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As governments, organizations and individuals around the world have become increasingly interested in issues of income and pay inequality, including gender- and race-based pay gaps, pay communication and transparency have come to the fore due to their potential for shedding light on, and hopefully helping to remedy, unfair pay inequities. This has led to greater scientific interest in how organizations communicate about pay and in understanding employees pay communication preferences in different countries around the world. This article reviews the global research on pay communication, providing takeaways for HR managers. It warns that the existing studies have spanned several related but distinct concepts and have not always used consistent methods and terminologies. We suggest several areas for future research in global pay communications.
During the past few years, more and more of us have been paying attention to how organizations communicate about workers' pay. Of course, good communication has always been important for ensuring that organizations' pay systems are implemented effectively (Fulmer and Chen 2014). But as governments, organizations and individuals around the world have become increasingly interested in issues of income and pay inequality, including gender- and race-based pay gaps, pay communication and transparency have come to the fore due to their potential for shedding light on, and hopefully helping to remedy, unfair pay inequities. In a recent survey of WorldatWork member organizations, 67% agree that pay transparency is increasingly important (WorldatWork 2020). Weakened taboos about discussing pay in many parts of the world, and the accessibility of pay data in public databases and services such as Glassdoor.com, have contributed to employees' willingness and ability to seek, compare and share pay information. These developments have also led to greater scientific interest in how organizations communicate about pay and in understanding employees' pay communication preferences in different countries around the world (Arnold and Fulmer 2019; Scott et al. 2020).
Organizations have four key decisions to make when it comes to communicating about pay (see Figure 1). The first decision is communicating about "what" - what, if any, pay outcome information will be shared? For example, pay transparency about outcomes could involve disclosing individual salary numbers, group averages or pay ranges. The second decision relates to communicating about "why" - how transparent will an organization...