Report finds nearly two-thirds of employees seek increased transparency around compensation

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Jun 21, 2022, 09:00 ET

A compensation survey commissioned by Lattice highlights employee perspectives on pay transparency, salary expectations and more

SAN FRANCISCO, June 21, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Lattice, the leading provider of people success software that empowers business leaders to build engaged and high-performing teams and inspire winning cultures, today announced the results of its State of the Employee Experience Report digging into employee perspectives and preferences around compensation. As US inflation remains high and markets indicate economic uncertainty ahead, the survey offers insight into employee expectations and perspectives around upcoming compensation cycles — and highlights increased demand for more transparency and understanding in organizations around how pay decisions are made.

"At Lattice, our mission is to make work meaningful – and we understand the critical role compensation plays in making sure employees feel valued for their work," said Jack Altman, CEO and co-founder of Lattice. "We also understand the complexity and challenge of shaping compensation policy, especially in uncertain economic times. We wanted to better understand how employees' perspectives around compensation were evolving to better inform our customers and our product."

Lattice surveyed over 2,000 US-based employees to gain insight into how workers are thinking about raise frequency and value, negotiation, pay equity, employer transparency, and more in the new world of work. Below are some of the key findings from the research.

Employees want more transparency around pay policy, salaries

Our survey showed that 67% of employees agree that their organizations should be more transparent with their pay practices; over half (51%) said that companies should share how much everyone within the organization is paid. That number jumps to 58% for Millennial employees. As 17 states in the US have already begun rolling out pay transparency laws, this could signify a broader shift towards increased openness around pay bands across industries — but will also bring increased complexity for companies who have not embraced the practice in the past.

When it comes to individual compensation decisions, over 30% of all employees said they did not have a clear understanding of how their own pay was adjusted around promotions and raises. Men were over 10 percent more likely to say they had a clear understanding of how their own salaries were determined than women; men were also more likely than women to report that they were satisfied with the level of pay transparency at their organization.

Employees believe bias plays a role in pay decisions, and that organizations aren't taking action

More than half (51%) of employees agree that there is bias around gender, age, race, or other factors impacting compensation decisions at their organization; of these, 31% strongly agreed.

The data also indicates that some employees feel their organizations need to do more to proactively address the issue. 31% of employees said that their company was not taking adequate steps to address the biases that exist in compensation review processes. 61% of employees either said that they weren't sure whether their company was using any tools or technology to measure pay equity, or that they knew their company was not using anything at all. With recent research indicating that 66% of organizations were planning pay equity initiatives for 2022, these results suggest a gap between employee expectations and company actions.

Employee expectations around pay cycles are high heading into a difficult year

In a year of economic volatility and skyrocketing living costs, employees are looking for more frequent pay adjustments from their employers and specific percent increases in order to feel that their hard work is being adequately valued.

More than 30% of employees expect to be considered for compensation increases every 3-6 months if they are meeting or exceeding expectations in their current role; 58% of all employees surveyed are looking for potential compensation increases more frequently than once a year.

Assuming performance is meeting or exceeding expectations, 32% of employees said they would look for a 4-5% increase in compensation from their employees in order to feel that their work was being valued adequately, with 23% looking for a 6-10% increase. These expectations could outpace compensation budgets and create additional challenges for People leaders who need to keep great talent engaged while keeping businesses steady in economic headwinds. The planned salary increase budgets of many organizations are hovering below 4%.

Lattice conducted this research into employee compensation experiences and preferences ahead of the wide rollout of the company's compensation product, designed to connect performance and compensation to drive employee engagement and retention. Learn more here. For more information on the survey results, reach out to [email protected]. You can also learn more about how to evolve your compensation strategy here and in the Lattice library.

About Lattice:

Lattice is the People Success Platform that brings together all of the tools, workflows, and data to help leaders at organizations develop engaged, high-performing employees and winning cultures. By combining continuous performance management, goal-setting, employee engagement, compensation management, career development, and people analytics into one unified solution, Lattice helps HR, People and Operations teams develop insights that build enviable cultures and drive impactful business outcomes. Ranked on the Inc. 500 Fastest-Growing Private Companies list two years in a row and certified as a Great Place to Work by 99% of its employees, Lattice serves more than 4,250 customers worldwide including Slack, Cruise, and Reddit. Learn more about Lattice by visiting: www.lattice.com.

About the Research:

This research was conducted by Censuswide on behalf of Lattice, surveying 2,000 US-based employees and gig workers (excluding sole traders) at medium to large businesses in February of 2022. Censuswide abides by and employs members of the Market Research Society, which is based on the ESOMAR principles.

SOURCE Lattice