Ping: According to a survey by Willis Towers Watson, 17% of US companies currently provide pay range details in job listings.
Pong: According to that same survey, 62% of companies are either considering or planning to do so, which led to the Bloomberg headline for the article: “Most US Companies Are Willing to List Salaries in Job Descriptions.”
Ping: Of that 62%, only 19% (2% more than current levels) of employers have put plans into place. This can only mean that 43% are lying, inept, or just plain fumfering. Lying because they have never had plans to do so because they don’t wish to cede any power to lowly employees; inept because if they wished to, it would take about 15 minutes to implement; fumfering because they think this will all blow over until some other shiny object begins to fascinate the American public.
Pong: The idea that competing companies are planning to do so has shaken the tree just enough to incentivize non-transparent companies to at least think about what talent they are losing.
Ping: A separate report indicated that the recession is already taking place among “white-collar” workers. Layoffs are high in the finance, tech, and real estate sectors.
Smash: Both articles came from the same source, Bloomberg. One article came out on September 13; the other September 14. The article about layoffs showed a non-white woman, sad, packing a box of her things, on her way out of the office for the last time. It’s a copyrighted image, so here’s an approximation of it:
The image used for the pay transparency article was a simple “Hiring” sign on a small store in Ocean City, New Jersey. Maybe that’s just random. Maybe not. Again, copyrighted, so here’s another approximation:
So, to recap:
A business publication/website, Bloomberg, put two stories out on consecutive days. One was about a “white-collar recession” with layoffs coming. It showed an image of a non-white woman out of work. The second was about companies kinda-sorta-maybe thinking about listing a salary in their job postings, something that would almost certainly positively affect the lives of women across the country — especially non-white women. It showed an image of a blue-collar hiring sign, where most jobs are going wanting because even $15/hour is poverty level wages in 2022.
The images tell a more sinister story than the words.
We’re not stupid.
Wait, let me check.
Nope, not stupid, Bloomberg. I think we see what you’re doing here. The placement of these articles were neither accidents nor coincidental.
Is a billionaire capitalist publication trying to scare women, especially non-white ones, into believing that pay transparency will lead to unemployment, forcing them to take one of those plentiful, minimum-wage jobs?
Asking for a friend.
We’ve already concluded that your nonprofit arts organization cannot have a successful DEI program without complete pay transparency. And by “complete,” we mean complete, public, available, and proud transparency of all payments made to all workers. If you can’t do that, you’re not serious about DEI. If you’re not serious about DEI in 2022, you’re lost — or at the very least, you should be. At this point, that’s become one of the new bare minimums, as determined by your community.
You can’t have equity without complete pay transparency. And you can’t have impact without your employees. So, stop playing games with their lives.
Let’s assume your board members come from a business sector that has no call from the community except to make money by serving it. And let’s say that your board’s “Friedmaniac” (named after Milton Friedman) companies reward the shareholders (and the C-Suite) before anything else. It would follow that they don’t value their employees to that level, especially those who don’t work there yet.
They’re wrong, of course. The most important people in your business are neither your shareholders (which, in this case, would be the community) or your customers (your donors and ticket-buyers). They are your employees. If you don’t empower them, diversify them in both thought and characteristics, and reward them before all others, you make the mistake that so many of us have made in the past (including this writer). Your employees do all the work that benefits those other important stakeholders. When you forget that, you are inviting them to take the next “great” offer, and like the game Frogger, they’ll hop between jobs and then from log to log until they get their personal goals met.
The corporate world cannot abide employees having power. Look at the Starbucks situation with its unions (my local Starbucks was closed yesterday with no sign and no notice, hmmm…). Even a relatively progressive company has issues with the idea of a strong, independent workforce. Imagine how non-union manufacturers in this country handle their responsibilities toward establishing real equity. By withholding salary information, they revel in pitting employees against each other in order to keep, well, not “the peace,” but “power.”
Your nonprofit arts employees are no different, except for one thing. Your organization has likely made proclamations about doing good for the community (which, after all, is your chief responsibility as a charity). Your corporation has the opportunity to be a champion for equity.
Don’t blow it by acting like one of your board member’s companies. Put that Bloomberg-style ping-pong paddle down for good.
Based in Kirkland, Washington, Alan Harrison is a writer and speaker specializing in nonprofit organizations, strategy, the arts, and life politics. His columns appear regularly in major publications. Contact him directly at alan@501c3.guru.
If you’re feeling generous or inspired, just click on the coffee cup above. You don’t have to, of course, but if you can afford it and find some value here, please provide the desperate need for caffeine.
Alan is always looking for good opportunities to write and consult for nonprofits that need a hand. And, of course, that elusive Perfect Opportunity™.
BIG NEWS: Alan’s new book, “Scene Change: Why Nonprofit Arts Organization Must Stop Producing Art and Start Producing Impact” will be published within the next eleven months by Changemakers Books. Stay tuned for information on how you can buy a copy.
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