SHRM26 Debrief · Compensation & Benefits · #2197

Pay Transparency Starts Here: A Playbook for HR Professionals

with Jennifer Loftus

▶ Watch on the SHRM portal ~66 min, distilled

Pay transparencyCompensation strategyTotal rewards philosophy

"No infinite pay ranges, because that's our first potential misstep that can happen."

What it was about

Pay transparency is not optional or futuristic: employees and applicants already expect it. Organizations need a structured, nine-step playbook covering legal compliance, total rewards philosophy, job architecture, market pricing, benefits, and communication to build transparency without creating legal or morale risk.

By the numbers

70% increase

in applications received after employers include pay ranges in job listings (SHRM research)

66% increase

in applicant quality after including pay ranges in job postings (SHRM research)

87%

of employees think job postings should have a salary range attached

Key notes

Stay continuously up to date on pay transparency laws at the state, city, and country level, since requirements conflict across jurisdictions and change constantly.
Never use 'infinite' or absurdly wide pay ranges (e.g. $50,000 to $500,000) to technically comply with posting laws — it confuses applicants, damages employer branding, and invites lawsuits and regulator scrutiny.
Audit your total rewards philosophy, job descriptions, and job evaluation/architecture systems before building new pay ranges, since inaccurate job descriptions will undermine every later step.

The contrarian takeFormal internal-equity job evaluation (point-factor systems), once considered outdated when 'the market was everything,' is seeing a real resurgence. The speaker went roughly a decade without a client requesting one, then got three requests in six months, suggesting market-only pricing is creating equity problems companies are now trying to fix.

Take this back Monday

Do this for your team

Audit current employees against any planned new pay ranges and adjust anyone paid below the new minimum before rolling ranges out.

Say this in your next leadership meeting

Pay transparency isn't optional anymore — 87% of employees expect a salary range on job postings, so we need a structured rollout, not a workaround.

Watch out for

Posting deliberately wide or 'infinite' pay ranges to nominally satisfy pay-range-disclosure laws while hiding real pay.
Building new pay grades and ranges for job postings without going back to true up current employees who now fall below the new minimum.
Failing to train managers on the 'why' behind pay transparency changes, leaving them to invent unfavorable explanations or blame HR when employees ask questions.

Fun fact · Jennifer Loftus

A career compensation consultant, Jennifer Loftus won the Gotham Comedy Foundation's 2014 Lifetime Ambassador of Laughter Award.

If this landed, see these

↳ Go deeperPay Reporting Road Trip: A Coast-to-Coast Guide to Transparency & Compliance—Now with a European DetourThe playbook's compliance step turns into its own beast once you add reporting laws across states and Europe.⇄ The counterpointFair Pay, Lean Resources: Compensation Strategies for Small & Midsize HR TeamsNine steps assumes a comp department; this session builds the same fairness case for teams without one.✦ The unexpected oneCommunicating with Impact...for Results! The Art of Tactful and Diplomatic CommunicationThe playbook's last step is 'communicate it well'; this is the actual skill for that hard conversation.