What do employees think about Pay Transparency?

I often talk with employees about pay transparency. And I track conversations on this topic at various forums. Out of curiosity, but also because we need to understand what employees think before we can draft solid pay transparency communications. Most companies skip this step entirely, but it’s important to understand what your employees believe, based on years of watching how employers behave.

This matters more than you might realize. If you build your communications program without this insight, it will not address the right topics. You’ll spend your time correcting public misconceptions instead of answering the questions your employees have. But the goal of these comms is to address what employees are thinking before they voice it. Because that allows you to shape the conversation rather than chasing it.

I recommend that you invite a group of employees to hear their views before you finalize your comms approach. And to give you a sense of what you might hear, here’s what I learned from in-person conversations and online forums.

Do employees actually want pay transparency?

Overwhelmingly, yes. The sentiment across employee forums and conversations is clear: most workers see the EU Pay Transparency Directive as a massive improvement over the current system of hidden pay. People will finally be able to understand market rates, avoid wasting weeks on a hiring process that ends in a disappointing offer, and negotiate with a real proposal in hand rather than waiting for the numbers. Don’t underestimate how much employees feel disadvantaged by information asymmetry. For many, this feels like a long-overdue power shift.

What’s the first thing employees worry about?

They worry that employers will game the program. Almost immediately after welcoming the idea of transparency, employees brace for the secret workarounds. The most common expectation is that employers will post deliberately wide salary ranges, like €40,000 to €100,000 wide. Ranges that will be useless when negotiating job offers.

I don’t think employees are being cynical. They’ve watched companies do this for years. Their assumption is that most hires will land near the bottom of whatever range gets published, and that recruiters will continue to low ball candidates within that range, because they can point to a posted number. If your comms approach doesn’t address this directly (how do you end up in a quartile?), employees will assume you’re planning to game the system.

What do they think about pay bands?

As I mentioned, they are very skeptical about wide pay ranges. And even though pay bands often have genuine internal logic (different experience levels, performance considerations, etc.) employees don’t know that unless you explain it them. If you publish a range of €50,000 to €75,000 without explaining how the band works, the default assumption is that you’ll offer €50,000. Don’t assume they know their job description or level either.

This means your communications must go beyond publishing numbers. You must explain the job architecture and levels. In a next step, add the pay structure, where most current employees sit and why. What it takes to move up in a salary band. Employees want to understand context and reasons why.

What do employees want to see the end of?

The practice of asking candidates what they currently earn and then giving them a marginally higher offer is seen as one of the most harmful mechanisms in hiring. They realize that this follows people from role to role, which means underpayment compounds over time. Employees know that the directive restricts this, and many see it as one of the most concrete, specific benefits of the legislation.

They also want to stop going through three rounds of interviews before learning a role pays 20% below their current salary. That frustration drives a lot of enthusiasm for the upfront disclosure measure. It’s worth acknowledging this explicitly in your communications rather than glossing over it, because employees value this point.

Are employees paying attention to the deadlines?

Yes, and more than you might expect. Many employees are aware that the directive starts in June and some are already noting that countries like the Netherlands may see delays in full enforcement. There’s genuine uncertainty about when rights will actually be enforceable.

This creates a specific communications risk. If employees see your country is behind on transposition and your company says nothing, the silence reads as preparation to take advantage of that delay. When you proactively communicate about your own timeline, independent of what the local government does, you send a very different signal. The complexity of this is higher if you operate in multiple countries – keep in mind that people talk.

What’s the most important thing to understand going into your comms program?

That employees bring years of experience with employer behavior into this moment. Their skepticism is based on lessons learned. The same is true for trust. When you communicate about pay transparency, you’re not starting from a clean slate: your employees remember every salary promise, every offer and every raise.

If you want to use pay transparency as an opportunity to build trust in the process, acknowledge that history explicitly. If there were salary and compensation issues, be open about that. And then you can show with actions (not words) that this time will be different.