WORKSPAN DAILY |
Pay Transparency and the SCARF Hypothesis
JoeLena / iStock
Editor’s Note:Workspan Daily will be reproducing a monthlyCompensation Café blog post for the benefit of our readers and to encourage further discourse on topics vital to compensation professionals. New to WorldatWork?Please feel free to join the discussion in our new online community,Engage, or send your thoughts toworkspan@worldatwork.org.
I'm continually amazed by the things neuroscience uncovers about our brains. These discoveries are interesting in and of themselves, but many of them have practical implications for the workplace. I revisited an article about neuroscience and performance management by David Rock, Josh Davis and Elizabeth Jones, and I started thinking about how these insights into brain function might relate to pay transparency.
Within neuroscience, two dominant themes are emerging: (1) the majority of our social behaviors are driven by our efforts to minimize threats and maximize rewards, (2) our brains treat our social needs much the same way they treat our needs for food and water. Many of our social needs manifest themselves in the workplace, and our behaviors to satisfy these needs, maximize rewards and minimize threats are directly observable within organizational life.
David Rock has codified a framework — the SCARF Hypothesis — that argues five aspects of organizational life have a marked impact on we respond. The five aspects of organizational life are:
- Status: the perception of being considered better or worse than others;
- Certainty: the predictability of future events;
- Autonomy: the perceived level of control over one’s life;
- Relatedness: the experience of sharing goals with others;
- Fairness: the sense of being treated equitably, especially compared to how others are treated.
I would argue that each of these five aspects is not merely an “extra” or “added bonus” that we would enjoy experiencing in the workplace, but is — consciously or unconsciously — a real need, just like our needs for food and water.
All of our interactions in the workplace act to either satisfy or deny these five needs. Having a transparent pay process (communicating to employees how compensation decisions are made and providing them with enough information to really understand those decisions) can contribute to satisfying each of these needs:
Status
In terms of compensation, status can be tricky. A well-designed compensation
system should differentiate between employees, providing different rewards for
different levels of achievement.
In reality, some employees will be better performers than others when objectively measured. Pay process transparency can help to keep the focus on these objective measures, rather than on amorphous or ambiguous rankings based on (in)correct perceptions.
If employees understand what objective measures your pay program rewards, then status, as a need, can be refocused on status relative to objectively measured individual performance toward satisfying performance expectations, rather than on a subjective perception that I received a smaller merit increase than my co-worker because I am subjectively valued by the organization less than my co-worker.
Certainty
A transparent pay process helps to manage employee expectations and provides
predictability. Having a transparent pay process means that employees
understand what is expected of them in order to earn bonuses, merit increases
and so on. A little bit of uncertainty can be a good thing. Mild uncertainty
triggers a mild threat response and generates just the right amount of dopamine
and adrenaline to pique curiosity and motivate individuals to solve problems.
Too much uncertainty, however, can generate panic and lead individuals to make bad decisions. Ideally, your employees will experience mild uncertainty about how to achieve what's expected of them, not about what is expected of them or what the pay consequences are of satisfying or not satisfying those expectations.
Autonomy
Autonomy and certainty are intertwined; greater autonomy leads to a greater
sense of certainty about the future. If your employees do not understand the
linkages between performance and compensation, they may feel as though they
have no control over what happens to them in terms of their compensation.
Without some sense of control over what happens to them, your employees can easily slip into a "flight" response, fleeing your organization in search of opportunities that do provide them with a sense of autonomy. Being transparent about pay can help your employees to see that pay is an output directly related to the inputs of effort and performance they contribute.
Relatedness
Ideally, all employees should be working toward the overall strategic goals and
objectives of the organization. While individual goals may differ, they should
all be aligned with organizational strategy to keep everyone moving toward the
same things. Being transparent about your pay processes can help employees
understand how they each contribute to these strategic objectives, and how
those contributions will be rewarded.
Fairness
If your employees understand how compensation decisions are made, they still
may disagree with those decisions, but they are less likely to view them as
unfair. Perceptions of fairness are critical. “The perception that an event has
been unfair generates a strong response in the brain, stirring hostility and
undermining trust,” as Rock noted.
If your employees don't perceive that they are treated fairly with respect to compensation decisions, it almost doesn't matter whether you’re satisfying your employees’ needs for status, certainty, autonomy and relatedness. The fight or flight response will be triggered, and your organization will suffer the consequences of this response in terms of retention and engagement.
Note that all of the above is predicated on the assumption that your compensation decisions are non-arbitrary and based on an articulated set of objective criteria. If your compensation decisions are arbitrary, or you can’t articulate the set of objective criteria used in those decisions, you need to address this issue before beginning to think about pay process transparency.
Taking the time to make sure your employees’ SCARFs are organized and addressed with respect to compensation can go a long way in boosting and maintaining productivity, engagement and willingness to show organizational commitment.
About the Author
Stephanie Thomas, Ph.D., is a lecturer in the Department of Economics at Cornell University. She teaches undergraduate and graduate courses on economic theory and labor economics in the College of Arts and Sciences and in Cornell’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations
This article was first published at Compensation Café on Aug. 16, 2021.