Mateo Rasmussen· Compensation Consultant, Independent
Asked in Pay Equity & Transparency ·
We are a US retailer headquartered in Illinois with about 22,000 employees. This is our first analysis directed by outside counsel, and the instruction is to keep distribution tight. In practice I am not sure what tight means.
So far the detailed results sit with counsel, our general counsel's office, me and one analyst. The HR business partners who would normally help decide corrections have seen nothing. Neither has the head of talent acquisition, even though starting pay is where most of the gap arises.
For those who work this way, how do you get from a privileged analysis to actual pay changes without either breaking the privilege or leaving the people who need to act in the dark?
13 helpful · 4 insightful · 3 agree · 4 replies · 577 views · 3 following
Accepted answer· by Daniel Bauer
Our counsel had us separate findings from actions. The findings, meaning coefficients, group-level gaps and the flagged list, stay inside the privileged circle. Actions leave it stripped of the reasoning: a business partner receives the names in their area and the proposed new salary, and confirms there is no reason not to proceed. For process fixes such as starting pay, we brief talent acquisition on the rule we want, without sharing the analysis behind it. We were also told not to forward the report or summarise it in email; briefings are verbal with counsel present. Check with your own counsel, since it depends on how the engagement was set up.
Read in the conversation ↓
Samir GrantCEP, CSI
Head of Reward, Vantage Telecom
We run two tracks. The privileged track is the statistical study, commissioned by counsel, seen by five people. The business track is a list of individual pay adjustments that compensation proposes through the normal process, with ordinary business reasons recorded for each. HR partners see the second and never the first. Our counsel designed that split; I would not improvise it.
Global Mobility Manager, Nordvik Energy
Accepted answer
Our counsel had us separate findings from actions. The findings, meaning coefficients, group-level gaps and the flagged list, stay inside the privileged circle. Actions leave it stripped of the reasoning: a business partner receives the names in their area and the proposed new salary, and confirms there is no reason not to proceed.
For process fixes such as starting pay, we brief talent acquisition on the rule we want, without sharing the analysis behind it.
We were also told not to forward the report or summarise it in email; briefings are verbal with counsel present. Check with your own counsel, since it depends on how the engagement was set up.
Camille VargasCEP, CRP
Compensation Analyst, Copperfield Mining
Director of Benefits, Orchard & Vine
Also consider what you may be required to disclose anyway. Operating in several states with pay data reporting, and with European entities that will publish category gaps, we found a growing share of the output was heading into the open regardless. That changed our counsel's advice on how much effort to spend protecting the rest.
