Dive Brief:

• A large majority of employers, 73% according to a recent survey, believe they pay fairly. But the same survey found that just 36% of employees agree, according to SHRM.
• SHRM points to the 2016 Compensation Best Practices Report, published by PayScale, a Seattle-based pay consultancy, as a gauge of how employers and their workers differ widely when it comes to compensation fairness.
• The perception gap doesn't end there, as nearly 40% of employers report having “transparent, open communication” around pay, but only 21% of employees “agree” or “strongly agree," according to the survey of 7,600 business leaders and 71,000 employers from the U.S. and Canada across a wide industry range.

Dive Insight

Tim Lowe, PayScale’s senior vice president of marketing, told SHRM that the survey findings show “a very interesting, and maybe alarming," difference of opinion between employees and employers. Lowe also told SHRM that only 45% of employees feel valued at work, yet more than two-thirds of employers call employees "their greatest asset," labeling these differing views as the "comp chasm."

A telling bit of data from the PayScale survey is that 82% of employees said they would be fine with below-market pay as long as their employer was transparent about the reasons.

Lowe told SHRM to "train your people to have those conversations. The moral is if you want them to stay, talk about pay. Even without changing the numbers, you can move the needle on employee perceptions.”