Washington Employers – Get Ready to Post The Wage in Job Ads
Coming January 1, 2023, Washington Employers with 15 or more employees will be required to post a salary or wage in all job ads.
“The Employer must disclose in each posting for each job opening the wage scale or salary range, and a general description of all of the benefits and other compensation to be offered to the hired applicant. For the purposes of this section, 14 “posting” means any solicitation intended to recruit job applicants for a specific available position, including recruitment done directly by an employer or indirectly through a third party, and includes any postings done electronically…”
https://lawfilesext.leg.wa.gov/biennium/2021-22/Pdf/Bills/Senate%20Bills/5761-S.E.pdf?q=20220304111848
Job Seekers are Rejoicing
Why? Because job seekers are tired of being asked to re-arrange their lives and jump through hoops just to learn that the compensation isn’t worth their time.
As an employer, it’s easy to forget how exhausting searching for jobs can be for the candidate. Employers ask candidates to invest a lot of effort in the process without a guarantee of any monetary return. From the application to the offer, they take time off work, rearrange their schedules to interview or do technical assessments, and navigate the stress of juggling various relationships to make sure only the right people know they’re looking for a job. When you the employer provide transparency on the wage and benefits in the job posting, it helps reassure the candidate that all this time and effort will be worth it if they get the job.
Providing the wage in the Job Posting also removes the stress and burden of trying to guess at how and when to bring up compensation in the conversation. You want candidates to be able to present their best, most true selves during the selection process, not do mental gymnastics as they try and figure out how best to respond to the awkward “what is your salary expectation” question. Being upfront about the wage the job pays is a win-win for both the employer and the candidate.
If you have less than 15 employees, or you’re an Oregon employer, you should post the wage as well.
This law will have a ripple effect on small employers and Oregon employers at the border in the Columbia River Gorge. If you’re one of the few employers not posting the wage in this region, then you’ll lose out on applicants to employers who are being transparent. To candidates, the salary or wage is oftentimes the “most important part of a job ad“, so get it in there. In addition to being competitive with your job posting, you can expect Oregon and/or California to follow in the footsteps of Washington and enact a similar law.
Worried there will be backlash amongst current employees when they see a posted wage?
Make a plan to audit and adjust your current employee’s compensation now.
If you’re worried about backlash or ruffling feathers from current employees, then it’s time to prioritize doing a full pay equity audit and compensation analysis. Once the analysis is done and you have the results, you will have to find money in your budget to bring your current employees up to market value so the job posting won’t come as a shock.
Consider hiring a consultant to provide a 3rd party audit and analysis of your compensation planning. If hiring a consultant isn’t possible, you can conduct an audit and analysis on your own. Use salary.com and glassdoor.com to research the current market rate for the jobs. There are a few resources we recommend to guide your process:
Make a Change Management plan to transition to a more pay-transparent organization
In addition to bringing your employees up to market rate, it will be a good idea to invest in some change management strategies. You will need to get the organization ready for posted wages in job ads. What will that look like? Do your executives, managers, and supervisors feel comfortable talking to their subordinates about compensation? What is your organization’s compensation philosophy? What are the paths to increasing compensation for your employees? Do employees feel safe talking to their managers about their pay?
If you don’t have good answers to the questions above, your organization has a lot of work over the next 8 months before the Job Posting Law goes into effect.