Illustration: Sandra Navarro
The Playbook for Discussing Pay With Employees
When managers avoid talking openly about compensation, they risk eroding trust and reducing productivity.
Younger workers are dismantling one of corporate life’s last taboos: talking about pay. Comfortable revealing their salaries on TikTok or Glassdoor, they’re now bringing those conversations into the office and pushing employers to confront questions their predecessors preferred to leave unasked.
Most managers, however, still stumble when the topic comes up. Raises, bonuses and stock options are too often explained in jargon or brushed off with clichés. In a survey by the nonprofit WorldatWork, compensation specialists said the first thing they’d change about their firms’ pay strategies is how they’re communicated. That gap endures even as more than a dozen states now require salary ranges in job postings.