Sales Development Today – Discussion with David Breshears

Krissy Manzano: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Blueprint Round Table. Today we have a great and very interesting topic. Although I’d argue they’re always great and interesting, but I think this one in particular applies to employers and employees, and it’s kind of controversial and it’s about salary transparency.

And should employers disclose the salary range on job descriptions and in public forums that they’re posting those jobs outside of the one-on-one interview conversations? What are the pros and cons, you know, as far as like how you all would go through that, but Emily I’ll pass it over to you to start.

Emily Bell: Yeah, so I have a firm stance on this one and it’s a, yes, they should. Multitude of reasons some that benefit candidates and potential employees and others that benefit the actual company themselves. The one that is near and dear to my heart would be, I think that having more transparency around compensation bans encourages the closing of the wage gap outside of any type of law or best practice, a company could institute the fact that people can have conversations with peers. Or have visibility into a band and where you fall on, it allows the employees to have the understanding that there’s fairness and equity involved in making sure that they have visibility into that.

And it also allows the company to be able to know that, you know, it’s holding them accountable when you make things that, when you make information available that holds you accountable to that information. And I think that’s pretty powerful for employee retention. [00:02:00] A lot of employees might be able to see that they’re sourcing for a new role, and that new role has a higher comp band, which is a natural way to have a conversation for higher comp within your current structure, versus having to go and leave and find another company to an order to see that wage increase. So I had a covering a multitude of different you know, pathways and why it’s important.

But Chuck, I’m curious to hear your point of view.

Chuck Brotman: Yeah, totally in agreement. I, to me, this isn’t even controversial anymore and I know some states, I think California, Colorado, and others are requiring it. I don’t know all the nuances of what they specifically require, but, I mean, I think we’ve generally agreed for the search we run, it’s always helpful for closing great candidates and and moving them through the process to be transparent and clear on what the comp band is.
I don’t think companies end up overpaying and doing so. In fact, I think it forces thoughtfulness from candidates to, you know, to be, you know, honest and clear on their side where they fit within a band. So I don’t see any downside. I’m sure there are some role types and arguments I may not be attuned to, but to me it’s the present, it’s the future. The days of keeping these numbers, you know, behind doors are a thing of the past, in my opinion, so a hundred percent agree.

Krissy Manzano: Why do you think, adding a question to this, why do you think companies still hesitate to put that information out there? Out, and, you know, let’s say like it’s, they, let me just say, why do you think they still hesitate, right? Separate from it just being a best practice.

Chuck Brotman: I mean, I think there’s still a, oh, go ahead, Emily.

Emily Bell: No, you’re fine. I think it’s because they wanna avoid uncomfortable conversations. You know, if you have, we, I think that this especially happened in the market last year where it, you know, salaries were just skyrocketing, and talent was so hard to come by. And there were a multitude of openings, so you know, employers were having to pay top dollar to get people to fill these roles. And these are roles that are currently being filled by employees that might have been hired two years prior to that and receiving very different comp. And so it allows employers, I think, to get out of the conversation around how do we uplevel comp for all. It allows them to really kind of come in and how do we uplevel comp to get top talent for right now?

So I think it definitely relieves them of some responsibility of truing up comp for the whole organization as they rightfully should. Curious, Chuck, I know you had, it sounds like you had a thought on the topic as well.

Chuck Brotman: No, I think those are good points. I mean, I think at a certain level it’s they feel like if they share a range, they’re more likely to overpay because candidates will want to position the candidacy, the top end, the range. And I just, I don’t think it works that way in practice, particularly in the market like today’s, but in any market you know, people understand that generally when there’s a comp range that sort of the offer specifics are based on how they’re assessed and the process and the experience they have. So I think it, if anything, promotes more candor and realism on both sides. But I think, you know, I’m sure there’s, you know, just concerns a lot. A lot of companies frankly, just feel like, you know, probably as much as anything that they’ve been doing things a certain way in the past and they don’t want to change.

Right. And nobody likes to feel forced to do things that, you know, could have an adverse impact on their expenses, but I just don’t think it works that way, but,

Emily Bell: Yeah, I mean, I will say just from personal experience, definitely have seen it played out where when someone can have subjectivity and potential unconscious bias introduced into a decision around compensation and a company’s not holding firm to a [00:06:00] predetermined band, you run the risk of exposing your company to risk. To risk to litigation or risk to turnover at the very best.

Chuck Brotman: Right.

Emily Bell: I’ve seen this personally play out and there’s just no reason not to have open conversations. And the fact that those conversations put out there, what the company range is, allows for a lot of more, I think trust to be instituted into those conversations.

I’ve yet to see someone try to take advantage of it. And especially in a scenario where, you know, you can show why someone would fall within a certain bracket versus someone else it, to me, I think it’s refreshing to candidates. It removes any type of, you know, preconceived notion that, you know, there’s something that they’re are holding back because of me or my gender or, you know what I mean?
It really kind of, I think, levels it out to where it’s a very judicious conversation and equitable for both parties and yeah, I mean, I think companies really shouldn’t be nervous about exposing that information. I think it really ends up panning out well for both parties versus instituting any type of negative conversations.

Chuck Brotman: That’s a time saver too, right? It, instead of having, this is something where you’ve gotta spend time with, you know, candidates trying to flip the tables on you. It’s just like, let’s just let’s cut to it. Here’s the range. Here’s what drives comp, you know? Know,

Emily Bell: Yeah.

Chuck Brotman: What are your requirements, right?
And then I think, you know, moving forward if there’s, you know, some latitude up or slightly outta the range, you’ll let your candidate have that conversation. But yeah, I think we are all very well aligned in this one.

Krissy Manzano: Yeah, definitely. I mean, there’s more pros that are realistic than the if they’re negatives, they’re the what ifs that don’t happen. And
last little piece on this, I know we’re at the end of our time, but what if someone said, well, look I hired folks, they’re great, but now, like I can’t get people at that comp range, so I need to increase our comp, you know, by 10 K or something like that.

But then if I post it, all of my current employees that are paid that are gonna see that they’re paid less. How would you advise someone handling that situation?

Emily Bell: Chuck, I’d be curious to hear your thoughts since you’ve had obviously an immense amount of leadership experience and probably right

Chuck Brotman: and wrong. Yeah,

Emily Bell: Yeah. Yeah.

Chuck Brotman: I mean, I think it’s just the same concept, right? If you’re ultimately you know, if ultimately you’re you end up to be competitive in the market making adjustments to comp that leave existing team members, you know, relatively underpaid. I think those are things you want to get in front of.
I don’t know that necessarily creates an obligation to do it, but it creates risk not to do it. And so I think it’s something I think about. I mean, you wanna look at your bands both in terms of the folks you have in, you know, in seat today in those roles and what you have to do to attract talent outside.

If you’re finding you have to, you know, I guess it’s simple way, I think about it. If you’re having to go well outside your band to attract new hires, then you probably ought to look at the performers you have in place as being at risk of departure, right?

Krissy Manzano: Right. Yeah, no, for sure. Great advice. All right, you all. Well, that’s all the time we have today, but great advice as always. A good topic, a relevant one in our economy today, regardless of the industry you’re in. And until next time, we’ll see you later. Bye.

Chuck Brotman: Ciao, everyone.