Article

Pay Communications and Fairness: An Employee Perspective

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Abstract

A variety of tools are used to create perceptions of fairness including job evaluation, pay surveys and merit pay guide charts, but without effective pay communications the benefits of fair pay programs can be lost. Increased access to information about pay (e.g., salary.com, O’net and Monster.com), along with increased use of social media where personal information is routinely shared, has changed employee attitudes about pay transparency and information employers should communicate about pay. This study examines the relationships of pay communications, pay transparency and pay understanding with employee perceptions of pay fairness. Data collected from 300 full-time employees across as many organizations found that pay understanding mediated the relationship between pay communications and pay fairness, while controlling for gender, education level, age and income level of respondents. When pay communications was controlled for in mediation analysis, variance attributed to pay transparency disappeared.

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... Equity Theory (Adams, 1963) provides a theoretical lens to interpret this relationship, suggesting that employees assess the fairness of their compensation by comparing their input-output ratios to those of their peers. Perceptions of inequity lead to dissatisfaction and an increased likelihood of seeking alternative employment (Adams, 1963;Scott, 2018). The current study revealed that many NITA employees perceive their salary structure as unfair and are dissatisfied with flexible benefits. ...
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This article is based on some of the findings of a major research study just published by WorldatWork (formerly American Compensation Association) entitled The Knowledge of Pay Study: E-mails from the Frontline. Surveying more than 6,000 managers and employees in 26 major U.S. and Canadian organizations, the study found close connections between employees' knowledge of their organization's pay structure and their ability to align their own behaviors and goals to those of the organization—leading them to feel a greater sense of company loyalty and to contribute to the effectiveness of the organization. But it also found that such knowledge is far from universal, and identifies the gaps that need to be filled. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
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The consequences of pay fairness perceptions are rarely explored, in part because of the lack of a compelling theory which relates pay attitudes directly to distal health and behavioural outcomes. We propose financial need as a potential moderator of the relationship between pay fairness and employees' physical health, psychological health, and work-related behaviours. Differential exacerbating and attenuating effects are predicted for various outcomes. In a longitudinal study of 651 employees of five American mid-western organizations, exacerbation predictions were strongly supported in cross-sectional analyses for life satisfaction, depression, and somatic complaints. Attenuation predictions received support cross-sectionally and longitudinally for job search intent, but were not supported for performance, absenteeism, or voluntary turnover. The importance of these results for understanding pay dynamics and for outlining mid-range theories is highlighted.
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In this research, the roles of workplace justice, achievement striving behavior and pay satisfaction were used to predict prosocial behaviors. A total of 354 individuals from a consumer products company provided data for this research. Results suggest that achievement striving accounted for unique variance in in-role behavior. Perceived fairness in skill-based pay's certification process showed positive associations with extra-role and in-role behaviors. In support of previous research, pay satisfaction also provided unique contribution to both extra-role and in-role behaviors.
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Two studies examined the relationship between actual pay and distributive and procedural justice, and the extent to which these perceptions were related to two important pay satisfaction dimensions, pay level and pay raise, and ultimately, impacted turnover. For each study the measures of pay and justice variables were obtained on a cross-sectional basis, while the measure of turnover was necessarily lagged. Results showed that distributive justice mediated the relationship between pay and both pay level satisfaction and pay raise satisfaction. Furthermore, distributive justice was a stronger predictor of pay level satisfaction; whereas procedural justice was a stronger predictor of pay raise satisfaction. Procedural justice also played a moderating role in Study 2. The study also showed that only pay raise satisfaction was significantly and negatively related to turnover in Study 1, and to turnover via turnover intention in Study 2. Results support the value of considering pay satisfaction as multidimensional when evaluating justice issues in a compensation context. Copyright copyright 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Journal of Organizational Behavior is the property of John Wiley & Sons, Inc. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)
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This study helps to fill a significant gap in the literature on organizations and inequality by investigating the central role of merit-based reward systems in shaping gender and racial disparities in wages and promotions. The author develops and tests a set of propositions isolating processes of performance-reward bias, whereby women and minorities receive less compensation than white men with equal scores on performance evaluations. Using personnel data from a large service organization, the author empirically establishes the existence of this bias and shows that gender, race, and nationality differences continue to affect salary growth after performance ratings are taken into account, ceteris paribus. This finding demonstrates a critical challenge faced by the many contemporary employers who adopt merit-based practices and policies. Although these policies are often adopted in the hope of motivating employees and ensuring meritocracy, policies with limited transparency and accountability can actually increase ascriptive bias and reduce equity in the workplace.
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No one seemed to think Treece McDavitt was a malevolent employee. "Just mischievous," one person said. Whatever her motivation, the day before Treece was to leave RightNow!, an off-price women's fashion retailer, the 26-year-old computer wizard accessed HR's files and e-mailed employees' salaries to the entire staff. Now everyone knows what everyone else is making; they are either infuriated that they are making too little or embarrassed that they are making too much. Salary disparities are out there for everyone to see, and CEO Hank Adamson has to do something to smooth things over. Hank's trusted advisers talk extensively with the CEO about his options, ultimately coming down on two sides. Charlie Herald, vice president of human resources, takes a "You get a lemon, you make lemonade" approach: keep making the salaries public to ensure fairness and to push employees to higher performance, he advises. Meanwhile, CFO Harriet Duval sees the need for damage control: apologize, clean up the company's compensation system, and continue to keep--or at least try to keep--salaries private, she says. Should Hank side with Charlie or Harriet? Or perhaps find a compromise between their two views? What should he do about this serious salary debacle? Four commentators offer their advice on the problem presented in this fictional case study.