This episode features an interview with Lexi Clarke, Chief People Officer at Payscale, a leading provider of compensation data, software and services. Lexi leads the company’s internal HR strategies for over 600 employees around the world. With over 14 years of experience at companies like Convoy, Redfin, and Boeing, she is an expert in people-first HR leadership, workforce growth strategy, and compensation best practices. In this episode, Amanda sits down with Lexi to discuss pay transparency, measuring your worth as an employee, and discussing salary in the interview process.
This episode features an interview with Lexi Clarke, Chief People Officer at Payscale, a leading provider of compensation data, software and services. Lexi leads the company’s internal HR strategies for over 600 employees around the world. With over 14 years of experience at companies like Convoy, Redfin, and Boeing, she is an expert in people-first HR leadership, workforce growth strategy, and compensation best practices.
In this episode, Amanda sits down with Lexi to discuss pay transparency, measuring your worth as an employee, and discussing salary in the interview process.
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“I think overall, we're starting to see that pay transparency and just transparency in general has been shown to have a positive impact on job satisfaction, on engagement, on overall productivity. And I think that's tied to an inherent trust. When you’re a little bit more transparent, there's more trust built with your employees and within the organization. It’s so powerful. I just think it is such a powerful concept.” – Lexi Clarke
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Episode Timestamps:
*(02:18): The trend of talking openly about salaries
*(07:47): How Payscale is helping the shift towards pay transparency
*(15:08): Segment: Story Time
*(15:37): How to talk about salary in an interview
*(20:51): Segment: Getting Tactical
*(27:20): How to measure your worth as an employee
*(33:23): Segment: Ripped From The Headlines
*(35:49): What Lexi thinks of “quiet quitting”
*(40:17): Segment: Asking For a Friend
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Links:
Connect with Payscale on LinkedIn
Connect with Amanda on LinkedIn
Amanda Berry: Lexi, thank you so much for joining me today.
Lexi Clarke: Thank you for having me.
Amanda Berry: Yeah, I'm excited to have you here. This is something we don't, we haven't really talked about yet on cohesion is pay and you sort of live and work in the epicenter of pay and salaries, and so I'm super excited to dive into that today. But I do just wanna actually just jump right in here.
Amanda Berry: There's been a lot of talk, especially over the past few years about pay transparency, right? I've travel events, I travel, I see billboards that say like, if the pays so competitive, then why don't you tell us what it is? Right. Pays just becoming so much more talked about as employees are looking for roles.
Amanda Berry: And what we've seen is this has been a taboo subject now we being employees in the past and now it's slowly becoming encouraged and even demanded among employees. Growing up, I always heard don't talk about pave religion and politics, and as we all know, all of those are now very front and center. So what is this trend towards talking openly about salaries?
Lexi Clarke: Yeah, it's so interesting. I th I think it's a combination of a couple different factors. I think there's, you know, some of the obvious, which is the last kind of year or so, or a little bit longer than that, there is emerging legislation, right? So you look at states like Colorado and California, Washington State, New York, all of those have really passed that.
Lexi Clarke: Kind of pay transparency legislation, and I think that generates more discussion. I think it also generates kind of more availability of pay data just in the public domain. You look at technology and you see all of these different companies, I think you're talking about offers really publicly. People are trying to figure out kind of is this offer that I'm getting the right amount of money?
Lexi Clarke: Is this my value within the market? But I think that. That's almost generational a little bit. You look at millennials and Gen Z, especially Gen Z, you've seen like challenging pay secrecy and really pushing for that transparency. I look at trends on TikTok or any of those Salary, transparency Street.
Lexi Clarke: We're really just talking about it in more. Tech forums, social media, all of those things. I think that's generating so much discussion. I think even at a higher level, there's just this interesting HR and compensation as an industry has gone through this continued kind of evolution, especially the last few years.
Lexi Clarke: You look at what we went through in 2020, right? You're hearing kind of HR leaders, chief people, officers, whoever that is, there's more demanded of them and their teams than ever, and I think that. So much of what we're seeing kind of evolve in HR and compensation is that strategic push, right? We're not focused on compliance and the things that you're used to HR focusing on in the past, we're really driving more transparent conversation and responding, I think, to a lot of kind of what employees are asking for.
Lexi Clarke: So it's so many different pieces, I think, but it's this interesting kind of mix of you've got, you know, some of the just kind of tactical needs that companies are having to comply with the legislation, but there's this. Larger theme. I think that's like generational, the evolution, like it's really, really interesting.
Lexi Clarke: And do you have any
Amanda Berry: understanding why with all the research you do at Pay scale, why employees haven't been comfortable? They still aren't comfortable talking openly about
Lexi Clarke: salaries? Yeah. We don't have, you know, a specific kind of research in terms of percentages, but I do think there's historically kind of that culture of.
Lexi Clarke: Pay secrecy was so fostered, right? Like in the workplace, and I think that really stifled open conversations about pay. I go back to exactly what you said, right? It used to be a thing not to talk about compensation and how much money you made, you go all the way back. I think there used to be kind of pay secrecy clauses included in people's employment contracts.
Lexi Clarke: And you know, part of organizational policies that really prohibited people from disclosing pay or talking about kind of what you know you might earn compared to other workers around you. So I think under any conditions where disclosing how much you're making or you're earning could lead to disciplinary action within your company, those things are scary.
Lexi Clarke: And I think that, you know, really impacted kind of the comfort level of people talking about, or not talking about salaries internally or externally. Yeah,
Amanda Berry: so let's flip that script a little bit. Yeah, yeah. Job candidates won't paid transparency, right? I'm seeing all over Reddit in social media. So why aren't employees more readily giving that information and job postings?
Lexi Clarke: Yeah, I think there's a couple things. The headline is, I think it's hard, right? I think there's a heavy lift. It can be really time consuming and costly. I think for. Companies and organizations to figure out getting their house in order, in order to be transparent, right about having those conversations. I think there is a fear, like just an inherent fear that.
Lexi Clarke: Companies can't compete. Maybe with larger companies that might offer larger salaries, right? And look at some of the big tech companies that can offer some of those big dollar amounts. I think companies are scared, right? What if I list something and and people are like, no, there's no way I'm gonna apply anymore because I'm gonna go for kinda a larger dollar amount that I know these other companies can offer me.
Lexi Clarke: I think there's also just the inherent challenge of kinda what we just talked about, going from kind of this pay secrecy or a little bit of taboo of talking about pay to. Being really transparent. I think it's hard for teams to really figure out where to start. I mean, like it's challenging for communications to your employees.
Lexi Clarke: It's challenging to explain those decisions. It's a challenge. You know, internally, I think to educate and I think HR and people, teams are trying to figure out where to start, right? And some of it is getting like buy-in from the rest of their executive team. Some of it is a real plan to kind of educate leaders, educate your employees.
Lexi Clarke: We've done a lot of that internally, which has been super interesting, right? Both with kind of what we do as a company and kind of driving compensation, but also just. The questions you've gotta feel really comfortable saying you don't know the answer or you haven't done that amount of work yet. It's gonna be an uphill battle, I think for the companies that were really in a place where they weren't transparent before.
Lexi Clarke: Yeah, yeah. Maybe it is.
Amanda Berry: Some of that generational people leading the companies are still in that mindset of like, we don't talk about it. We don't put it out there. So you work at Pay Payscale, right? Sort of the epicenter of, of pay data and understanding pay. So what is Payscale doing to help this trend towards better pay transparency.
Lexi Clarke: I love this question. I think there's probably two things. There's probably like the employer and kind of company lens, and then there's probably the employee and candidate lens, you know, for employers. From a company perspective, Payscale's Real mission is kind of, we are the leading provider in compensation data, software, and kind of services and helping organizations really kind of drive to understanding their compensation data.
Lexi Clarke: How to pay their employees, how to think about their compensation strategy. But we have a platform that enables kinda organizations to evaluate those comp strategies against the market. Standardize any of those practices around pay. We've got, you know, 10,000 plus customers. More than half of those are of the Fortune 500.
Lexi Clarke: We price 27 million jobs annually. So, you know, it's really interesting. I think all of the things that we offer as kind of data, software, and services from an employee point of view. One of the things that we offer is we've got this salary survey and it's a free online salary survey where employees or candidates can know their worth in the market.
Lexi Clarke: So I. They can go to our website, they can plug in anything about themselves, their years of experience, their certifications, anything like that. And they can ask a question like, what should my offer look like? What's my value in the market? And I think there is, you know, something really powerful there. If we look at our website, we've got.
Lexi Clarke: I think close to a hundred million visitors a year, um, who kind of pay scale it, right? Like they're pay scaling themselves. And that gives us a really kind of good wealth of a crowdsource database where it's kind one of its kind. And we've got, I think, 65 million salary profiles. So we've got kind of both the flip of.
Lexi Clarke: We're helping companies figure out how to talk to their employees and really ground in that market data, but we're also helping employees figure out where to start, what data should they be looking at. And part of what's so hard about this conversation is just knowing where to begin and knowing the data that you should anchor the conversation to.
Lexi Clarke: I have to guess
Amanda Berry: that our listener, a lot of the listeners right now are on Payscale.com plugging in
Lexi Clarke: their information. I hope so. I hope so. Go pay scale yourself. Yes, for sure. We did turn that into
Amanda Berry: a verb the way like Google is a verb. Like go Google it. Yes. Yeah. Have pay scale it. I'm applying for this job, but did you pay scale it?
Lexi Clarke: Yes. I love this. I love it. I'm gonna make t-shirts I think past. Yes.
Amanda Berry: Yeah. That's a good way to get your brand out there. Get people on the website. So you're York at pay scale, which I think is awesome to be in the epicenter of pay transparency data and just the pay data. Tell us about what you do there.
Lexi Clarke: Yeah, I'm in the chief HR officer role at Payscale, which I like to say gives me the, just like the best job. I have the job of focusing on our people. So I've got, you know, a great team of folks on our people team who they wake up every single day thinking about our internal employees and thinking about how to make their employee experience better.
Lexi Clarke: I'm really focused on understanding how to engage our employees, how to make sure that their employee experience all throughout their journey, whether they're. Just getting started with Payscale, whether they're well on their way, maybe they've been with us for a few years now. How do we make sure that we're giving them different experiences on their journey that give them different tools that they can use?
Lexi Clarke: Kind of whether or not they're sticking around at Payscale for kind of the long term or moving on to whatever that next opportunity looks like. It's interesting, I'm coming off obviously of a, a conference with a lot of other CHROs and chief people officers, and we talked a lot about there is a change in the industry.
Lexi Clarke: Employees don't. Stay at companies for 30 plus years anymore. Like that is definitely a generational shift. So that means the core job of heads of hr, heads of people, teams is to really make sure that the time that they spend with the company is meaningful. It gives them really powerful tools, ways to like learn new skillsets, develop in different ways, and make sure that they have a great experience while they're with us.
Lexi Clarke: But that they can really use that down the road in wherever kind of their career will take them next. So I think that is, you know, the core of kind of what I wake up every morning worrying about and thinking about. And then I think the opportunity also to do kind of HR at an HR company is kind of kick ass, right?
Lexi Clarke: Like I get to talk to our internal employees all the time. I also get to do things like this where I'm just talking about the changes in the industry and what companies are challenged with and getting to talk to my other peers at other companies. And that's really exciting. It is a really cool opportunity.
Lexi Clarke: Let me ask
Amanda Berry: this. This just came to me when you were talking about employees leaving, right. I was just talking to someone not an hour ago about how I used to work at a company that was cradled to grave. You started there and then you retired there. The reason I wanted to talk about pay is because it is a part, it's a big part of the employee experience.
Amanda Berry: It's a reason a lot of people end up leaving their role. You get a, a big bump, so you go somewhere else. Well, then the company that has. The opening right now, they have to advertise for that role and for those who then say, well, we can't pay someone the amount we were paying them. Cause that's not enough.
Amanda Berry: No one's gonna come here. So then they have to bump that salary up to match the market demand. Why do you think companies aren't just like keeping an eye on those figures? Like rather than lose that company, you know, and get your 3% raise every year, why aren't they saying, Hey, the market for this role says it's actually.
Amanda Berry: 9%. We need to adjust for market and inflation of, of all those issues because it feels as if, especially with the inflation we've just been seeing over the past year or so, it's been talked about, right? Companies aren't matching that so people have to leave and then in companies are losing real talent.
Amanda Berry: Why do you think companies aren't being more willing to do market adjustments?
Lexi Clarke: This is gonna be such an HR answer that I'm gonna give you, but then I'll, I'll go deeper on it, which is, it depends, and I think it depends on a couple different things, and some of it is industry specific. Some of it is.
Lexi Clarke: Company specific, what are they going through? How are they financially performing? I think sometimes, especially right now, right, where we see we're coming out of this like mega white hop market the last few years into a market where we're seeing layoffs in the news and the headlines really frequently.
Lexi Clarke: And I think that impacts the compensation conversations, right? And so I think. It depends on kind of what the organization is going through. I also think it depends on where are they in their comp journey, and so often I think about this a lot with just inherently what we do. How often are you looking at that market data?
Lexi Clarke: To your point, how often are you re-looking at the market data, especially in markets like this where. Things can change in six months. Six things can change in 12 months. And so anchoring yourself to always understanding the market deeply into what are other companies offering? What are they paying?
Lexi Clarke: Feeling really comfortable that you can be transparent and. Playing your comp strategy, which means maybe you don't pay the highest in cash, but maybe you've got some other really great offerings, like maybe you've got a great 401K match or things that could really weight differently in kind of the choosing of what people are looking for in that next role.
Lexi Clarke: I think it depends on some of those factors, but I think at the core of it, I would say companies need to get. Really clear on their comp strategy. They need to know that market data in and out, and be able to have those really open conversations with employees and candidates. And if they can't, they gotta start there.
Lexi Clarke: Because to your point, I think with all of this data being so available, people are starting to understand what other companies are paying and they're asking them tough questions, right? What is our comp range? Why am I paid, you know, lower within that comp range? When do I get a raise? What is the market adjustment of this company?
Lexi Clarke: I always say the data will set you free, but it's true. Like I think that, you know, especially that market kind of compensation data, there is so much there that that should be your anchor for everything that you do.
Amanda Berry: I wanna use something you just said to move into story time. Welcome
Lexi Clarke: to story time. Story time.
Lexi Clarke: Lemme give you your story.
Amanda Berry: You said employers need to be comfortable talking to candidates. This is another, another conversation I've been hearing. You go into a job interview because the salary isn't listed in the job posting. I mean, everybody wants to know the salary. That is honestly, probably everyone's first, like what is the salary?
Amanda Berry: But in an interview setting, I know as a candidate you can struggle with that, right? If I ask about the salary, they're gonna just think, I'm here for the money, but I really am just here for the money, right? We have to. We have to have a job for all the people listening probably will be job hunting a few more times in their life.
Amanda Berry: How do you have that conversation at an interview with an employer who didn't list that salary in the posting?
Lexi Clarke: Some of this goes back to what we've been talking about. I think the shift from kind of the secrecy into kind of the full transparency, but it's uncomfortable regardless, right? You know, if you were talking to an organization and you're in kind of those initial interview stages, I think you can say, you know, I'm really excited about the opportunity to interview with this company.
Lexi Clarke: If and when we get to a place where we're discussing an offer to join within this position, I just wanna know, what are some of the things that you as an organization think about as it relates to an offer? What do you think about in terms of compensation? I think leading with curiosity and leading with that curious approach of just asking the questions.
Lexi Clarke: Is a fantastic place to start. And then again, having that data in your back pocket so that you can reference it and really understand for yourself, what is the market valuing for this role, and what am I as a candidate willing to take or not take? What's important to me? And what are some of those driving factors?
Lexi Clarke: Depending on where you are in your life, different pieces of that rewards package could be important to you, right? You know, if you're buying a home for the first time, it could be really important to really index heavily on cash. Whereas if you're at the state of your life where you're starting a family or you're thinking about expanding your family or any of those pieces, you can be really zeroed in on leave benefits and what's the leave policy and what are some of the benefits that you offer to first time parents or maybe people that are thinking about expanding their family.
Lexi Clarke: There can be different levers, I think, within that package that can be really important. And so starting with, I think the curiosity and the question of really understanding where they stand from a company point of view can be a great place to start.
Amanda Berry: Yeah, that's, I was thinking about that cuz I heard you say earlier about the, use the word total compensation package.
Amanda Berry: And I know personally when I was younger, just getting my first job or two, the pay was the most important thing. And now that I'm a little bit older, not much, I really do look as a, as a total package, you know, paid time off, benefits, 401k, then pay is a bonuses. So just thinking about that, you'd mentioned a few there, but you know, are there any others people should be thinking about?
Amanda Berry: When evaluating that the pay and the total compensation packages,
Lexi Clarke: Yeah, absolutely. I think the ones that kind of stick out obviously are base pay, right? You should be zeroed in on kind of the base pay compensation. I think there's the other kind of cash components, like bonus structure. So is there an annual or quarterly bonus offered?
Lexi Clarke: Maybe if it's a sales position, right? What's the commissions plan? What can I expect from a commissions plan? Equity is a big conversation. I think depending on what the role is. If you are approaching an organization that offers equity, I think asking questions about that. And then obviously the big one's like health insurance and I.
Lexi Clarke: Within that health insurance is so many other things. There's like this, the kind of straightforward medical, vision, dental, right? But then I think there's, what's your leave policy paid time off and sick time. Things like Payscale is a remote first organization and Right. And so for us it's that flexibility is a huge part of our package.
Lexi Clarke: Right. And the flexibility to work from home but get together when and if you wanna get together is really big Fringe benefits. I think four day work weeks are a big trend right now. Right. Well, you only
Amanda Berry: hope that picks up. So,
Lexi Clarke: and then I think there's, I think there's other questions like you should ask, how often is compensation reviewed at the company?
Lexi Clarke: Whether or not cash is important to you right now, it could be important down the road, right? And understanding when you can expect as an employer or a candidate, when are you gonna look at my pay again and when are you gonna make sure that I'm paid in line with market? And what does that look like for the organization?
Lexi Clarke: And what does that maybe room for growth look like as well? Progression, promotions, career advancement. I think all of those pieces are kind of considered as part of the total compensation
Amanda Berry: package. You know, one of the questions I've always had about total compensation package is how much of that is negotiable?
Amanda Berry: Because you know, oftentimes you'll hear maybe even not just at like a C-suite level where you can negotiate an extra week of vacation if you don't have unlimited, or you can get more stock options or something like that. So how much of that can you actually negotiate with an
Lexi Clarke: employer? Yeah, I think it's a great question.
Lexi Clarke: I think the, the standards kind of for negotiation, things around cash, right? Base compensation, bonuses, sign on bonuses if they're offered right at the start of, of kind of employment or, or an offer with a new company. Some of those things I think are the easy levers for negotiation. There can be other pieces, but it depends on their comp strategy, right?
Lexi Clarke: So, If you are maybe approaching an earlier organization, right? Maybe they're a startup and equity is really big for them, equity might be negotiable. And so I think even asking upfront, again, if and when we get to the offer stage, what are the levers that are up for negotiation in terms of the offer that you put in front of me?
Lexi Clarke: I always hope that it's, you know, a best offer and we're all aligned and it's a great news story kind of at the end. But I think asking a question of what levers are up for negotiation, what are. Just standard parts of the package can be really big. Again, it helps, I think, make that conversation a little more comfortable if and when you get to that offer stage.
Lexi Clarke: I'm gonna
Amanda Berry: move into our next segment, getting tactical.
Lexi Clarke: I'm trying to figure out tactics and to be perfectly honest, and I didn't have to worry about tactics too much, here I am in charge and trying to say, why did you sleep through tactics, tactics.
Amanda Berry: So I worked for a public entity, like a, like a government public entity, and our salaries were posted every year by the local news media. So you could go in and see what your coworkers were making. You could see what someone at your level was making. Maybe the same, your experience, there was a lot of transparency, so you could address it.
Amanda Berry: I wanna talk about if you could just pay equity. I know that this has been a conversation for decades. Pay equity across gender and race. Some companies I worked at, they say they're looking at it and they'll give bumps as needed, but you don't really know what's happening cuz there's not a lot of transparency.
Amanda Berry: So can you talk about what that looks like if companies are doing it, and how you would figure that out if you feel you are not, maybe not being paid equally to someone else, just maybe based on race
Lexi Clarke: or gender? It's a great question. I think such a relevant and powerful question with where we are on transparency, right?
Lexi Clarke: First and foremost. I think organizations are talking about it. I think they're trying to figure it out along with transparency, seeing a job, range of posting is great. What are you doing with that job range? Who is in that job range at the company? How are you deciding where someone is in that job range?
Lexi Clarke: And so I think companies are thinking about it. I think that Pay equity has always been a, a part of organizations, but I think it's been a little bit more behind the scenes. To your point, some companies are really comfortable being super transparent and publishing. You know, maybe annually or biannually, what those pay equity results are internally with the company and their commitments to closing gaps, to fixing things, anything like that.
Lexi Clarke: If you are a candidate or an employee, you should ask your organization what they do about pay equity. How do they think about it? What's their commitment to pay equity and what steps are they taking? I think if you are listening to this call and you have a question around how you stack up to someone in a.
Lexi Clarke: Similar type role. You should start by asking a question, whether that's directly to your manager or your leader or your HR team. How do you think about pay equity at the organization, but specifically, how do you think about my pay and what are some of the factors that go in to determining how I'm paid?
Lexi Clarke: Is it the years of experience I have? Is it my skills? Do you pay for performance? And how do those kind of equally wait to a merit-based increase or a promotion process? So I think really starting to understand what your company is doing, how they're thinking about it is key. I think asking about your own compensation, what are the factors that go in to kind of making those compensation decisions?
Lexi Clarke: And then if you think that there's a challenge or an issue and you're worried about it, or you find something out that makes you uncomfortable, whether that's based off of gender or race or ethnicity. Find your HR team and have a really open conversation, and I think, again, that curiosity, I'm concerned, I'm worried I see the market doing this, or I know that maybe another person in a similar type role might make more than me.
Lexi Clarke: I have some questions, I just don't understand it, and I wanna understand what the answer is. I think, again, going back to kind of the theme of our conversation, right, this transparency, people are gonna have to feel really comfortable. Having conversations anchored in how we make pay decisions and you know, if you are an employer or a candidate kind of listening in, having that curiosity, having those open dialogues and conversations with your manager, with the HR people team at the company is a really strong place to start.
Amanda Berry: Yeah, and speaking of hr, I mean your C H R O at pay scale, right? So you can't, you can't get much, much higher up on the totem pole. Right? Now let's speak to our, our HR and internal comms folks listening, you know, how do we weave paid transparency into our employee engagement communication strategies?
Lexi Clarke: Yes.
Lexi Clarke: I think feeling comfortable that Pay transparency is a journey and not a destination, which means you don't have to have all the answers right away and things could change along the way. So I think, I'll use an example internally to Payscale. We've gone through so much change in the last few years. I joined in August of 2020.
Lexi Clarke: In 2021, we merged with Pay Factors. We went from 300, I think, to 600 overnight. We did another acquisition later in the year. We recently did another acquisition the last six months. Change has been constant in the organization and with change of incoming other companies trying to figure out what works best for you.
Lexi Clarke: That means your compensation strategy and your approaches are evolving. The tactic I used was to be really open about the things that we're looking at, that we're thinking about. And our priorities and the things that are just below the line, right and below the line doesn't mean it's not important, but it might mean if you are an HR or comms person listening, that you just don't have the time.
Lexi Clarke: You have only a certain amount of hours in every day, every week. And so feel really comfortable being honest about, Hey, we are thinking about base competition and we're currently doing a market analysis and we're currently making sure that. All of your compensation of the company aligns to that market data.
Lexi Clarke: And we're gonna start there, and then we're gonna build off of that and then we'll do some of the other things that you're asking about. Right? I think, you know, for us it's about building a really strong foundation internally about being really open. If you are an HR comps person, you know, you get these questions in the all hands, right?
Lexi Clarke: Like you have employees asking you, what are we doing? I saw this article, what are we doing to address? Address that internally? And so I think. Feeling comfortable talking not only about compensation itself, but where you are in that process. And having a project plan written down of, you know, what's your work back plan and where are you on the journey, is really important.
Lexi Clarke: And I think feel really comfortable not giving the high level of like. Oh, y. You know, maybe we're thinking about that. Just say when you are or not doing something right. That resonates with people. No, we're not doing that this year. We'll absolutely consider it for future years or, yes, we're actively working on it.
Lexi Clarke: Here's some of the things that you know we're thinking about and we'll share more once we're ready to, I think that. Really resonates for folks HR and com, we wanna all always have the answer right? Like we always wanna give people the answer and we know that we want them to feel good and feel confident and have trust in us to continue to guide those conversations.
Lexi Clarke: They're gonna feel confident and have trust in you if you are just honest and authentic about where you are. And I think that honesty and authenticity is a huge part of those transparency conversations. This
Amanda Berry: topic to me is so important. You've alluded to some of this stuff, the question I'm about to ask you.
Amanda Berry: Yeah. But. You can pay scale it. Is there something else, right beyond that, that employee can do to measure their worth at their company? So they could go on pay scale, they can put in the data, they can find what they're worth based on that. But then there's this other side of like internal company, like since pay isn't discussed and isn't transparent at a lot of places, how do you begin to measure then your worth at a
Lexi Clarke: company?
Lexi Clarke: And you hit the nail on the head. I think starting with really understanding kind of what the data says, right? Like understand what the market value is. I think that is so key to any of these conversations. But I think when it comes to your value within the organization, I think any of those review conversations, check-ins with your leader, your manager, skip level conversations with a more senior leader in the organization, you can ask two things, which is.
Lexi Clarke: How am I doing and what do you perceive my value that I bring each day to the company, what feedback do you have for me? Where could I be digging in more? What are the things that I'm already doing really well? And I think overall value of the role, right? Like understand this landscape is so interesting that we are in, because I think financial performance or organizations is more top of mind than ever for people, right?
Lexi Clarke: They wanna know that their company is performing and they wanna understand kind of where they fit in. I think understanding where you fit into the goals, right? You've got some strategic objectives as an organization. If those strategic objectives are published, which I hope that they are, figure out kind of where your role fits in.
Lexi Clarke: Where do you fit into those strategic objectives? How could you be making sure that people are seeing the value of the work that you're doing every day, but you also understand where your value plugs in, especially as you're talking to, you know, more senior leaders in the organization. They're gonna say, do you understand kind of how you stood into this big goal that we have for the year?
Lexi Clarke: And I think that can really help drive kind of those conversations in the right direction. So I think really starting with, again, the market value data that is like foundational to any of those conversations, but there's kind of this like squishy part of value, right? Where it's not just about that base compensation, but it's almost tied to how is the company valuing your role.
Lexi Clarke: How do they value your kind of performance skills, tenure, whatever the case might be, and using those check-ins, the review conversations, the one-on-one conversations you're having as an opportunity to ask that question, I think could be really powerful.
Amanda Berry: Earlier you mentioned a few states that have implemented laws that require salaries to be posted on job listings.
Amanda Berry: I know Colorado, I believe is the first, I think New York maybe just did it. I think I just saw that in the news, which is honestly really cool cuz it, it forces a lot of employers to put it on there, whether. Especially if those are like remote jobs. And then I'm also on the downside say, this job isn't open to residents of Colorado, which is interesting of itself.
Amanda Berry: That's how much they don't wanna list it. How are these laws beneficial to employees and
Lexi Clarke: employers? Yeah. I wanna hit on something that you said first, and then I'll get into kind the Cory question, which is like, we've seen companies try to avoid. Hiring remote workers in those states, right? With paid transparency log in place, and this tactic will not work for long.
Lexi Clarke: I think as the laws continue to go into effect in more states across the country, organizations are significantly shrinking their talent pool by doing that. And so I think that we have seen companies do that. Again, I think that tactic won't work for long, and so really kind of getting core to what your comp strategy is internally will be really key.
Lexi Clarke: I think pay transparency makes the employees job search and the company's recruiting process. So much more efficient, I think. Candidates will really only pursue roles, right? That where they feel like they'll be fairly compensated and maybe they won't kind of waste time where they would have otherwise.
Lexi Clarke: Talking to companies that might be below their threshold or maybe that aren't sharing a salary range at all. I think about, you know, candidates in the market. I think pay transparency, gifts, that confidence to speak to and speak really openly about expectations around pay. I think that shifts the burden to companies and employers, right?
Lexi Clarke: I to determine the pay range based off of that external market data that we've talked about, an internal equity in internal of the company. So going back to kind of the pay equity piece that we talked about too, rather than employees having to initially kind of voice an expectation based off of current salary, which, you know, I think over time allows those pay gaps to persist.
Lexi Clarke: So I think that is kind of a huge benefit for job seekers. I think if I think about. Benefits for kind of current employees. You see that those pay transparency requirements help current employees determine if they're being paid fairly. So is their salary in line with the range that goes live on that job posting?
Lexi Clarke: Should they be asking for a raise? Should this be their time to move on to the next kind of high paying opportunity? I think there's a really powerful questions and I think, again, in order for companies to really figure that out and to pursue pay transparency in a really authentic way. Employers have to spend time evaluating the current state of their roles in the organization, standardizing the pay practices and philosophies.
Lexi Clarke: That might mean giving pay increases to current employees to correct any inequities before you go live with ranges on job postings. Just transparency if I think from kind of a company point of view. It improves recruiting, it improves the recruiting process. I think it improves retention. Again, it helps your employees feel more engaged.
Lexi Clarke: It forces organizations, I think, to have a really well thought out approach and a data-driven approach. And that means that compensation ultimately is more fair and it's more proactive than reactive. I think so, so much historically. Um, there's so much kind of reactivity in this space instead of kind of a more proactive approach.
Lexi Clarke: And I think overall we're starting to see that pay transparency and just transparency in general has. It's been shown to have a positive impact on job satisfaction, on engagement, on overall productivity, and I think that's tied to an inherent trust where when you're, you know, a little bit more transparent, there's more trust built with your employees and within the organization, I think there's, it's so powerful.
Lexi Clarke: I just think it is such a powerful concept.
Amanda Berry: Yeah, I think that's an interesting call out. Employers that list that are out of the gate before you're even an employee being transparent, right? So that could signal things to come if you were to take a job there. But in terms of idea of transparency,
Lexi Clarke: Absolutely.
Lexi Clarke: I, I read it
Amanda Berry: all over. Social media employees want two things, right? They want paid transparency for jobs they're applying for, and they want to stop having to attach their resume and then fill out all the text boxes and like, you know, the, the application system. So no. Let's move into ripped from the headlines.
Amanda Berry: Pay Scale recently released its retention report. Can you tell us about that report and some of the results? I feel like pay is a big part of why POS aren't staying bigger. Bump if I go to somewhere else. So what are you seeing in
Lexi Clarke: that report? Yeah, so I'll start kind of with the data behind the report.
Lexi Clarke: So we analyzed that crowdsource data from, I think it's over 578,000 US workers who took our salary survey between March of 2018 and March of 2023. And the goal of that was to find out which factors impact retention the most, and then obviously how kind of that pay transparency plays a role. This is the really interesting part.
Lexi Clarke: So for a little bit, I think we've been seeing that candidates and employees. Won't apply for a job unless it includes a job range. The retention report research shows that pay transparency is only significantly effective in retaining talent when it is implemented as part of a total compensation strategy with communication, which may aims publish in the pay range to job ads.
Lexi Clarke: That does not alone communicate fairness, and that is not enough. And so employers have to go a step beyond and really tell employees why their pay is fair and bring them along for the journey and be really open about what that looks like. And I think there's something really, really interesting and compelling here.
Lexi Clarke: And I think it's a, it is an evolution of kind of where, you know, the next stage of what employees and candidates are expecting. I want pay scale
Amanda Berry: to like buy billboards all around the country and just put that fact in there, right? Employees aren't, we're getting a point where employee, they aren't gonna apply for jobs anymore unless that's listed.
Amanda Berry: You know, it takes a lot of time to apply for a job and when you just don't know. You don't know if you're walking to something that pays 10% more than you make, or 40% less than you make. And you're gonna spend all this time in going through interviews just to find out that was a huge waste
Lexi Clarke: of your time.
Lexi Clarke: Absolutely. And I think, you know, if we've learned anything over the last few years, right? We have had to figure out how to integrate work in our lives and all of these things from home. And so compensation is a really big part of that journey. And trust with your employer is a massive, massive part of that journey.
Lexi Clarke: And I think transparency. And pay transparency specifically plays
Amanda Berry: a big role. So that retention report's posted on Payscale's website for people to check
Lexi Clarke: out. It is, I highly recommend everybody checking it out. All right. Well,
Amanda Berry: I'm gonna dig in there as well. I, I wanna ask you this question as a C H R O, Payscale.
Amanda Berry: Yeah. This sort of relates to pay, but definitely to your HR role, this term of quiet quitting. So it's sort of lost its fire, but every time I hear it, it's just, it's frustrating. Right? This feels like a term that was created. Not by employees, right? This is the term means coming in and doing your job as assigned.
Amanda Berry: You're quietly quitting if you're not constantly going above and beyond, right? Live in that hustle mentality, right? It puts the responsibility on the employee to do more without the compensation or the benefits or the rewards, right? For me, quiet, quitting needs to hold a mirror up. To employers and ask what they can be doing to motivate their employees to go above and beyond, right.
Amanda Berry: If there's no reward, why do it? So tell me what you think about this term. Quiet,
Lexi Clarke: quitting. I think so much of what you just said, you nailed it. Just in terms of kind of what I think, so I think let's like, let's go back in time a little bit, right? We go kind of pre 2020 and I think hustle culture was huge.
Lexi Clarke: I came up in the workforce in hustle culture, right? Like. Boss culture, hustle, culture, whatever you wanna call it, right? Like it was a go above and beyond. Do whatever you gotta do. Put in hours and hours and hours of work in 2020. We all had to figure out, it was not work-life balance anymore. It is about integrating your life every day into also being working.
Lexi Clarke: I think we've all had the like, How do you separate the fact that a lot of us are working from home with the fact that all you get to do to leave work at the end of the day is shut your laptop and move to the next room? And so many of us have struggled with that. And I think also we've struggled to figure out what does that balance look like and how do we integrate our work and our life together?
Lexi Clarke: And a part of that, I think, is that people learned. Really quickly that they wanted to reprioritize how they were spending their time being at home, kind of in, in your own home with, I call my husband, my coworker. So with my coworkers, you know what I did is
Amanda Berry: I actually put a coworker of the the month every month and it rotated between our pictures and then our dogs, whoever.
Lexi Clarke: The best one. I think that's right. I think that's right. I also call our cats the coworkers system. Once in a while we got a coworker jumping up in front of the laptop. Not today, thankfully, but, but I think so much of that, right? Like you are at home. You are thinking about your priorities and your boundaries and what is healthy for you.
Lexi Clarke: And you know, mental health has been a huge focus. And so I think tying it all the way back to quite quitting, a lot of us revisited those boundaries and what that looked like for us over the last few years. And decided what was important and what wasn't. And we saw that with, whether you wanna call it the great resignation or reconsideration or whatever the case might be.
Lexi Clarke: People decided, I'm done with where I was before. I'm moving on to the next thing because I've decided from my own personal values that's the right thing for me. So whether that's compensation driven or not, you know, those were folks choices. And so I think if we look at quiet, quitting, To me, that is a sign of disengagement at your organization.
Lexi Clarke: If you have people saying, I don't feel motivated to go above and beyond, number one, it is okay for people to set boundaries. And so if you have employees that are studying boundaries within their day-to-day and their work, ask them what they need more of from you as a leader. Or if you are on the HR team, ask them how they're feeling.
Lexi Clarke: What made that shift? What's a driver for them? Right? I think asking those questions. In the same way that I think earlier I said employees and candidates should be curious. Managers, leaders, HR teams, comms teams, they should be curious as well, right? What is motivating you day-to-day? And I think it signifies kind of people reevaluating what is the most important to them in their day-to-day and their life and at work.
Lexi Clarke: And if you've got folks who maybe were going significantly above and beyond, and now you feel like they've. Quiet quit, which is not a terminology I use in my day-to-day, but some people are still using. You should be asking questions why, what's motivating them? And one, you should feel comfortable if they wanna do exactly what their job says that they should do kind of day in and day out.
Lexi Clarke: But I think you should also be asking questions around what can we do to make sure that you are really engaged in the work that you're doing and support you go and but beyond when you have to. I think
Amanda Berry: back to what I said right before you started speaking was if they say, why aren't they motivated? Why aren't they going above and beyond?
Amanda Berry: Turn that mirror around and look at yourself and go, yes. What can we be doing to motivate people to go above and beyond and financial incentive or an extra week off? You know, if you get 10% above your sales goals or whatever it is, there can be incentives there and everyone wins on
Lexi Clarke: that. Yes. A hundred percent agree.
Lexi Clarke: Yeah.
Amanda Berry: Let's move into our last segment. Asking for a friend. Was asking
Lexi Clarke: for a friend, Hey. Asking for a friend. Asking for a friend.
Amanda Berry: Let's say you have every C H R O listening to this. What would you say to them to get them to implement paid transparency?
Lexi Clarke: Yeah, I think transparency is currency is probably where I would start, right? I think transparency is becoming a baseline within your organizations. It is becoming a baseline expectation of employees and candidates, and so if you think about pay transparency moving forward, I.
Lexi Clarke: It is huge part of that feeling really confident. And I think it can feel scary if you are a C H R O or a leader of HR at a company and you have not been transparent, it can feel overwhelming of where to start. And I think the best place to start is understand your current state, know where your employees are, understand the market data, understand how they're paid.
Lexi Clarke: That is the most sane kind of place to start. And then just start small with places where you can build from. Right. So maybe that's. Educating people on how you make comp decisions. And you need to start there and you need to work behind the scenes and kind of get your house in order before you're more transparent.
Lexi Clarke: It's okay to start small, but start somewhere and start the jury because I think these conversations aren't going away. And transparency can be so powerful when used in the right way. And it doesn't always mean telling everybody everything, but it means being really transparent about the principles you're using to make decisions.
Lexi Clarke: The things that you're weighing and anything that might be relevant to the questions that you're getting, whether about pay or not, what does that mean?
Amanda Berry: Pay transparency as currency, or compensation? What does that mean? Could you explain that? Yeah, yeah.
Lexi Clarke: I think about transparency. I'm starting to think about it.
Lexi Clarke: This is like an ever-evolving kind of thought process. So you're getting a window into my brain, but I, I just think that transparency is part of the rewards package, whether it's monetary and non-monetary, right? It is part of an employee experience, and the more transparent you can be at different stages, the better.
Lexi Clarke: Because I think anyone knows, if you are an HR person on this call, the minute that you extend an offer to someone, you are starting to build or break trust with the person in the organization and every event that you have after that is again, an opportunity to build. Or to chip away at that trust. And so if I think about why employees are leaving companies, right, if we're not transparent around decisions, we're not transparent around compensation.
Lexi Clarke: We've chipped away at that trust for a long time. And you know, people leave companies for a lot of different reasons. I think we are still seeing compensation as one of the major factors of people leaving. And if you haven't built up kind of that currency with your employees, you're missing an opportunity, I think to build and maintain and sustain the trust.
Lexi Clarke: Wow,
Amanda Berry: this has been so amazing. Lexi. I just have really enjoyed talking to you. I have learned a ton and I really hope that all of our listeners maybe listen to this more than once. So really take a lot out of that. Thank you so much for coming today and, and talking with me. Before I let you go, is there a place where our listeners can find you and maybe reach out if they wanna
Lexi Clarke: follow up?
Lexi Clarke: Yeah, absolutely. Please reach out on LinkedIn. LinkedIn is one of my primary kind of social platforms right now, and I am just Lexi Clarke on LinkedIn. Clarke has an e on the end, and then you can find kind of anything about us@PayscalePayscale.com, at Payscale on Twitter, and then Payscale is on LinkedIn as well.
Lexi Clarke: So follow along for our journey. We're posting great snippets and ways to stay up to date with anything that's evolving in the compensation of reward space.
Amanda Berry: It sounds like pay scale should be, you know, we go to LinkedIn to find jobs or Indeed or wherever, and then we should go into pay scale as we're applying to evaluate
Lexi Clarke: pay.
Lexi Clarke: Absolutely. I'm gonna start working on my pay scale at t-shirt as soon as we get off of this. I want one of
Amanda Berry: those. I'll represent the Midwest. I'll get it out there in the Midwest.
Lexi Clarke: I love it. I love it.
Amanda Berry: Yeah. Thank you so much for joining me,
Lexi Clarke: Lexi. Thank you so much for having me. It was awesome.