TORONTO — Under new legislation, Ontario employers could soon be required to include salary ranges in job postings in a step towards more pay transparency.
According to the most recent data from Statistics Canada, female employers aged 25 to 54 earned 88 per cent of their male counterpart’s average hourly wage and the discrepancy is even greater when it comes to other groups such as Indigenous peoples, people of colour or those living with disabilities.
While pulling the vail of secrecy and disclosing compensation can give marginalized groups more information, this doesn’t always lead to more money. Pay transparency is just one element to make salaries more equitable and experts recommend that compensation packages should consist of monetary and non-monetary components to ensure a total rewards structure.
“Implementing a pay-transparency policy is not as simple as it sounds. Providing too much information may not always be beneficial and poor communications can create more problems. It’s important for organizations to consider what employees want to know – most often it’s not who is being paid what but rather what criteria justifies salary levels. Organizations need to take the time to evaluate their complete compensation program (total rewards) and ensure that they clarify processes, prepare managers and plan communications before rolling out a new policy,” says Darcy Clark, senior principal, Compensation at Normandin Beaudry.
