S5 E14 | CXR Podcast: Hoyt & Crispin Talk Transparency

Chris Hoyt and Gerry Crispin talk about the emerging importance of transparency they're seeing within Talent Acquisition and what leaders should be looking toward.

S5 E14 | CXR Podcast: Hoyt & Crispin Talk Transparency

Chris Hoyt and Gerry Crispin talk about the emerging importance of transparency they're seeing within Talent Acquisition and what leaders should be looking toward.

Welcome to the CXR channel, our premier podcast for talent acquisition and Talent Management. listen in as the CXR community discusses a wide range of topics focused on attracting, engaging and retaining the best talent. We’re glad you’re here

Chris Hoyt, CXR 0:29
All right, I’m Chris Hoyt, President at CareerXroads. Thanks for joining our live stream for weekly show, where today, we’re calling an audible. previously planned, we were going to talk about expanding talent pools and how some things are pretty tough in this space with a team leader coming in today. But instead, we’re going to talk about transparency. So if you’re on YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, your listening live, go ahead and use the chat feature, you can say hi, drop a note any questions you’ve got in there. And just as a quick reminder, we don’t have any sponsors here on the CXR podcast, no ads, during the sort of weekly sort of 20 minute roundup. So if we mentioned someone, or something that we think is cool, or that warrants your attention? Well, it’s because we think it’s cool and and it warrants your attention. So today’s guest intro is a pretty easy one, you likely already know if you’re dialed into CXR listening, or watching and that is, of course, Gerry Crispin, who is the career crossroads founder, Gerry, how are you?

Gerry Crispin, CXR 1:26
I’m wonderful. Life is good.

Chris Hoyt 1:27
It’s not like I don’t get to talk to you every single day. So in the spirit of transparency, I’m feeling that I haven’t that haven’t spoken to you only minutes ago. Cool. Is it feeling? Or is it feigning? Or faking it in the transparency space? So Gerry, we’ve seen so if you’re if you’re a subscriber to our Bellwether, or if you are, if you subscribe to the LinkedIn newsletter that we send out, or if you’ve been sort of part of any of the conversations, we’re starting to see a lot of leaders talk about transparency, and whether they’re on the vendor side, or whether they’re on the talent acquisition side, right, the practitioner side. But this hunger, this desire for transparency, what what do you think, and I know, we want to get into one specific topic that we’re pretty passionate about, that’s, we’re going to talk about it. But when we say transparency in this space, what is that? What does that mean to you? What does transparency mean? If I’m new to new to the topic?

Gerry Crispin, CXR 2:26
Yeah, it means it means that each of the stakeholders should be informed data informed, you know, if at all possible about that particular subject, and, and if not, the reason why should be defended. So if I can’t have access to the kind of data that helps me do my job better, within recruiting or within managing, I need to know why that data is being held from me, if you will, in relation to that. So it’s a big subject, it’s a big issue. And I think a lot of individuals are learning how to break through that transparency issue to to see what’s going on. Without the you know, the use of going to their employer or their boss or to the to the powers that be because we now have a world in which in which there’s a lot of tools out there that can inform us if we’re not being asked and sometimes those tools might miss inform us as well. So it’s it’s behooves the employer to really get on board with this issue about their name and date of transparency

Chris Hoyt, CXR 3:49
Well like what level? I get that and I you know that I completely agree with you. But I think an interesting conversation that we end up having with some of the more senior leaders is what what level of transparency is transparent enough, right? Is it like, Gerry, I have Bally’s in my coffee right now. full transparency, right? Or is it? Like, you know what, I don’t actually have any pants on today? Well, so I mean, those are two different levels of transparency.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 4:17
Yeah, you know, the whole thing has to do with the relevance of, of my wanting to work, my wanting to understand how my work affects my job, you know, am I doing a full job with what I’m doing? How my job affects my career, how my career affects my, you know, my stage in life. So. So you have to get into the context of what is it we’re talking about from a transparency point of view. So it could be, it could be about the process that we were involved in hiring, it could be about an aspect of it like pay, it could be about access to data that relates to diversity, all of those things. are relevant, as opposed to whether or not you’re wearing pants today.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 5:04
Okay, so we’ll let’s talk a little bit about that then because we do have a topic that we’re pretty passionate about. And I know you’re working on a piece where we’re going to discuss that in more detail. But we have seen some legislation pass on multiple levels right at city and state levels that require some disclosure around pay ranges.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 5:22
Yep.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 5:23
But, we have also seen some employers find a crafty way to sort of get around some of that.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 5:29
Sure, Carlton, Colorado, being the one that’s that’s most come to fruition, that there’s there’s some effort to get some data information about who, what those workarounds are, and and kind of raise a concern about whether or not that’s legitimate moral, it probably is not illegal, it’s more immoral.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 5:51
It’s a little it’s a little sketch. I mean,

Gerry Crispin, CXR 5:53
For those who aren’t aware, Colorado had a pay equity law, a year or so ago. And, and basically, it said, if you’re going to hire somebody in Colorado, like for a, you know, remote work, and so you advertise that job as being available for remote work, you need you need to show salary in that posting. Now, that’s a law in Colorado, and a lot of lawyers have decided that a way to avoid all of that would be to at the bottom of your job posting say, this, this remote work opportunity is available to anyone but those people who live in Colorado.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 6:36
Yeah.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 6:36
And, and so that’s not kind of illegal to discriminate against someone in Colorado, but it sure, it sure sends a message about, you know, how you think about the spirit of, of this particular law. And I think it’s wrong. I think if we have a law, you need to abide by it. And fundamentally, it may piss you off. So goddamn change the law. But, you know, as long as as long as there, you should be doing the right thing by it.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 7:10
Yeah, I mean, I understand the argument that there is an internal equity challenge that this causes, right. So if if, by and large, your internal folks are not paid in a particular function or whatever, a competitive wage, right? Over the years, they’ve gotten the 3% increase, or the one and a half percent increase, or whatever, and you’re now hiring, and this is not uncommon, but you’re not hiring people in at, you know, 15%, you know, 20% higher than those that are already in the role. You don’t want to say what the new wage,

Gerry Crispin, CXR 7:39
We know, that’s happening. We know that it’s happening everywhere. The issue is, everybody’s pretending like it’s not or that if I don’t tell anybody what the problem is, it’ll go away, it won’t go away, because we have access, increasing access to that data. Any human being who’s interested in a job, can go to several places and find out what that job will pay. Even if it’s wrong, well, we’d probably wrong because the employers are unwilling to share their damn data. Well, now, what we’re learning is that something like 25 to 30% of employers are willing more willing to provide that, but that still means 70% are unwilling in the United States, to provide a consistent approach to how they share information about pay publicly as part of the job opening. And so one idea about transparency, pay transparency is that more employers should be encouraged that if if they share that kind of data, they get beyond it quicker, more quickly. It adds value to them. And as opposed to not sharing it and being shamed for it.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 8:59
Well, so that’s sort of the thing, right? So the the these laws are being passed, trying to encourage people to well, we’re mandate people to do the right thing. Right. But then we’ve had this interesting topic of Indeed’s efforts lately, and sort of taking taking a shot at putting salaries on these employers postings that they can scrape. Right. But But what we’re hearing is they’re so wildly off that it is forcing the employers hand to try to put some sort of wage on their roles, right, because they’re losing candidates who think that that the wage is so much lower. I agree.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 9:37
And you know what, I love that but also, we know that Indeeds not the first one to do that Google has been doing that for a while. College Recruiter, Steve, Steven, inform me that he has been doing that for a couple of years now. And and obviously depends on the sources for Indeed Google and you And College Recruiter and others to be able to come close to what that might, what that salary might be within a given geography level, et cetera, et cetera. It’s not easy. It’s much easier if the employers support this in a way that makes sense.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 10:19
It well, you’re 100%. Right. I also suspect it’s not just because it’s indeed, but it’s timing right now. Right? We have so many people, it’s so you know, so eager to look so eager to search and move and switch. And this great calibration, or this resignation piece has people sort of on their toes a little bit. And so I think the employers are feeling it.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 10:36
Yeah. And but here’s where the transparency gets a little bit expanded. It’s not it’s, this is just one step, if you will, in having an openness in the conversation that takes place. So if I’m a candidate, I should be able to ask if I ask about salary, I shouldn’t be told, Oh, wait a second, before we get to that. And we eventually will, well, how much do you make, you know, which, which sends an awful message, which, which is one of the reasons why a lot of these laws were formed in the first place, nearly nearly 49 of the 50 states have have laws that address this kind of stuff now, and and the first couple were in California and, and Massachusetts and a couple other states. But but we also have a workaround, so instead of instead of asking people what their salary is, we ask them, What salary do you expect. So now, that’s kind of the default, work around before you actually tell them what you are likely to offer in a standard deviation. So one of the issues is, you know, most companies, most companies, for most jobs, not all, you know, fundamentally operate within a very narrow range in terms of what they what the entry salary would be. So it’s pretty easy to say it’s within, you know, a range that’s typically covers a standard deviation, in terms of the in terms of the range of the total, the total area. And it’s, it’s why don’t we get around to telling people these kinds of things, I have no idea other than this fear, that as market generates higher prices for entry, we’re getting more irritation on the part of our employees who not only don’t have information about the salary ranges in their own damn company, so they should, that’s a transparency issue. Because this is a problem we need to address. And companies need to grapple with this. And there’s plenty of solutions, they need to address it deal with their employees.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 12:52
Well, I think to what some folks miss, is the how this, you know, plays into the pay equity gap between genders. Because, right, so women making less less money than men. And I will tell you, when one of the last roles that I hired, when I was a practitioner, I went to get approval on the offer that we were going to make. And the leader came back and said, Well, what did they make today? So when they make this, and so well just offer 10% more than that? Well, that’s that’s not that’s, that’s not terribly competitive, but they’ll think she’s gonna think it was a female hire and she’s gonna think it’s, it’s a really good deal. She’s gonna get a 10% push. But it’s that methodology, I don’t know. But a better phrase for that, that I think just perpetuates the issue. If we don’t allow these big jumps and put our egos and the budget pieces in check from a consideration of the offer phase, we never get equity. It might be that what was the piece, the snippet that you love to call out is? How many years is it supposed to take for us to find pay equity?

Gerry Crispin, CXR 13:53
Well, the World Economic Forum just said, in North America, it’s gonna take 68 years.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 13:58
Well that’s bullshit!

Gerry Crispin, CXR 13:59
That’s plus my age, I don’t want to be 148 When I go, Oh, wow, cool. But here’s the here’s the point. There are, you know, the gender pay disparity is just one of many disparities, you know, from a race, ethnic disability, all of those different kinds of issues. It’s really not about saying, Okay, we got to get to equity, what we have to do is get to a level of transparency, where the pret where the conversation is forced then to to better understand what the solutions are, and what companies are willing to move towards solutions that are going to take less than 68 years, in which case, people, individuals, candidates and employees can make better decisions relative to that. So it’s the transparency we should be focusing in on as a As an industry voice or otherwise note, we’re going to wait wait for we’re waiting for the different states to now start doing what they do in Europe, which is determining how to calculate disparity and forcing you to publish that on the front page of your of your website. You know, and do you want that law, you know, in, in fact, in every state except maybe Mississippi or whatever, because that’s what’s coming?

Chris Hoyt 15:30
Well, there’s an awful lot of state laws, I don’t want it all, but they’re popping up everywhere. But so let me ask you, so we’re pretty passionate about the pay equity piece. Right, right. And trying to find that from a transparency standpoint, right. But where else does transparency? Where else are we seeing some things pop up with regards to what people are sort of looking for? I mean, I know candidates always want more information. But who else in our space, if you want to share is talking a little bit more about let’s have more transparency?

Gerry Crispin, CXR 16:02
Oh, I mean, if you look at each stakeholder in the process, the leaders of any particular corporation probably can dictate what they get to have write it, if anything, the CEO says, I’m getting too much crap, you know, you give me everything there is to know with every kind of insight, I don’t have 20, more than 24 hours of the day. So let’s narrow this down to what actually makes sense for me from a business perspective. So I get that. But a recruiter, for example, wants it is required to have a good solid slate of candidates. That is diverse, however, the you know, the agreement is in relation to what level of diversity but the fact of the matter is, does the recruiter have access to information about how underserved the job family that they’re recruiting for is in that company, and in the marketplace? You know, and and how much we’re hiring in this particular job family to actually make a difference over the course of the next year or two. And I would, I would submit that most recruiters lack that data. And many recruiters lacked the training and knowledge and skill of what to do with that data. To really analyze it, well provide insights, and negotiate appropriately with the hiring manager that they’re sitting down with, and creating a strategy about how to fill this position.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 17:42
Yeah, well, you know, look, we have a community that’s got about 4000 practitioners in it. And it comes up from time to time that while the recruiters are held to this particular standard of diversity from a slate standpoint, and when they aren’t given the right tools, or the right information to do it, they can’t figure out how to do it anyway.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 18:03
Right? I mean, you know, we, we handcuff our recruiters, by not supplying the kind of information that allows for them to learn to grow, and to influence how we go about, you know, recruiting in a variety of different ways. And so fundamentally, I’m, I’m just a fan of the fact that we now have, you know, analysts working in our TA organizations and operations in human rights, we have employment branding, folks, we have all kinds of folks that need different kinds of data that help them do their job. And I think more employers need to know what that is. And I think as an industry, we need to say, you know, here are some minimum minimum kind of transparency requirements, that if you’re not doing this, you shouldn’t even be bothering calling yourself a recruiter.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 19:03
Yeah, it’s interesting. And I really, it seems to me that this topic, and I don’t know if this is a result of, you know, social injustice, as we’ve seen in the last few years, or if this is the result of crazy legislation that’s passing, or if this is the result of, you know, being this as we begin to come out of a pandemic work life for the last two years, but there is a notable increase in in trying to figure out what Transparency means and how to I don’t want to say, I don’t want to say weaponize transparency, right, but but to really sort of, yeah, learn more about it and use it as a competitive advantage. I think that the rest of this year, we’re gonna see a lot of that.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 19:46
The driving forces have been around for decades, really, but they are they are getting stronger. And now the question is, who’s making the choices about how we will recruit in the future? Is it The legislature? Is it going to be Congress? Is it going to be some global, you know, ISO group? Or is it going to be our industry and our practitioners who are going to, you know, make those determinations. And fundamentally, if we, if we don’t do it, collectively, we will be asked to do it by folks who may not know as much as we do.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 20:27
I hear some sort of socialism recruiting.com, or some sort of,

Gerry Crispin, CXR 20:32
It’s called combat.

Chris Hoyt 20:38
So if I was interested in learning more about transparency, or I was interested in trying to figure out all of all the different touch points, because there are tons it’s data transparency, process transparency, like hiring, you name it across the board, right, just opening that up? Where would you tell me to go and look, I mean, outside of the obvious coming to CXR.works. But where would you? Where would you tell me as a recruiting leader, I should maybe start to kind of investigate or do some homework at?

Gerry Crispin, CXR 21:04
Well, I think, I think any recruiting leader or recruiter can easily take a look at a process flow map, you know, within their own organization, or create a simple one, it’s not that hard to do, most of us should have the capability of saying, you know, here are some of the things that are happening, here’s some of the content that I’m sharing. And and start asking yourself who has access to this to the data? And the questions, you can look at your frequently asked questions. There is a frequently asked question, for example, that says, how, how much is this job worth? There’s a frequently asked question around that probably the most frequently asked question. How many recruiters can actually answer that question without going to get permission? Or relying on some training that says, here’s how to avoid answering this question? Because there is training on how to avoid answering that question. Well, for sure, until someone in rewards figures out what they’re going to offer you. And and I’m I submit that there’s there is sufficient data in almost every company that can give a more satisfactory answer to that question. And so if you start with that, we’re in pretty good shape. There is there are other questions, though, that that I think, are very fundamental, we haven’t even really addressed them. There are a lot of policies still on the books in a lot of employers that basically say, if you share your salary or comp information with a fellow employee, you will be that is a violation of our policies, and you could be fired for that. So so there’s that that that might have worked in 1960. It doesn’t work in 2022. And fundamentally, companies that still have that on their policy books, should should get rid of it. So so the other side of this is to take a look at where restrictions are in who can access data surrounding issues around diversity, hiring practices, etc, that that might might should tumble at this point.

Chris Hoyt 23:29
Yeah. Yeah. I agree with Gerry. Gerry, thank you so much for your insight. I know we’ll carry this into the forums along with our members. And I love doing a little back and forth on a topic that we’re both pretty excited about.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 23:39
Yeah. And we were always interested in input from all of those folks who are listening to this, because we hope to push this forward in relation to perhaps a survey that looks a little bit more deeply about what are the hot transparency issues? So we have some ideas about that. But fundamentally, we’d like to hear more.

Chris Hoyt 23:59
Well, yeah. And if someone wants to call bullshit, right on something that we’re talking about Internet, especially in terms of what level of transparency should be out there, I think we’d appreciate that as well.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 24:08
Absolutely.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 24:09
All right, good stuff. Well, look, I just want to share a couple of things. As a reminder, the CXR book club that is open to everybody that might be watching or listening. But we are now watching, I think the great hack on Netflix, it’s a documentary on Cambridge analytics. You can check that out at CXR.works/slash books. For members. We’ve got a quarterly CXR Community Update. That’s April 14. It’s not a podcast show, but we do stream it live. And that just kind of shares what’s happened in the last few months. And of course, what’s ahead for us. And then of course, on April 19, we’ve got a solutions spotlight, coincidentally, with College Recruiter, and that Steven Rothberg, you’re going to join us there. If you’re a member, you can see what he has. He’s going to share what’s new and sort of what we should be paying attention to, in that college and early career space. So with that, I want to thank Gerry, thanks for being here. And thanks for joining us.

Gerry Crispin, CXR 24:59
Life is good.

Chris Hoyt, CXR 25:00
All right, good stuff. Thanks.

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