Article content

Across Canada, as in the U.S. and Europe, standards around pay transparency are quickly gaining momentum. Canadian employers are widely adopting measures to comply with provincial laws and ensure their pay structures are fair, consistent and competitive. In the last two years, five provinces have passed laws requiring organizations to disclose salary expectations for jobs they advertise publicly.

Article content

As of March, Ontario, British Columbia, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland and Labrador have all passed some form of pay transparency legislation.

British Columbia enacted its pay transparency law in November 2023, requiring all job postings by provincially regulated employers to contain pay information. By 2026, B.C. also expects all organizations with more than 50 employees to produce pay transparency reports. Ontario, which passed similar legislation this year, requires reports from organizations with 100 or more employees.

A new survey by financial services company Mercer takes a look at how nearly 600 Canadian organizations are handling pay transparency. The resulting report states that, to date, only 28 per cent of employers are openly communicating their pay ranges. Fifty-one per cent are only including salary ranges for jobs posted in jurisdictions where it’s legally required. Another 26 per cent said they do not include salary information on any external job postings, while 10 per cent said they were unsure.

Eighteen per cent of companies, however, are sharing pay ranges in nationally advertised job postings — even in provinces where they are not required to do so.

Article content

Article content

“It’s safe to say that organizations and employees have accepted pay transparency as the norm,” the report said.

Some of the companies surveyed said they were going a step further, with 25 per cent saying they were exploring sharing pay information beyond what’s required by law. Another 15 per cent said they already share pay ranges both internally and externally in a standardized way.

Mercer noted that some employers have a few outstanding questions around pay transparency, mostly due to the ambiguity of the laws.

One of these grey areas pertains to jobs that are fully remote, with employees situated in a separate jurisdiction. While 21 per cent of employers said they post salary ranges for all remote jobs, 33 per cent said they only include ranges when the remote job is tied to an office in a location where it’s mandated.

Geography also plays a role in the setting and sharing of pay ranges. The survey said 17 per cent of the Canadian companies that disclose compensation include a national, market-based pay structure, while 12 per cent include a geographically adjusted market-based pay structure.

Article content

“Employers do recognize that pay transparency requirements will continue to expand not only nationally but globally,” the report noted.

Some employers have been preparing for the disclosure requirements by assessing the competitiveness of their pay levels and/or compensation structures, ensuring consistency and alignment between the pay structures and the work being performed, or conducting pay equity studies, according to the survey.

In another report, Mercer laid out some of the factors that have led to shifting expectations around pay transparency. These include the rise of social media, evolving expectations among younger generations of workers, and increased focus on diversity, equity and inclusion.

It said 40 per cent of employees are unlikely to apply for a job without compensation information in the job posting, while 59 per cent report having researched pay ranges in their job searches.

It also found that 60 per cent of employees say they know their own pay range and 53 per cent of Gen Z openly share their compensation with colleagues.

• Email: [email protected]

Bookmark our website and support our journalism: Don’t miss the business news you need to know — add financialpost.com to your bookmarks and sign up for our newsletters here.

Article content