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Talking about pay has long been considered taboo—but that’s changing quickly. With new pay transparency laws and cultural shifts in how people discuss compensation, organizations are being challenged to approach pay communication with greater intention, clarity, and strategy.
In our recent webinar, The Language of Compensation: Better Communication in a World of Pay Transparency, Barley and White & Gale brought together a panel of seasoned People and Compensation leaders to talk about what it really means to communicate compensation effectively. The panel featured:
- Hannah Wells – VP of Client Strategy at White & Gale
- Sarika Lamont – VP of People at Vidyard
- Joanna Kimich – Global SVP of People & Culture at Elastic Path
- Jafar Owainati - CEO & Co-Founder at Barley
Here’s a breakdown of the 6 biggest takeaways from the conversation.
1. The language of compensation isn’t just jargon–it’s strategy
While compensation comes with its fair share of technical terms (e.g. compa-ratio, percentiles, OTE, etc.), the panel emphasized that the real language of compensation is rooted in communicating pay clearly, consistently, and intentionally across the entire organization.
“It’s about creating a shared understanding between employees, managers, and leaders,” said Sarika. “It helps demystify pay decisions and builds trust across the organization.”
This shared language goes beyond salary numbers. It includes how decisions are made, why ranges exist, and what managers and employees can expect during performance reviews or merit cycles.
“If you say, ‘We pay the 50th percentile,’ what does that even mean to a manager? You have to teach people what that actually looks like in practice,” said Joanna.
2. Most employees have misconceptions about compensation
One major challenge in the compensation conversations is the gap between what employees think about pay and how pay actually works inside an organization. Here are a few common misconceptions employees often have:
- “I’m underpaid” based on a quick Google search. Many employees compare their salary to roles they find online, without context around company size, location, or level.
- Base salary is everything. People often focus solely on base pay and overlook the full picture of total compensation which includes benefits, equity, bonuses, and career growth opportunities.
- Annual cost-of-living adjustments are baseline expectations. Some employees assume annual raises (at least marked to increases in the cost of living) are guaranteed, regardless of company performance, market movement, or individual contribution.
That’s why it’s critical for organizations to establish clear and effective pay communication practices—so employees understand not just what they’re paid, but how and why those decisions are made.
“We don’t always need people to be happy with their pay,” said Hannah. “But we do need them to understand it. If they understand how it works, we’ve done our job.”
3. You can’t build trust without transparency
A key theme that emerged during the session was trust and the panel agreed that transparency is the foundation for building it within an organization.
At Elastic Path, Joanna led the rollout of a global pay transparency model that included published salary ranges, detailed documentation, and ongoing communication.
“We didn’t do it to make everyone happy. We did it to be fair and consistent,” she explained. “Some people came back and said, ‘Oh, I think I’m actually paid pretty fairly.’ And that opened up more valuable conversations—like, ‘How do I grow from here?’”
But transparency isn’t just a one-time task. It requires regular and intentional effort so that it can become more and more engrained in an organization’s culture.
“You have to communicate again and again—and in different formats,” Sarika emphasized. “Just putting a page in Confluence isn’t enough.”
4. Empower managers to lead comp conversations
According to the panel, one of the most important strategies for improving compensation conversations at organizations is to train and empower your managers.
“They’re the ones employees go to first,” said Hannah. “And most of them aren’t comfortable talking about pay. They need support.”
Sarika shared how Vidyard trains managers on compensation using learning cohorts, scenario-based training and role playing, and encourages managers to use company-provided tools and frameworks.
The most important lessons to include in manager training are:
- Lead with empathy. Pay conversations are personal so managers need to approach them with care and understanding.
- Practice active listening. Sometimes what employees say about compensation can shine a light on other aspects such as feeling undervalued or unclear on growth.
- Set clear boundaries. Managers should know what they can and can’t promise when it comes to pay.
- Know when to escalate. Not every question has a clear answer so you need to train managers to loop in HR or leadership when needed.
“We don’t expect them to be comp experts,” Sarika clarified. “But we do expect them to build credibility and know when to escalate a question to HR.”
5. You don’t need a complex framework to get started
Even if you don’t have salary bands, a compensation philosophy, or formal levels in place, you can still have meaningful conversations about pay. You just need a starting point.
Hannah emphasizes that you don’t need a complex framework and recommends using a simple approach:
- Start with one salary benchmarking data source
- Document how you compare and level roles
- Define your compensation philosophy in a single page
The key is to have something to point to when making pay decisions. “You don’t want to be in a position where the only answer to how you pay people is, ‘Well, that’s what they asked for’”, Jafar noted. By using a simple structure, it can go a long way in promoting fairness, consistency, and trust at your organization.
6. Performance and compensation should be linked
While some companies try to separate performance reviews from compensation decisions, the panel strongly advised against it. It can be confusing for employees and hard to justify internally. Plus, it makes it difficult to make fair and consistent decisions.
“How do you explain different raise amounts if you don’t tie them to performance?” Joanna asked. At Elastic Path, performance check-ins are integrated into the review cycle and used to guide salary adjustments. This ensures that pay decisions are grounded in individual contribution and not just arbitrary numbers.
At Vidyard, Sarika built out a leveling framework that connects performance, growth, and compensation. For example, employees understand what it takes to move from one job level to the next, and how performance plays a role in both their title and compensation growth.
Your next steps towards better compensation communication
When it comes to compensation, communication is everything. Pay conversations will continue to become more frequent and complex. That’s why it’s critical for organizations to have a strategy or framework about how they approach compensation communication.
If you want to build trust, fairness, and clarity around compensation at your organization, here are key things to focus on according to our panel:
- Create a simple compensation framework to get started
- Talk about comp early, often, and in multiple formats
- Train and empower managers to be confident when talking about pay
- Help employees understand how pay works
- Link pay to performance and have a clear explanation on how it affects compensation
Here at Barley, we also have resources available to help you build a compensation framework:
Watch the full webinar
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