you see in a job ad has no context. Intent matters, progress matters, direction matters. If you are a people leader that is listening today, ask yourself one question this week. Not should we advertise salaries? Ask. What would stop us if we wanted to? Because this isn't a HR thing. This is important for all people leaders. I want to stress that. Because whatever answers emerge from asking those questions, that's actually the roadmap. Maybe it's governance, maybe it's inconsistent salaries, maybe it's outdated job descriptions, maybe it's manager capability. Whatever it is, start there. And make this a partnership with people leaders. And my challenge to Telen Acquisition, for those of us in Telene Acquisition, let's keep advocating for transparency absolutely. Absolutely. Candidates deserve clarity. Candidates deserve respect. Candidates deserve honest conversations. But let's also recognize this isn't a talent acquisition project alone. It belongs to people experience, finance, leadership, executives, boards. Everyone has a role. I genuinely hope Australia continues moving towards full pay transparency. I think it's better for candidates, better for organizations, better for trust, better for equity, and ultimately better for business. But I'd encourage us to celebrate organizations making genuine progress rather than criticizing those that are still climbing the mountain. Transformation isn't measured by one job at advertisement. It's measured by the work happening behind the scenes. Because anyone can publish a salary. Very few organizations have done the organizational work required to make that salary defensible. Defensible. That's the difference. Now thanks again for joining me for another episode of Eden Haddock Total Talent. If you've enjoyed today's conversation, I'd really appreciate if you followed the podcast on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. And of course, if you could share the episode with someone working in talent, HR, or reward. As always, there are no guests, no sponsors, just one practitioner sharing what's happening on the tools every single week. Thanks for listening, and I'll see you in the next episode.