Talent Acquisition, Compensation & Transparency: From Posting to Negotiation

Myra Briggs: Hello everyone and welcome. Thank you for joining us this afternoon for Nonprofit HR’s Virtual Learning Educational Event. Today’s session is entitled Talent Acquisition, Compensation and Transparency: From Posting to Negotiation. 

My name is Myra Briggs, and I am Managing Director of Impact Search Advisors by Nonprofit HR and I will be your conversation moderator for today. We have a lot of great content and cover. You’re going to walk away with a solid understanding of how your talent acquisition and total rewards functions can partner for successful hires in this competitive market and create greater transparency along the way. But before we get started, I’d like to go over a few items so you know how to participate in today’s event. You have joined the presentation listening using your computer’s speaker system by default. If you would prefer to join over the telephone, just select telephone in the audio pane, and the dial-in information will be displayed. 

You’ll have the opportunity submit to submit text questions to today’s presenters by typing your questions into the questions pane of the control panel. And you may send in your questions at any time during the presentation. We’ll collect these and address them during our Q&A section at the end of today’s presentation. 

Today’s presentation is being recorded, and you’ll receive a follow-up email within the next few days with the link to view the recording. Along with those assets, live webinar attendees will also receive codes for SHRM and HRCI certification. 

Since 2000, Nonprofit HR remains the country’s leading and oldest firm is focused exclusively on—excuse me—the talent management needs of the social sector, including nonprofits, associations, social enterprises and other mission-driven organizations. We focus our consulting efforts on the following practice areas: Strategy & Advisory, HR Outsourcing, Total Rewards, Diversity, Equity & Inclusion and Search. We were founded with one goal in mind, and that is to strengthen the social impact sector’s talent management capacity by strengthening its people. 

Joining me today to lead this conversation is my colleague, Lisa McKeown, who is the Managing Director of our Total Rewards practice. Before I pass it over to Lisa to talk through Total Rewards and the things that her practice is working on, I’ll spend a little bit of time talking to you about Impact Search Advisors by Nonprofit HR. 

Impact Search Advisors by Nonprofit HR is the client-facing talent acquisition arm of Nonprofit HR. We focus on recruiting for our clients in areas such as recruitment outsourcing, interim leadership and retained search, which also includes professional and executive search. We work with our clients to hire everyone from the intern all the way through the CEO, and we can handle 1 to 200 positions for you. So, we really look forward to engaging with you all around this conversation and partnering with our colleagues on the Total Rewards team to discuss how we can marry the two together. Lisa? 

Lisa McKeown: Thanks, Myra. And thank you all for being with us this afternoon. To share a little bit about the Total Rewards practice area, our practice area focuses on assisting clients and partnering with them to develop their compensation, benefits and HR technology project needs. 

For compensation, we can focus on anything related to assisting organizations developing their job descriptions, developing their compensation structures, assisting with really evaluating pay from a diversity, equity and inclusion space. When it comes to benefit plans, assisting with helping clients to develop new benefit programs, maybe replace your vendors or your advisors and also, something that we been focused on very keenly this year is really ensuring organizations provide access to their health insurance plans in an equitable way. And lastly, we also focus on HR technology, helping you to select, and implement, and rollout and train staff on HR technology. 

It’s really good to be with you today. I’m going to turn it over to Eric to introduce himself. 

Eric Salyers: Thanks, Lisa. Hi everyone. My name’s Eric Salyers, and I’m a Senior Consultant in benefits within the Total Rewards practice of Nonprofit HR. I have pretty much exclusively been doing employee benefits work for the past 10 years, and prior to joining the consultant side, I’ve sat in the benefits manager role at a variety of organizations of size. I think that has really helped shape the way I provide consultation, because I know what it’s like to be on your guys’ side of the table. And so, I really do incorporate that approach as I work with my clients and what I share today, as well. Thank you, Lisa. 

Lisa McKeown: Danisha? 

Danisha Martin: Thank you, Lisa. I want to echo everyone’s sentiments that it’s great to be with everyone today. My name is Danisha Martin, and I was actually one of the first to work with Myra Briggs and the Search practice. It has been a phenomenal opportunity. Prior to Nonprofit HR, I did a search work, but across various sectors. So Nonprofit HR has really allowed me to blend my love of several different kinds of missions to be able to provide search services and retain capacity across so many different organizations. And so, [I’m] really happy to be here. I have certainly learned a tremendous amount from Lisa and Eric, and why it is so incredibly important and critical to partner search with a strong compensation and benefits practice. So, [I’m] really excited to get into the conversation today. Back to you, Lisa or Myra. 

Myra Briggs: Thanks, Danisha. I’m really excited about this conversation because, as anyone knows, whether you’re on the client side or the candidate side, and we’re talking about hiring for an organization, you can’t talk about hiring without very soon after recognizing the need to bring on a new employee, or leader to your organization, talking through the compensation that will be associated with that hire. I’ve seen organizations where total rewards and executive search, or the recruitment teams, really do sit within the same functions because bringing on and developing the talent in your organization very closely aligns with how those folks will be compensated for bringing their talents to said organization.  

And so, I’m really excited to have our colleagues from the Search team as well as the Total Rewards team together today to have the conversation that many folks find to be a bit taboo. Right? Whenever we’re talking through qualifications for role, people are maybe a little bit afraid to ask what the compensation is, and sometimes organizations are a bit afraid to advertise what the compensation is for said role. 

And hopefully this conversation today will give you some of the tools, so that you can not only approach the conversation from an informed perspective, but also with transparency, really being able to lay a nice, firm foundation for a nice, long tenure and relationship ahead, because it won’t be the last time you talk through benefits or compensation. Once the person comes on board, the hiring practice is really just the first step in a long journey of really making sure that you are continuing whatever you lay the groundwork for in the beginning. 

So, we’re going to jump right in with some of the questions that we have set out and we’re going to start from the search perspective. And Danisha, I will tackle this along with you. But I would love just to hear your thoughts more immediately, what impact are you seeing compensation have in the recruitment process and the candidate’s decision-making process? 

Danisha Martin: Yeah. That’s, that’s a great question, Myra, and it is really multi-faceted. I was actually having a conversation with Lisa and Eric a week or so ago, and we were just talking about what a driver compensation can be overall when you’re in a career search, when you’re in a job search. And then, also a couple of caveats being that we are in the nonprofit sector. 

So I’ll start with caveats first and what I’m seeing certainly. Prior to Nonprofit HR, when I was working across various sectors, compensation can be a make or break. Certainly, people are not out here volunteering. It’s very important to understand that, “Hey, the qualifications, the skills that I’m bringing to the table, are going to be valued, and that value has the dollar sign attached to it.” And so, I was in a flow as a person supporting a search function to talk about compensation right away. Coming to Nonprofit HR, there was a shift, I really had to learn and understand that the mission is king or queen, as it were, and people will tell you outright, as they’re in search, and these are executive-level individuals, that, “I am not driven by compensation,” and “compensation is important, but it is not my deciding factor.” And so, one of the things that I’ve learned is that balance; that delicate balance when conducting a search to understand what is truly driving this pool of candidates, or from individual to individual.  

The other caveat, though, that I want to share is, we know we’re in a very interesting and dynamic time when it comes to the civil rights chapter that we’re in, and equity is being talked about in ways that it just hasn’t been talked about before. And we’ll probably dive deeper into this line of thinking. But Myra, I just wanted to point out that even within everything that I’ve already said, now people are coming back, and making almost a 180 and saying, “Look, I’m not here for the money, but at the same time, I want to be treated fairly.” So you have to look at this is all encompassing and really understand all of the levers and dynamics that are at hand with every given search. 

Myra Briggs: If I could just underscore that final piece, Danisha, it’s the equity that’s the most important. While people are not necessarily tied to the dollar amount that they will receive. They do want to know that they are being treated fairly. And the best way for an organization to show that is to be transparent in some of their compensation and benefits practices. And, obviously, as we’re going through this process, this conversation, we’ll talk a little bit more about that, but I just could not let that pass without really underscoring the equity piece. They’re not looking to make millions and millions of dollars doing nonprofit work, but they are also not looking to be in a room with someone that is doing the exact same thing that they are doing with the same qualifications, and that person is making significantly more than they are. 

It really is an enmity with many of the missions that work that these organizations are championing as well. And we’re really beginning to see organizations, compensation practices, mirror many of the missions that they hold true, which is really refreshing, especially as we’re continuing to work specific to the social sector as we are at Nonprofit HR. 

So, Lisa and Eric, I’m going to toss it over to you all, because I’d love to hear from both of you. How does an organization’s compensation philosophy, or lack thereof, impact this process? And also, how are you seeing benefits play a part in that process? 

Lisa McKeown: Yeah, I’ll start with the compensation philosophy aspect of the question, and also just highlighting how important I think it is that this conversation around how talent acquisition, compensation and total rewards really does need to partner together within an organization, sometimes it sits with one person, sometimes it sits in two. Sometimes, a lot of our clients, they’re getting their HR support through outsourcing. So wherever it exists, I think there needs to be some synergy between your philosophies around both. 

When it comes to compensation philosophes, when we work with the clients in helping them think through their compensation structures, and let’s say they haven’t even looked at the market externally in a couple of years. The first thing they really need to do, and they often try to come to us and say, “Well, I just want to know, what should my strategy be?” And I’m like, “Until you understand your position to the external market, and it starts a lot further back than your compensation philosophy. It starts with really understanding, have you defined your jobs really well? Do you understand the breadth and the scope of all your roles? Are they able to be benchmarked externally to the market?” Then, that helps you to develop your compensation structure. It also then leads you inward to the organization, to think about those questions around internal equity? The immediate need is, is everybody being paid competitively to the market? But secondary, and just as important, is everybody being paid internally within the organization? 

And once you sort of understand the state of things from that perspective, then you can really start to develop—okayOK, what is the organization’s outward expression of their inward thinking and philosophy around compensation going to be? Because oftentimes, organizations will share their compensation philosophes with their staff, definitely, and with their board, sometimes it’s in proposals because they want those with whom they are seeking funds to understand that they take compensation and equity seriously. 

So, having it being publicly stated in these places, oftentimes it’s only stated in salaries, only stated perhaps in a job posting, but that really indicates for salaries posted that hopefully an organization has done all of that foundational work, has really thought through, “What do we consider part of our total rewards package?” And I know Eric will talk a little bit about that too, but compensation is only one aspect of it. Has an organization thought through who they want to compare themselves to in the market? Who you’re competing against for talent? Who do you need to think about from a revenue perspective? Have you considered geography? There are all these questions that build the foundation, being able to answer these help to build your compensation philosophy structure, which is really only intended to be a very high-level strategic document. 

So, if you don’t have one, it means that you probably haven’t done the work to think through the strategies, the market analysis, the equity responses, who you compete with and all of those elements of a program that make up a really strong compensation philosophy. So, if you do have one, it’s also very careful to consider that you’ve done all the foundational work, and that your philosophy is grounded in metrics, and data, and lots of conversations amongst your leadership team to ensure that it’s the reality of your current situation within your organization, but it can also be aspirational. A lack thereof can really indicate that a lot of that work, that good work, to make sure that you’re in the right place from a competition constructive has happened.  

Then, I’ll turn it over to Eric to talk a little bit about benefits. 

Eric Salyers: Thank you, Lisa. I’m happy to share why benefits is a part of this discussion and a very important one. So far today, we’ve been talking a lot about direct compensation, the dollars that land in your paycheck that, we’re all looking for those on our jobs, of course. Benefits, just to kind of give a reminder, that’s an indirect form of compensation. 

Organizations are contributing towards benefits, typically like in a medical plan, they’re providing a pretty good contribution there. We see that trend in nonprofits quite a bit. Anywhere from 60, 70, 80%, we’re seeing nonprofits contribute towards the cost of the premium for that plan. It’s also very common to see nonprofit organizations providing group basic-term life insurance, short-term disability, long-term disability. So, while employees don’t see direct compensation for that side of the house, there’s definitely value that the employer is providing to the employee indirectly. So that is where it becomes really important that benefits has a seat at this table as we’re collectively talking about the total rewards relationships and synergies with talent acquisition to really help sell all the different ways—that’s why we call it total rewards—that entire package of items that incentivizes your candidates come work for your mission-driven organization. 

Myra Briggs: Thank you for that, Eric and Lisa. And I know that you all would agree with this, it’s also not a set it and forget it approach, right? You have to consistently re-evaluate your workforce, re-evaluate the team, so that all of these pieces are relevant to the folks that are coming on board.  

There have been times when, in interviewing stakeholders and internal members of teams, we will talk through benefits and the impact that the benefit structure has. And an organization that hasn’t reviewed their compensation philosophy or their total rewards philosophy in 10 years, maybe paying for and offering benefits that don’t even resonate with their current staff anymore. And I think it’s very important to make sure that you’re checking in regularly, surveying and asking the questions about whether or not they’re landing in the way that you’re hoping. Because if you’re only focusing on the voices in the room, more than likely, you’re going to miss something around relevance and really being able to make a difference and be impactful. 

Wonderful. 

So let’s move on, and we’ll continue the conversation. This is for anyone, and probably everyone on the call today, what are the primary considerations for organizations when crafting versus negotiating a new hire offer? And I’ll add a little bit of clarity there. We are crafting in the beginning before we even see the landscape of the talent pool. Before we even know what the folks that we’re trying to attract are looking for. But once we’ve found the candidate, then we get into the process of actually negotiating that offer that will come to life. How would you say—what would be some of the primary considerations when crafting versus negotiating? 

Lisa McKeown: I could start by adding one comment and then turning it over to the group. 

I think when working together with hiring managers and there’s budget considerations, from my perspective one of the elements that should be really thought about from the very beginning is, what level of experience or individual do you need in the role? 

So if you have a compensation structure, you have a whole range to use. So really determining, do you want to hire somebody coming in already with experience, perhaps being at the midpoint or above the range? Well, then that’s where you should set your hiring target. Make it broad enough, so you have room to negotiate. 

I would say, from times when I’ve been in-house as a practitioner and then, guiding clients currently in this type of work, again, it goes back to—you have to have a structure. You have to know that your ranges are up to date. You have to know that if, for example, you might have started to interview and some of that data that is coming back from candidates that is showing, “I don’t think that salary range is good enough for me. I think I’m going to pass on this.” You have to be really agile to make sure you go out and recheck those ranges to make sure that you’ve got the right posted hiring range. That’s why I think in the beginning, give yourself enough space. Don’t post the whole range, but post a broad enough hiring range that gives you room to be flexible should the market data change, should a candidate command that’s really, very, very highly qualified, and you need a little space to maybe provide a higher bit of a salary offer that new original value, excuse me, that you thought you might need. 

Eric Salyers: Thanks, Lisa, so I’m going to jump off some of the things you’ve mentioned earlier already. You talked about compensation philosophy and, of course, benefits philosophy is an equal important thing to talk about and consider as Myra was asking what you consider as you’re starting to craft. So, I guess I’d like to put a benefits philosophy into… How rich are your benefits going to be? Where do you want to see your programs land in terms of how you plan to compete for talent in the market? 

So, we know that organizations aren’t sitting on an endless pot of cash. I mean, it’d be nice if all of us had that little great gift of life, but we know it’s not the reality. So it’s going to start with your budgets and like the compensation philosophy, benefits philosophy, you figure out where your programs are going to land and then you’re trying to craft programs that align with that strategy and really provide the best bang for the buck. You want benefits programs that are fresh, important, relevant and obviously when it gets to negotiation, I know, Myra, you were asking about the first part, but benefits aren’t going to be quite as… Compensation has a different feel to the negotiation because that’s just the way that works. That’s the nature of it. Your benefits you’re looking at once a year and… Myra, you said it best a minute ago, you can’t set it and forget it. 

You need to be working with your benefits broker, staying abreast of what’s happening and what’s changing in the area. I’ve recently worked with a client that’s not part of the lower 48 and I had to get aware of, what does life like there? What are the differences and unique nuances, that flavor, of what an employee would seek in a benefits package? So I think from my answer from the benefits perspective is you really need to understand where your organization wants to be, establish your benefits philosophy, determine your level of friction and where do you want to be in that market space. That makes it so much easier for you to sell: Why should you come work for us? Well, here’s why. 

Danisha Martin: That’s great. I’ll just chime in here. 

One thing that I was thinking about, Lisa, when you were talking about the range and giving your organization some space in the posting, is also to spend some time thinking about what that will say about your organization and how to balance that message. So, for example, if you know, “Hey, you can’t squeeze blood from a turnip,” as the saying goes, and you’re just in a really tight scenario and that is equitable across the board—that’s pretty much the makeup of your organization, and it just is what it is—but you have a dynamic benefits package, and furthermore, some of those benefits really shape the culture, then that is something that you should consider putting into your job post because it does make a difference. Especially with the candidates that we’re talking to, that Myra and I and the Search team, we’re talking to, it makes a difference. And I just spoke with a candidate the other day who said if she gets the role, it’ll be really hard for her to leave because they’re back to work. And as a thank you for everyone coming back to work, they have free lunch every day, and that meant the world to her, because grocery prices. So, things like that, that are not in maybe what Eric sees as the traditional benefits package, are a benefit and are indicative of the culture.  

And you can be very creative. If you’re in a tight scenario, you recognize that you’re in the 25th percentile in terms of compensation range, or what have you. You can be very creative about how you craft the story around total compensation, salary, what is in it for the candidate, especially in this candidate-driven market that we’re finding ourselves in. 

Myra Briggs: Absolutely. 

Eric Salyers: Those are great points, Danisha. I’m seeing a lot of trends in what I call lifestyle benefits. And I think the pandemic really kind of helped employees who are obviously concerned about what was going on and employees’ mental health. If you think back to what that life was like and just being inside all the time, we saw a lot of flexibility. And I’m a big fan of one particular vendor that I’ve seen where employers just put in some cash and some points and then, those individuals can then use that to like pay for a Netflix subscription or some holistic, exercise-type of thing to yoga or something like that.  

But, yeah, Danisha, you said that really well. Certainly, you got to have your core health and welfare benefit plans, that’s an expectation, it’s a table stake, but these other things like work-life balance are huge now.It’s just absolutely huge. I know a friend that’s on the market right now that won’t even look at a job posting if he thinks that they’re like, “Nope, brick and mortar.” That’s a flexibility lifestyle benefit that’s really huge right now. 

Myra Briggs: Absolutely. And I’m learning that a lot of our organizations that used to have transportation benefits are diverting a lot of those funds to more relevant benefits for the staff. Giving them to them a stipend to help create a more comfortable working space in the home or a stipend where, to Danisha’s point about free lunch earlier, once a week, the team gives out a $25 gift card for everyone to order Uber eats, or Postmates or wherever they want so they don’t have to think about lunch throughout the day. And so, being creative is really important as we’re thinking about those things. 

But as we’re driving that point home around crafting versus negotiating, we always want to make sure that we don’t take on the philosophy, “We’ll do whatever we have to do to get the person,” because you’re undoubtedly going to introduce some inequities to your organization [and] because you really have to be careful that you’re not doing for one what you cannot do for all. And it’s very important that we do not allow, for lack of a better way of saying it, the desperation of needing to fill a position either in a very niche role or a very senior role create inequities in the organization because we’re giving this person two more weeks of PTO than anyone else has, or we’re paying for parking for one person and we’re not paying for parking for the rest of the people in the organization.  

I will say, though, that sometimes it has meant so much to bring one person on board that the entire organization benefits from, because there’s one thing that this person requires and that leadership team makes the decision, “Well, if we have to do it for one, we’ll do it for all.” And if that’s the stance that you’re willing to take, then I say have at it. But be sure to make sure that you’re not introducing any inequities to your organization by bringing on folks that have some unique requirements, right? 

And to that point, we’re going to just shift a little bit talking about those unique negotiations around benefits. Danisha, how are some of those playing out in this current market? I mean, there’s a change. I know for a fact where one of the first questions used to be about compensation. Now the first question is: Are they back to the office? And other questions are emerging about other unique benefits that folks are negotiating as they’re thinking about new opportunities. How is that playing out in the current market? What are you seeing? 

Danisha Martin: It’s really exactly what Eric mentioned and I hadn’t keyed in on that’s what it’s called, it’s the lifestyle benefit. Candidates want to know right upfront, is it on site? Is it in the office? Is it hybrid? And it’s not necessarily a deal breaker, but it is something that is top of mind in a way that I’ve never seen before. I mean obviously before the pandemic, remote work and telework options were top of mind. And it was always kind of like options, options and it was almost the exception, not the rule, to have an executive-level role that was 100% remote. Maybe I would see that one out of twenty positions that we brought in. But now, it’s almost flipped on its head and candidates want to know. It’s funny though, Myra, sometimes I’m hearing from candidates that say, “I’m only interested in going back into a building or in a hybrid because I am absolutely stir crazy and I’m suffering from Zoom fatigue like I never thought was possible.” So, again, it still comes down to the individual. And so, I would say, definitely people want to have an understanding right upfront about, what is the work environment? What does it entail? 

And quite frankly, employers may not want to hear this, but candidates are really concerned about work-life balance and how much time. Is there time? Do I have to accrue time? Unlimited paid time off was a thing of the absolute imagination a couple of years ago, but this thing is trending. I mean, it is hashtag #unlimitedpaidtimeoff. That is what’s happening out here in these employer streets. And so, if your organization is not quite there to consider that, that’s understandable, but just keep your eye on it and figure out other ways that you can uniquely provide that balance. I know I’ve seen employers just add things like a self-care day and you use it as you wish within the month of blank.  

So there’s some ways around that, but I would say in addition to compensation, even moreover it’s, what is the environment like? What is the ability for me to be able to take care of myself, my own personal care, my own mental health, that of my family? It is really, really important and I think it will remain important as we work ourselves through the dregs of this pandemic that we’re still in. 

Myra Briggs: Absolutely. Absolutely. And some of the things that I’m also seeing now is that I would even venture to say there’s more of a shift toward [a] focus on benefits versus compensation, or we’ll even just say the total rewards and total compensation package. The salary conversation is something that I know, Danisha, myself and the rest of the search consultants on our team, we have that conversation in the very first touch point with the candidate. We don’t like to have our heartbroken at the end because we’ve gotten this fantastic person and there’s no way for us to make it work. But, I know, Danisha, you can say the same thing that, as we are negotiating offers and deals, as we call them, the benefits, more often than not, are becoming the place where it falls apart. Because your benefits package, whether it be the medical benefits or some of the more traditional fringe benefits, and those the lifestyle and wellness benefits that Eric has mentioned, are really a tangible way for you to show the value that your team actually has. And it’s a way for you to embed… a tangible way for you to show your culture, a tangible way for you to show how you really feel about the well-being of your team in ways that you can’t really answer those questions in an interview process. And so, we’re finding that, I’ll even say to a board of directors or to a hiring team, that two weeks of PTO is just not enough. It’s 10 days, it’s 15 days. It’s not enough. And I would venture to say there are members of your current team who are poachable because you only allow 10. Anybody can leave that on the table. And so, the idea here is for you to really be able to begin creating these compensation packages that reiterate the value that you have in your team. 

And so, those are some of the things that we’re really seeing play out in this market because people are at home. Right? People are no longer are chained to their desk or their office where they’ve got this 8 to 10 hours away from home where they couldn’t go for a spa day if they wanted to, they couldn’t go for a run in the middle of the day if they wanted to. Right? But now that everyone’s at home, we have the opportunity to throw a 30-minute meeting on the calendar and go for a walk around the block, and we want to know that that’s okayOK. I want to be able to take that 9 a.m. yoga class because I know that there are no meetings that will be interrupted of that time. And the organization really should be in a position to support those things.  

And people are comfortable being transparent about what their requirements are. And so, the onus really is on organizations to show that they’re not only receptive, but that they support the total well-being of your team. And what we’re learning now is that dollars are not the only way to do it, and by and large, the dollar amount is not even where the value is seen the most. 

So, Eric, I’m going to shift to you. Can you share a few essential reasons why talent acquisition and total rewards teams should partner in this area, around those negotiations? 

Eric Salyers: Sure, so, as I talked about a little bit ago, how the talent acquisition specialists, that’s the face of the company at this point in the game. Right? So as the talent acquisition individual is communicating about the benefits and so forth, it’s vital that the total rewards side—and that could look like a lot of different things in your organization, it could be that the CFO is the one that’s interacting with the outsider broker vendors. It could be a different, whoever is wearing that hat, the person that is connected to, like you or your broker, which is like a specialist vendor that helps in the employee benefit space. But you have to be fully aware of, what are the current benefits, number one, because they change year over year. Sometimes, if you’re doing your program well, you’re taking a look at what’s working and what’s not working. You’re doing surveys with your employees to determine what really is landing really well out in the field versus what we think is landing well. 

So the talent acquisition person really needs to have that constant connection back to that source, because if you don’t fully understand the benefits well yourself and you’re in that talent acquisition seat, you’re not going to be able to communicate and sell that value well either. And then, the flip side, the person that is the supporting talent acquisition, when I was in-house, I had to make sure that my team of recruiters had the most current information. I was making very nice one-pager’s that were easy to digest. And I would even just have informal water cooler chats back when we were in the office, but you can still call up on Zoom and have this kind of stuff. I’m like, “Hey Danisha, I want to make sure you really understand that on this particular—our dental plan has a much higher annual max than what’s in the market.” Because dental benefits, if you ever have to have any kind of work, you’re tapped out on $1,500 is sort of what you see a lot. I’ve worked for a company that had $5,000. I made sure that my recruiter realized we are more than double than what the market is. So, it takes those synergies to make sure that if you’re spending the dollars, you’ve got to make sure that everybody involved along the line is understanding it, educating it, so the candidate will get the complete and total picture and fully understand it. 

Myra Briggs: That’s so true, Eric. I will never forget. I was negotiating an offer for a candidate who, I’ll be honest, the organization thought that they had fantastic benefits. And I was relaying the benefits to the candidate over and over again. And this person finally told me, “Please stop. Can you please just tell them to stop reiterating what their match is for the 403B? My current match is twice that with no requirement for me to contribute anything.” And so, what I actually asked her to do was to, if she didn’t mind, share with me the benefits that she currently had that this organization thought that they were really blowing and out of the water. And when I shared it back with the team at the client, there were floored because they were under this delusion that they had amazing benefits because they were really looking internally to their little bubble of what their personal experiences were around benefits, not realizing that—and don’t get me wrong, their benefits were okayOK, they were better than okayOK—but they were not foundation benefits. We all know about foundation benefits. Right? And they were not benefits that were anything that they should have been bragging about at the level that they were, thinking that it was really going to make a difference for candidates that had come from a different area.  

So that communication between the two Eric, is so vitally important because I was in a situation where I was negotiating thinking I was going on with a strong offer and recognizing that you really don’t know what this person already has. And you really want to be able to make sure that you’re asking the questions to really decide just how good of an offer you’re making. Right? 

Eric Salyers: Yeah, I want to add one point, Myra, that came to the surface as you were speaking. 

So, likewise, on the talent acquisition side, let’s say that you can’t quite make the match, can’t quite make this happen. The candidate’s like, “It’s just not there.” It’s very important that the talent acquisition person did come back to whoever is handling benefits and say, “This is now the third or fourth time that I’ve heard our medical plan is kind of flat.” So it’s a constant feedback loop. Benefits or TR, total rewards, is educating the talent acquisition side. The talent acquisition side is saying what they’re hearing about the market and the organization is always looking at the market. So there’s a lot of balls that are in the air and you’re juggling, but it’s vital that you keep all of that moving and flowing in order to keep yourself competitive. 

Myra Briggs: Absolutely, and that underscores the point Lisa brought up earlier, right? If we’re seeing salaries that candidates are asking are significantly higher than what we have benchmarked internally for the role, we may have to go back to the drawing board and really evaluate, are we even competitive in this market? Have we benchmarked these things properly? Yeah, absolutely.  

All right, so one of the things that I love to tell folks is that Danisha is our transparency champion on the search team. 

And while we had not previously been made a mandate for posting salary ranges or that level of transparency, Danisha has really ushered in an evolution in terms of how we are guiding our clients to be transparent throughout the full cycle of the recruitment process. So Danisha, obviously, I’m going to point to you for this question. How can organizations integrate transparency into the full cycle recruitment process?  

Danisha Martin: I really appreciate that, Myra, for so many reasons. And Lisa, you actually touched on it way at the top of the call, and maybe Myra as well. 

I think when we think about just on a macro level, what we’re all here supporting, the social sector, and how from mission to mission, if it wasn’t already—usually it already is, but if it wasn’t already—equity and social justice and just justice, period, are a part of the conversation. And so, if that is the mission of the organization, but then it doesn’t reach into the search process, there’s a misalignment. So, what we’re finding is in this day and age, where you can get on Twitter, speak your whole entire mind and have everyone in the work cosign it, there was some backlash. A couple of years back with the hashtag #showthesalary and some of these other things. And it was sort of paralleling with the hashtag #metoo and all of the various conversations that were going on in the atmosphere about the disparity of pay, and that’s across sectors. 

And so, when you look at the nonprofit, social, mission-driven sector, whichever way you want to call it, that particular misalignment is really felt, it’s really felt, because it really is perpendicular to what we’re here to do, which is to uplift people, and to push forward and amplify those marginalized communities that otherwise haven’t—I won’t say, they didn’t have a voice. They have one, but nobody’s listening. And so, this transparency, in process, is an opportunity to do just that. And there’s so many touchpoints where that can happen. 

If you are going it alone in your search then first and foremost, do the work that Lisa has been addressing. Do the work that Eric has been addressing. Assess where you are in terms of the market. Make sure that internally, you have a solid compensation strategy and philosophy, and that it’s fair and equitable. If you have that, then you’ll have no problem sharing your salary. And then, go ahead and do that freely. It should be in every single posting, it shouldn’t be a mystery. It can be a wide range. It can be a narrow range. But put up something that is accurate, so that people know going in that, yes, I would accept this, or if I wouldn’t, I’m going to apply anyway, knowing that their target is something different and I’m prepared to have that conversation. 

But the point of the matter is, people need to know what they’re talking about. They need to be able to benchmark. Is this opportunity truly the opportunity that I’m after? Otherwise, they don’t know what kind of opportunity it is. 

At the same time, it’s a benefit to the organization as well, because you may not even realize that you are as competitive as you are with your range. And so, you can, really, it’s almost like, for those of you who played bid whist back in the day, it’s like putting out the big spades as you draw all the other really good cards, and so that’s really important.  

Another touch point for transparency that I find, though, is something that you just alluded to, Myra. And that is from the very beginning, I always talk salary. And it’s funny because I’ve heard candidates, especially executive candidates of color, say, “Oh, I’m so glad we’re talking about salary,” because this is something that they have bended up against a number of times. And it’s always that dance of, is it appropriate? Is it not appropriate? And if you’re going it alone, I would go so far as to say, and be so bold as to say, train your in-house recruiter to talk salary right away. Don’t let that be a question mark and let it be this thing that, “Oh, I didn’t think it was appropriate, so I didn’t want to bring it up until later.” It really needs to be discussed right away, so you know who you’re talking to, and if they are aligned to the opportunity.  

And if you’re using a partner, a partnering search firm, then the same. Absolutely. Let that be a conversation right up front, and then let the negotiations be around lifestyle benefits and things like that. 

I would say another element of transparency in the process, besides the posting and those initial conversations, is…oh my gosh, it just floated away. You know how you have that thought right there so and it floated away. So, I’m going to actually pass the mic and when it pops back up, I’ll chime in.  

Myra Briggs: No worries, I’m going to come back to you because I know I can only imagine that the apprehension that the call for transparency has created amongst our listeners. So we’ll come back to you, Danisha, to talk about that in just a moment. But I wanted to go to Lisa just to make this look maybe a little bit easier. Information makes things easier for me, process makes things easier for me. And so, Lisa, what aspects of a compensation program should be in place before publicly displaying your organization’s hiring salary range on a job posting? 

Lisa McKeown: Yeah, it’s a really good question. A lot of what Danisha was talking about really resonates in the work that we’re doing with our nonprofit partners in the compensation space. And it’s interesting to hear Danisha talk about the hesitation of candidates to talk about salary. I think we as a society believe that we should be more transparent about salary, but maybe we haven’t quite caught up to the place where we’re comfortable talking about salary, not wanting to seem that that’s the first thing I’m thinking about when it is a reality of life that you need to have a livable wage. 

So, when thinking about the elements of your compensation program, I’ll keep it fairly high level. There are a few elements that need to be in place. The first thing is, you need to have defined the roles within your organization, and you need to have defined them in a way that’s not based on the individuals in the role, but more based upon, what does the business require to achieve our mission, to further our mission? And sometimes it can be that part of the employee will always influence the role, but it’s really thinking about what roles you need to support the organization and the advancement of the mission. And in thinking of that, developing job descriptions, that don’t have to be long, long, long, dense, wordy documents. A page and a half, two pages that really highlight, what’s the summary, what are the outcomes that are expected, what are the requirements and the competencies, the level of competencies, that are expected. And then, some of the compliance related things around ADA. What are some of those things that have to be included? I think if you haven’t done that work to really define your roles, that’s the first thing. 

The second thing I think is ensuring that once those rules are defined, that you have gone out to the market to price your jobs. Now, not all organizations that we’re chatting with today, maybe, can afford to do a compensation study, but you should participate in compensation studies. There are salary and benefit surveys that exist all over the United States. Some of them are national, some of them are regional, some of them focus on nonprofits. There are a lot of surveys that you can find just by Googling: What are the salary surveys in my area in the nonprofit space that I should be participating in? Not only do you participate, you often will get those surveys for reduced cost or free. So, if you can’t afford to do a compensation study or pay somebody to do that, at least have those salary surveys available, so then when you’re ready to benchmark a role or benchmark all your roles to the market, you’ve got some good sources of information, which are not from sources that are really just individuals inputting salaries with no context around it.  

I would say the second thing you should do is participate. Participate in salary and benefit surveys so that you have both pieces of data. And then, evaluate that information when it comes in and set a regular schedule of when you’ll review your salaries. And it’s just a matter of aligning your job descriptions to those salary surveys and selecting the positions that align the most, and there are lots of factors that you can select from a salary survey, your mission type, your revenue, your staff size. All of those things you can you know dig in and get a little bit more information on what salary should you pay and how do your benefits compare? So, I think that would be another element to consider. 

And then, once you determine what your salaries should pay externally in the market is looking inward; looking at your own benefits programs and evaluating what could be enhanced, what is missing, what can we add from a financial perspective, what can we slightly tweak to make a little bit better because we’re limited on the funds that we have? Thinking about that and working internally with talent acquisition and finance, who really manages the money for the organization and looking to see, these are the some of the things I’d like to do, is it possible? So it’s really about building connections with your colleagues within the organization to ensure that you are including those conversations. 

And then lastly, just ensuring that you’re paying staff equitably using the salary data that you have from the market, and realizing that not everybody should be paid the same salary, but everybody should be paid according to the level of the role in which they’re in. Those that are at equal level jobs should essentially be paid very similarly, unless there are differences that are business reasons for them not to be. So, I think it’s just having the conversation to ensure that you are internally paying staff equitably. 

At this point, you really should feel comfortable that you’ve done the work that you need to do to create a compensation philosophy, a total rewards philosophy, that includes your benefits and feel comfortable about while it might not be perfect, you have done a good job in your due diligence on really ensuring that you’ve looked at the market externally, you know what your job should be, you’re looking at the roles, you’re not trying to apply “well, this person is in this role.” It’s really about, what does the business need? Keep it focused on what does the business need, what’s the scope and the breadth of the role and then applying those individual employee factors to pay. 

If you’ve done that work, you should feel comfortable selecting a hiring range to be posted externally on a job placement. I wouldn’t recommend going to a site where individuals input their own salaries as “here’s what I’m making in this job,” and then using that. So, really doing your due diligence based on limited funds, even if you have those, using the market salary surveys, participating in them, reviewing the data, partnering with colleagues within your organization and then ensuring and looking at staff salaries to ensure that you’re ensuring equity. Those are some of the key things that every organization, really at minimum, should do to really ensure that they’re in a good place to post a hiring salary externally. 

Myra Briggs: I believe that was so good because all of those tools that you’ve given should really relieve the apprehension around being transparent, because I think it’s also important for us to note that the opposite of transparency—while this level of transparency is indicative of someone who’s prepared, done the research, has assured equity, that when you are not transparent, people begin to assume the opposite, which is that you are not equitable, that you have not done the homework, that you are not prepared to answer those questions. And I think if every organization would respond to the charge that you do not want to appear to be unequitable, you do not want to appear to be unresponsive, you do not want to appear to not have done the due diligence around your hiring and compensation packages, then it stands to reason that you will find the value in making sure that the transparency really is representative of your organization and the culture, which is a great segue back to Danisha because I do know that you—I got a little note saying that you remember what you were going to say, but don’t forget it because I do want to add a question to what you were about to say. 

That question is, how does culture impact an organization’s ability to integrate transparency throughout all processes, all parts, of the recruitment process? So if you could include that in the part of your response that you just remembered. 

Danisha Martin: That’s perfect, actually, because as you were giving the step by step Lisa, in terms of the underlying work that an organization needs to do in order to be prepared for that level of transparency. What I recall that I wanted to add is that, yes, posting is one element, having those conversations externally with potential candidates is another element. But the other element, which is so important, is if you find yourself in a scenario where your organization is not yet equitable, and you are ready to make the jump into the equitable space, you also have to be prepared to be transparent with those who will be affected by your posting of the salary.  

I had more than one circumstance where I was in sort of the discovery process of the search, meaning we were getting the postings together, we were working with our total rewards group, which you see here, on those comparative market analyses. And everything was going swimmingly until the range came back and everyone’s so excited, like, “Yes, this is the range. We can afford it. We’re ready.” And then someone said, “What about so and so? They’re not in this range.” And they had literally just hired that person. They had just started within two months of this current conversation, and so, at that point, it was like… you know, record scratch. 

I was like, “OkayOK, let’s talk about what this will say to your small staff who was all a part of this person’s onboarding. What will it say to this new person?” Like, we have to really go all the way through this process and make sure that you understand the potential ramifications of posting and moreover, that we can discuss how to rectify it. 

So one, is it in the budget to rectify and address the inequity? If it is, then what’s the plan? What’s the timing around it? Get your whole plan. Work it all the way out, and then once they have the entire plan ready, then the next step is, go talk to that person. And all of these steps need to take place before you post because, and this ties into your part B of the question, Myra, is their culture was trust. Their culture was authenticity. Their culture was racial, social justice, all these things. And this was a woman, a BIPOC woman, who was in the role that was going to be affected. So all these things were top of mind and when I spoke to the executive director about making the change, was there are some trepidation and nervousness, and could this be a flight risk and all these things? And I said there’s always the possibility, but it also speaks to transparency, speaks to trust, speaks to integrity, it speaks to all these things. And it’s to your point, Myra, some moments ago where you mentioned there’s a scenario where the incoming candidate is able to leverage some benefit that affects the whole rest of the staff or at least all the people at that level, and that is what this was. So, from here on, they’ve got a structured pay band that has been vetted, that has been backed up by data, that is transparent, open, honest, and they got the salary posted and they attracted an excellent candidate who came in. And now, everything is fantastic.  

Now, what if you can’t afford to make it equitable? Then, you have to go back and figure out, “OkayOK, are we willing to forgo candidates at that higher range?” Then, thereby post at a lower range? Or do you need to expand the range so that it’s like, hey—I mean, you don’t want to have $100,000 range here. But, you want to have a range that’s broad enough to encompass everyone who’s actually in that band and then work at a slower pace if necessary to get everyone into the actual range. So, there’s a couple of different ways that you can do it, and people like Lisa can help you to get there. But I just wanted to make sure that I didn’t overlook that part of the process. It is the posting, but it’s the external, and it’s the internal conversations that are also important. 

Lisa McKeown: Yeah, and I just want to highlight that it is so critical that once you’ve done all that hard work within your organization, to share it with your staff, to be transparent. Because oftentimes, trust is eroded because you might have these things set up and you’ve done all this good work and this due diligence, but you’re not quite sure how to share it or how to talk about it. And this, again, it goes back to, still, we have this sort of inhibition about talking about salaries with staff, thinking about, well what if they ask for this? Or, what if we share that we’re updating our structure, and then everybody interprets that as “oh, I’m going to give salary increase.” I think it really depends upon and it really ties in nicely with what Danisha said. The external and the internal really need to be aligned. So your internal messaging to staff absolutely needs to be aligned with your external messaging to candidates. 

And if there is misalignment, and you bring somebody into the organization and you don’t address potential inequities, that that individual be either at the same level, in the same department, working side by side, you’ve just created a situation that will then further erode trust and that’s just putting cracks in the foundation of what you’re talking about. So your words and your actions, externally and internally, they absolutely have to be aligned. 

Myra Briggs: Absolutely. So, we’re going to get one final question before we move on to the questions and answers portion of the conversation. So, I just want to remind everyone that if you do have questions, you can pop them into the questions pane and we will get to as many of them as we can after we wrap it up with our final question.  

But this is for everyone in the group, let’s talk a little bit about best practices for negotiating from an employer’s perspective. There’s so much information and misinformation available for prospective employees with Indeed reviews, and Glassdoor, and past employees, and Twitter and all of the other ways that it can make negotiating difficult. Especially with nonprofit organizations, who might find themselves limited by budget, but have a strong desire to be fair. From everyone in the group, just share a couple of tidbits around negotiating best practices from an employer’s perspective before we wrap up. 

Eric Salyers: Sure, I’ll— 

Danisha Martin: Oh, go ahead. 

Eric Salyers: Thanks, Danisha. On the benefit side, we kind of talked earlier about, maybe the salary that you’re not able to be at that point and then you’ve got the candidate maybe saying, “I’ll take a couple extra weeks of vacation or something.” I’ve seen it get to the point in-house, when I’ve been sitting in that chair, and I’m like, “If I get one more exception on a PTO policy, I’m going to lose it.” Right? Because I have programmed my system to deliver the basic benefit. You know, it’s January. Everybody gets their three weeks. And then, I’ve got an Excel list of 18 people over here, that Bob gets an extra two [weeks], etc. Once you start doing something like that, you really make it hard to administer and be accurate. But it’s also, you’re indicating that, “Hey, there’s an issue with a PTO situation there.” 

So, I guess my best practice there is just avoid falling into those traps of pulling all the strings to make the candidate happy. Like, you’ve got to have a happy medium there. 

Danisha Martin: Yes, Eric. I do agree with that and I’m just piggybacking on that comment. It’s sort of going into the conversation, knowing that it’s okayOK to walk away. It really is okayOK to walk away. Myra said it before. There can be a desperation on all sides, on the employer side and the employee side. And if you’re negotiating and it’s starting to feel so tense, and starting to feel so piecemealed together and that you’re having to pull out all the stops to try to get that candidate to a yes, you also need to take a step back and think, what is driving this particular person toward this role, toward our organization? And maybe even have that heart to heart to make sure that there is alignment. 

I mean, if it’s coming down to one or two weeks of vacation, if it’s coming down to what can be perceived as very nitpicky things, then are there other candidates in the pool that are more aligned to the range and the set of benefits that you’re already offering that would be a smoother transition? And so often, and we see this all the time, is you pull out every last stop for a candidate and in six months, they’re gone, because they’ve gotten the counteroffer from someone else who they uncovered in their search and they were able to give them that one more half a week vacation that they were really pulling for. So it can be an indication of just overall not being aligned with that particular candidate. It doesn’t mean they’re a bad employee or anything like that. It just means that you may not be necessarily the fit that you’d hoped if you’re having to make that many exceptions, and so from a negotiating standpoint, you’ve got to know when to fold them. 

Lisa McKeown: And the only thing I would add to that as a caveat is, know from the beginning the level of the individual that you need to fill that position. So, if you need someone that is already can walk in the door and hit the ground running, know that you’ll pay more for that. If you don’t need somebody to come in and hit the ground running, they can be one to two years out of school and they can learn on the job, know that you can pay a different, or a little bit lower in the, range for that position. 

And always keep that in mind when you start to see candidates, because you might fall in love with the candidate but they may be so overqualified that you can go with other candidates that are within your pool and pay them within the range you originally set for the role, that you decided…what level you needed it at. So, my caveat would really just be to remember the level of the individual in the role that you need and don’t over hire, and therefore, you have to overpay. So, that would be my caveat. 

Myra Briggs: Such great points. And if I could add anything at two things, the first thing is, go in with your best offer. You should not go in thinking that you want to negotiate. If you can pay exactly what the candidate is asking for, then don’t think “We’ll come in and see if we can get them for $5,000 cheaper.” It does not bode well for the relationship that you’ll have with the candidate and that all negotiations affect the relationship that you will have with the candidate. And that’s something that you should keep in mind. Thoughtful and needed negotiation is a completely different thing, but if you come in with a competitive offer, you’re really laying a great foundation for a wonderful relationship and tenure with that candidate.  

And then the final piece that I can say is, don’t be afraid to start over. If you get to the offer stage with a candidate, and you can’t make it work, you should not be willing to give them the entire world, just so that you don’t have to start your recruitment process over. You should really be able to think, “If it didn’t work with this person, we should be moving on to other candidates.” Or potentially going through some of the steps that Eric and Lisa have specifically said, marked out, for developing a compensation philosophy, that may even have you better prepared for a more successful recruitment activity the next time around.  

Sometimes we just aren’t ready. And so, failing to come to terms with a candidate who you really thought that you’d want is a key indicator that you may have some work to do around developing that compensation philosophy. And it may be to the benefit of the organization for you to go through those exercises so that you’re making longer term hires prior to embarking upon some of those more important recruitment activities. 

All right. Well, thank you all so very much for all of this information shared this afternoon. We’ve had a fantastic and timely discussion. So, we’ve already talked a little bit about questions and I’ve incorporated a couple, sprinkled them in. But now, what we’re going to do is invite our Managing Director of Marketing and Strategic Communication, Atokatha Ashmond Brew, to join us with any questions from the audience. Atokatha? 

Atokatha Ashmond Brew: Hi there, Myra and everybody. We do have some questions from the audience. 

And the first one is: When posting a range, I have found that candidates want the highest part of the range posted as their salary. Sometimes employers pose the range, but depending upon the experience of this individual, they may want to start the person lower. But the candidate feels they should be paid at the highest amount, considering that’s what they saw on the posting. Any thoughts on navigating this? 

Lisa McKeown: Danisha, maybe I’ll let you take that one. 

Danisha Martin: One thing that can be helpful is to qualify the range. 

So, “You’ll see the range is posted at X number to X number commensurate with experience.” Or “Candidates with XYZ credentials will be prioritized.” You can say different things in your job announcement that will help candidates to understand that it is a true range, that they don’t get to choose where they fall in the range, but the employer is going to choose what the range is. So, that can be helpful. I’m not sure if that exhausts all the different ways that you can get around that. Maybe Myra has some additional thoughts? 

Myra Briggs: I would just add an additional piece to it that you really want to qualify many parts of the job announcement and the job description. You want to put a range—the only range in the announcement should not be the salary. You should have a range of experience, you should have a range of qualifications, you should have a range of requirements for the role. And by creating those different ranges throughout the announcement that they’re responding to, it gives you better talking points as to why you will offer someone an offer in the middle of the range, versus at the top of the range. And then, the onus is also on your recruiter to set some of those expectations. Right? 

I don’t ever, obviously, where we are in the country, in D.C., it’s illegal to ask someone how much they’re currently making. However, we can talk through a range of their salary requirements and really help them to understand where they fall within the qualifications and a match for the role. It’s not as cut and dry as prevent presenting someone around. I mean, if you give somebody a range, obviously, they’re going to say they want the top of it without any additional qualification, right? But then the job, it really does, and the onus falls on the recruiter. Whether it’s your internal recruiter or a consultant you have engaged to really help you decide where…to help quantify that for the person.  

The other thing is, just as a note, if you are working with an external agency, it’s really to the benefit of your organization to work with an agency whose fees are not based upon the final salary that a candidate is hired at because you really do not have an impartial negotiator in the room working on your behalf if they’d stand to make more money in their fee based upon the level that you bring your candidate in. And so, it really does position you pretty well to have an organization that works with flat fees, that don’t change based upon the final salary, to really be able to be an advocate and a resource in terms of being able to make you come out with a fair negotiation at the end. 

Atokatha Ashmond Brew: OkayOK, here’s another question. How do we talk to CEOs and board members about salary transparency? And how critical these discussions are no matter how sensitive? To be honest, the majority of nonprofit organizations have published salaries in 990s. So what’s really going on? 

Lisa McKeown: Hmm, that’s a really interesting question, and I think it’s sort of multi-layered. So oftentimes when nonprofits approach us to assist them with their salary structures, inevitably, a lot of the issues that they’re having are around transparency and trust. And either there’s been transition in leadership or leadership doesn’t support the transparency of sharing out salaries with staff or even the salary structure with staff. 

I think the way that I’ve always approached helping the nonprofits that we partner with support their leadership in bringing them along in that transparency journey is to really start a project and engage with them from the very beginning. So, when you are hoping to build a strategy and a compensation structure and to ensure that you’re being paid competitively, they’ll always be a dollar amount to that. 

But I think the piece that needs to be taught, really, and thought about more—more than we are currently—is there’s an education aspect to compensation as well. I think, it goes back to, not all leaders are necessarily used to talking about salaries in a way that we’re talking about it now. They may not understand the current trends that are pushing you to encourage leaders to think about transparency, to think about equity. Let’s do this salary study. Let’s assess our benefit plans. It’s really about an education process, and it doesn’t happen overnight, it does take time. But I’ve seen in our work with nonprofits that we partner with, we like to engage with leadership from the onset of a project to really talk about, “Here’s what the change that we see could happen as a result of you doing this work. The positive changes, the decisions, as leaders, you’ll have to make within your organization to support this transformation around transparency, equity and trust.” And really just have an honest conversation about, where are you right now? How are staff feeling about where you are related to salary and benefits? And where do you want to be? And really, just talk them through, and educate them throughout the process. 

Will you be able to bring everybody, all leaders, to the table? Not necessarily. Old habits can be hard to die if leaders aren’t necessarily—they’ve been brought up in that way, that you don’t talk about salaries, you don’t post them. It could be hard to change that. But I think what’s happening more and more is employees within these organizations are insisting upon this change, and they’re not only insisting upon it for themselves but for their colleagues. So, they’re advocating for themselves, and they’re advocating for their colleagues within the organization. So, eventually, the reality of the discontent will bubble up to a place where can’t necessarily be ignored. 

I would say engage with your leaders from the very beginning when you embark on a project like this. Educate, have open dialogue and conversation, those safe spaces to talk about concerns and all that. That would be the ways I would begin the conversation in trying to transform your leadership to be more transparent around salaries. 

Atokatha Ashmond Brew: All right, and the next question is, how often should an organization conduct a study or refresh their current salary structure? 

Lisa McKeown: I think minimum, every two years. I think you should go out and refresh your compensation structure every two years, but in-between, in that intervening year, you should do some spot checking. Particularly if you’re about to embark on a recruitment effort for a new position or for a position that you redefined the scope. 

You just want to do a check of the market to ensure that there haven’t been changes. Market data can change month to month to month, based on demand, COVID has had an impact on salaries, less people in the market can bring down salaries or increase certain salaries. So, do a pulse check when you’re recruiting. But I would say at minimum, I would refresh your structure at least every two years. 

Atokatha Ashmond Brew: OkayOK, here’s another. Do you believe it is equitable to permit candidates to negotiate? Some organizations don’t permit it because candidates have inequitable skills and experience with negotiating so it’s more equitable to make the salary non-negotiable and the offer. 

Myra Briggs: I would love to hear how those organizations are able to bring on new talent. If I’m being completely honest, I would imagine that the organization has to be well established and sort of have the dream job marker attached to them, in order for them to be able to maintain that philosophy because people know they’re worth these days. And, from one organization to the next, benefits and compensation show up very differently. And very rarely does any candidate that we work with—and we do something upwards of 75 executive level searches, that’s not even including recruitment outsourcing and professional search per year—not one of them takes the offer that is presented to them. And we give each of our hiring committees the good advice to come in with your best possible offer. And there’s always something, even if it’s lifestyle benefit related, that a candidate is looking for that’s non-negotiable for them.  

So I’m not really sure how organizations do that. I could see that it becomes equitable, because you just pay everyone the same thing. But then, I can also think of another word for it that’s not so nice when we’re thinking about eliminating someone’s ability to negotiate on their own behalf. I would not advise an organization who wants to remain competitive to eliminate negotiating from their offer process. 

Atokatha Ashmond Brew: All right, here’s the next one. Are there any trends around salary, and how the sector is shifting based on a more proactive movement, or a remote or hybrid culture? 

Lisa McKeown: Yes, there’s definitely considerations that we’re now seeing. Either hybrid, or all virtual or all back in the office, we’re definitely seeing that organizations are struggling with, and I know Eric could probably speak from a benefits/leave policy perspective, but from a salary perspective, we’re seeing organizations struggle with how to develop a salary structure, and then apply geographical factors to that and what makes the most sense. 

We have a couple of general rules of thumb around that, and it really depends upon what the makeup of your staff is. How large are you? Where are your staff living? Does it really make financial sense to, if you’re headquartered in, say, New York, but you only have maybe a quarter of your staff base in other places, and you need to track that—does it make sense to have your structure grounded in New York and look to see what those other areas are paying for the same positions? But, perhaps it doesn’t make sense to try to administer that. The cost to administer it is sort of net zero, because when you add all the geographical areas together, there’s really not an impact on your structure overall from a dollar perspective. So it’s really being more concerned about ground your structure where your headquarters might be based. Or, look to see where all your staff live and develop some geographical salary structures. 

And just ensure that for those that might be in areas where the salary is, maybe the cost of labor is higher. Make sure you’re factoring that in. But don’t—it doesn’t necessarily mean you have to reduce salaries if they’re slightly below what that national average is you might have decided to use. It’s just really thinking through the financials of it, partnering with your—because it’s a financial decision, but it’s also a decision about cost of labor as well, and staff salary, so I think partnering with and sort of crunching the numbers from a financial perspective based on some different scenarios of different versions of salary structures can help you determine what’s going to make the most sense. And you always want to factor in having a structure that’s easy to use, agile, easy to understand, don’t make it too complicated and balancing the geographical aspect with the aspect of just wanting to maintain a structure that you know you can grow with and it’s agile. So those are some of the things I would consider. 

Atokatha Ashmond Brew: Myra, I think we have time for one more. 

Myra Briggs: I think so, mhm hmm.  

Atokatha Ashmond Brew: All right, here we go. How do you recommend handling parity regarding some of the more individual flexibility type benefits? Someone may not want to take mid-day yoga classes but would rather leave early every Friday or so. 

Myra Briggs: I think Eric would be great for that question. 

Eric Salyers: See, Myra, my wheels turning and I’m like maybe she’s going to open it up for me. 

Can I have the question one more time? I just want to hear it again, please. 

Atokatha Ashmond Brew: Yes. How do you recommend handling parity regarding some of the more individual flexibility type benefits? Someone may not want to take a mid-day yoga class and would rather leave earlier on a Friday. This person that’s basically saying, how can they make sure that the benefits are likable to all the employees versus some of them that may not be? 

Eric Salyers: Sure. So let’s talk about, let’s say that you choose to structure your lifestyle benefits around a particular vendor, and I’m one of the reasons why that’s a really advantageous approach is that it offers true flexibility. That’s the model I was describing earlier where the employer decides, they’re going to allocate, say, $50 in a stipend per month to an employee that shows up as points. And then they use those however they want. So, that sort of eliminates the employer’s responsibility to try to figure out their own in-house programs. Back when we were in the office, because you could have had this scenario as well, you arranged for every Tuesday and Thursday night at 5:45 p.m., you had a person come inside to the place that you do your conferences, your big hall where everybody met and do a yoga class or something. Those types of things that can become difficult when you’re planning one model that everybody has to partake of or not partake of. So, if you go the route of some of these models that allow the employees to choose, that’s making it much easier for you from the get-go. 

On the flexibility side of having from a work-life balance perspective, I think that is just the organization choosing to adopt a philosophy. I mean, obviously, there’s a lot to talk through: What’s the nature of their work? Can the organization accommodate it? Etc. But, flexibility models are, we said that earlier, those are very top of mind of candidates right now. So, I would encourage you, if somebody—the example was doesn’t want to take a long walk or whatever—try to find some models that allow some range of flexibility. And I think that’s probably going to be an effective strategy. 

Atokatha Ashmond Brew: Thanks, Eric. Myra, I’ll turn it back over to you now. Those are all the questions we have time for today.  

Myra Briggs: Thank you so much. Thank you so much, everyone. We really want to thank you for spending a portion of your afternoon with us. Thank you so much to my illustrious colleagues for joining today, and for all of your contributions to the conversation. We hope that everyone who joined found this information to be valuable. There are many, many more webinars that are coming up in 2021. Believe it or not, we’re hitting the fourth quarter hard, so be sure to check out our events calendar at nonprofithr.com/events. Also, please be sure to complete the feedback survey that will pop up once the webcast has ended. Your comments will help us plan with planning and to inform topics that we cover in the future. We want to make sure that they’re relevant to you and your needs. 

If you’d like more information about available services for support from Nonprofit HR, please email info at nonprofithr.com or visit us on the web at www.nonprofithr.com. And if all hearts and minds are clear, we bid you adieu. Again, have a wonderful day. Thank you all so much for joining us.  

Eric Salyers: Thank you.  

Lisa McKeown: Take care.