Development organizations face calls for more salary transparency

For global development professionals like Allwell Akhigbe, knowing what an available position pays in advance is more than just convenient information to have. Akhigbe, a nonprofit business development specialist, recently accepted a new role that required a move from a town in Nigeria to its capital city, Abuja. The employer’s pay transparency was a major factor in his decision to apply because of having to plan for the change in cost of living that such a move would require. “If that employer hadn’t put the salary on the advert, I wouldn’t have seen it as any different from the volunteering I was already doing,” he said, adding, “I would definitely have passed up on it.” Akhigbe isn’t the only one who feels this way. According to a Devex community poll on LinkedIn, a lack of salary information is the top pet peeve job seekers have about job postings. Meanwhile, advocates of salary transparency believe that disclosing pay is critical to ending discriminatory hiring practices based on gender, race, physical and mental disabilities, and sexual orientation. “[Salary] transparency is important and I think this is something of interest to our donors as well as beneficiaries.” --— Stephan Grieb, deputy director of human resources, UN Refugee Agency But publicly sharing what an available position pays is not any more of a common practice in global development than it is in other industries, career experts and sector professionals tell Devex. While there has been some progress, it’s been slow. In the first half of 2022, nearly 20% of jobs that organizations posted on Devex’s job board included salary data. This is a slight increase from 17% in 2021 and 11% in 2020. Meanwhile, a Payscale report found that 22% of companies globally across 15 industries shared pay ranges in job advertisements last year. Development’s salary transparency practices are roughly in line with other sectors, Caroline Korda Poole, an impact career coach, echoed. She explained that the majority of job postings typically list everything they require of a candidate but often fail to mention what they’ll give in return, “namely your salary, which is truly the most important information for you and your family.” This lack of salary transparency remains a common practice in the traditional global development field, said Julia Firestone, a coach for social impact professionals. Bureaucracy and a sentiment that “this is how it’s always been done” are key factors, she said, despite the lack of transparency being linked to discriminatory practices against nondominant identity groups. With Sustainable Development Goal 8’s target 8.5 striving for equal pay for equal work by 2030, there are growing calls for more development organizations to demonstrate that they are serious about salary transparency and how it relates to promoting equity and inclusion. “Under the umbrella of a job being ‘for good,’ a lot of good gets lost in the process of bringing people into a team,” said Jasmine Anouna, founder of The Bloom newsletter, which shares opportunities in the social impact space. “They’re so focused on the external good and doing good for other communities that they neglect their own.” Where organizations currently stand Part of what may be holding some organizations back, according to Akhigbe, is that a narrative exists in the nonprofit sector that money shouldn’t be a driving factor and that it's about being altruistic. “But you have to make a living out of doing good,” he added. The United Nations has long published its pay scales as well as differentials for danger assignments. “[Salaries are] public and there’s no negotiation,” said Stephan Grieb, deputy director of human resources at the UN Refugee Agency, adding that “transparency is important and I think this is something of interest to our donors as well as beneficiaries.” The U.N. has however faced steady criticism about the absence of pay for interns. UNHCR and other U.N. agencies provide interns with a stipend of around $1000 per month, Grieb said. This is dependent on the cost of living of the duty station, he explained. Jennifer D'Agostino, vice president of global talent acquisition at RTI International, said in an email that the organization shares salary ranges rather than a single figure “to ensure that the labor market and our employees have insight into our salary ranges. For job seekers, we reiterate that these are ranges and actual offers are based on skills, previous experience and education,” she said. Other organizations have committed to the #ShowTheSalary pledge, a campaign that encourages charities to pledge to disclose a salary in any roles advertised. These include Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team, Christian Aid, and Reprieve. But numerous others fail to share any salary data in job postings. Catholic Relief Services, World Vision, Plan International, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation are among the many organizations currently advertising positions that lack such information. A media spokesperson at the Gates Foundation said in an email that it is “evaluating moving towards that practice,” while a Plan International spokesperson told Devex it would typically include an indicative salary for a U.K.-based role but doesn’t tend to on posts recruited by its global headquarters as they could be based in one of over 70 locations. Representatives from CRS and World Vision declined when asked to comment. “It would be too difficult to list all of the possible salaries and packages,” the Plan International spokesperson said. “We are happy to disclose the salary and benefits to individual candidates and where possible, we do include an indicative UK salary.” Roles being in different locations is a common reason international development organizations give, Firestone said. “But a lot of companies and organizations, often outside of the social impact field, have found ways to transparently calculate salary differences based on cost of living in different places and share that formula externally,” she said. Social media management company Buffer, for example, lists the salary of every individual it employs across 15 countries in an easy-to-use matrix. Organizations could learn from nonprofit Next River’s recent job posting, which Firestone called “the most beautiful” because of its transparent salary, acknowledgment that candidates will likely not have all skills listed, the offer to pay $50 for interviews, and the encouragement of a range of people — including those unhoused, incarcerated, and/or doing sex work — to apply. Even in instances when an organization isn’t disclosing a salary or can only provide a range, being transparent about that can go a long way, Anouna said. A push for more progress Globally, laws and policies are changing to encourage organizations to be more inclusive. In Europe, negotiations are taking place on a European Union directive to strengthen the application of the principle of equal pay for equal work, while the United Kingdom’s minister for women has launched a series of initiatives designed “to level up employment opportunities for women,” and in the United States, there have been numerous updates to states’ equal pay laws. The eradication of the request for salary history in certain parts of the U.S. has been a “gamechanger,” said Korda Poole, explaining that “a job should pay what a job pays” rather than being based on a previous salary. In the states where asking for such information is banned, it has meant an increase in pay for Black candidates by 13% and by 8% for women, according to an analysis published by the Harvard Business Review. In New York, such changes have already had a big difference in the social impact world, Firestone said. The state is also expected to implement a law next year that will require advertised jobs to include a salary range, while New York City’s own version of a similar law took effect on Nov. 1. Colorado was the first state to carry out such a requirement in January 2021, and will be joined by California and Washington state in January 2023. More needs to be done, Akhigbe said. He believes sector-wide change starts with shifting the conversation from how employees can benefit from pay transparency to how the NGOs can benefit; for example, through increased access to talent. According to CharityJob, disclosing a salary can double the number of applicants for a position. Other benefits include saving time that would be spent sifting through applicants who may have expectations that differ from the salary available as well as the improvement of staff retention. According to Payscale, those most likely to leave a company are those who are underpaid or believe they’re underpaid. This is particularly seen in the health sector, said Ann Keeling, senior fellow at Women in Global Health. “We’re talking about a higher gender pay gap [28%] than in many other economic sectors,” she said. A recent report by WGH, revealed that 6 million women worldwide are subsidizing health systems with unpaid and underpaid labor. “Nobody knows how many of these women there are,” Keeling said, adding that more work needs to be done on the pay gap while organizations, including NGOs, must check their supply chains to address unpaid work. “It’s about bringing these women in, recording the work they do, recording them and then seeing how the gender pay gap would be impacted,” she said. By “simply aligning the values of the organization with the practices from within,” Firestone said organizations can take the steps needed to be genuinely supportive of pay equality. “Either you can take up the mantle now and get the additional recognition for it and help to spread that movement and momentum or eventually the wave is going to catch up with you anyway.” Update, Nov. 4, 2022: This article has been updated to reflect the updates to states’ equal pay laws in the United States. Interested in salary transparency and other globaldev career topics? We’d like to know more about what you think. Fill in this short survey to provide your thoughts.