Cheyenne: Thank you for joining us for this episode of What the Finance. There are a few things we like to mention at the top of episode. Rachel: First, if you want to get in touch with us, you can email what_the_finance@protonmail.com or join the What the Finance Discord server. Cheyenne: Second, it would mean a lot to us if you could support our show through Patreon. Starting at $3 a month, you can get episode shoutouts access to topic polls, and get to listen to some pretty hilarious outtakes. Rachel: Third, as we seek to be a more inclusive show, we want to acknowledge that colonialism is an ongoing process, and capitalism, which we regularly decry, is part of this process. We are recording this episode on the ancestral land of the Dakota and people, and we recognize our sovereignty and express our gratitude at being here. So, the great resignation is still happening. . .
Cheyenne: mhm
Rachel: which means that there are a lot of us who are out there looking for new jobs. . .
Cheyenne: mhm mhm
Rachel: and I think a lot of us also feeling frustrated. The new jobs we're looking for don't have pay information posted.
Cheyenne: Mhm
Rachel: I'm on the side. How can people reasonably know if applying for a job is not a complete waste of their time if they don't know how much the pay is? And then hiring managers. And I'm seeing a lot of this conversation on LinkedIn as obviously you are as well.
Cheyenne: Mhm
Rachel: Hiring managers saying, well, we need to be competitive in the market and how can we do that if we're transparent, basically?
Cheyenne: Mhm
Rachel: I mean, thousands of people are quitting their jobs. How's that working out for you? I've got to know, right? Cheyenne: Yeah, definitely. Like, there's got to be a different way to do things in which an employer's win out of hiring an employee is not that you got a great employee, but that you got them for a great price, as opposed to we got this really great employee and we're paying them what they're worth. I also like when it comes to talking about salary negotiation, and I used to be super uncomfortable talking about it, especially in interviews. And I'm still not like super comfortable. Don't get me wrong, I don't walk in there like I got this. I am just more confident now. And so, I have a rough idea of what a salary should be that I would be comfortable with. And so the fact that it took 15 or so years into my career to get to that point, we need to build those skills a little bit or switch it up so that people don't need those skills and employers just pay people fairly. But like, fuck capitalism, that will never work. Hey, we got that one out of the way early today. Rachel: Part of what's frustrating to me is that the data has been in for a ridiculously long time on how it benefits the bottom lines of companies to treat their people well.
Cheyenne: Mhm
Rachel: I will link to this book in our show notes, but there's a book that I had to read for my master's degree called The Human Equation. Just basic. . . It's a good one. Cheyenne: Mhm I didn't read it, but I've heard well. Rachel: I really like it a lot. So I think I've talked about it a lot. But the whole book is really like case studies of companies who treated their employees well, and those companies are still doing better than their competitors. And that book was published in the mid-80s. So, it's been out for well over 30 years. Like, the information is there, and people just want to be jerks.
Cheyenne: Mhm
Rachel: It's kind of my take on it with salary transparency, specifically, one bright spot is in Colorado.
Cheyenne: Mhm a couple of years ago passed bill that says any job that's posted in Colorado or that could potentially hire somebody in Colorado. So remote jobs have to post a salary.
Cheyenne: Mhm
Rachel: on the job, which I think is super awesome. Cheyenne: I agree. Rachel: But also, I'm not going to name the company because I'll probably still apply for this job. But I shared with Cheyenne before we started recording that, I was up, uh, overnight because the fire alarms went off in our house. And it turns out that it takes your body a while to calm down when it's convinced that there's a fire in your house. Cheyenne: Weird. Rachel: So, I was looking at jobs, and this one is remote. And it says, as required by the Colorado Equal Pay Transparency Act, this company provides a range of minimum compensation roles for roles that may be higher than Colorado. Factors that may be used to determine your actual salary may include a wide array of factors, including your specific skills and experience, geographic location, or other relevant factors. So, while I appreciate Colorado, a lot like the company, uh, line that if you live in Colorado, this is what you can expect to bank. But the rest of you, too bad. Not a great feeling. Cheyenne: No. So that has been a conversation. I, uh, would say more notably, I've noticed it most for about the last year or so on LinkedIn because I think with the influx of remote work, that started becoming a thing and basically the consensus among job seekers on LinkedIn is that's fucked up. Stop it. Yes. Like, that is like, bottom line. And then you get like, HR recruiters around that are like, oh, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And we're all like, just no, just no. Rachel: Mhm. Cheyenne: It’s great that Colorado requires that's. Totally. I get that. And I think that putting in a salary range is acceptable. But if you are going to cut someone's pay by thousands and we're talking like tens of thousands of dollars based on their geographic location because they work remotely, that's not necessarily fair. Rachel: Frankly. It also to me that a lot of companies are perhaps just completely oblivious to the fact that regardless of geographic location, their salaries aren't paying a living wage, right? Cheyenne: Absolutely. I think that overall, we have to do better. I didn't think that I would be in my mid-thirties when I finally just got so, like, exhausted with the way that everything is that I would just be like, you know what? I'm done. I'm out. The next generation can start fighting. I'm over it. I got nothing left. But, like, I am so sick of fighting to explain to a certain mindset that treating people better is the best thing to do, even though we and those before us had to do it the hard way. I'm so sick of explaining to them why that should make it so. We should be like, you know what? Let's make it so these people after us don't have to do this. I don't understand why that continues to be a conversation, frankly. Rachel: Right. That's the whole point, isn't it? Right. To work hard so things are better for people that come after you? Cheyenne: No. Okay. Well, yeah, because the point is to make as much money and hoard as much money as possible to a degree. I'm okay with recognizing that somebody in rural Minnesota is not going to make the same as somebody who lives in San Francisco. I get that. I also don't think that salary range should be like tens of thousands of dollars, because I think when you start talking about salary and benefits and one of the benefits of remote work being often that you can work remotely from anywhere. And so, if one of your goals is to travel and you just happen to be based out of some rural place in the country that's got a low cost of living and your salary is being based on that, as opposed to where you may end up traveling six months in the future. Rachel: Right. Well, and to me, it really is not about the cost of living in the area that you are. It's about the benefit that that role brings to the company. Right. Like, if you are a company that creates content, having somebody who's really good at creating content to tell your story in an effective way. . .
Cheyenne: mhm
Rachel: they deserve a lot of the benefit that comes to your company as a result.
Cheyenne: Yeah.
Rachel: It doesn't matter where that person lives.
Cheyenne: Oh, absolutely. And I mean, ideally, my ideal would be that we just pay everyone, like, reasonable wages seems like the easiest thing to do. But I recognize that I don't think that that will happen in our lifetime. It's a wild to me. I'm thinking of, um, on LinkedIn, TheSkimm’. Did, uh, show me your benefits?
Rachel: That's great.
Cheyenne: Yeah. It's still ongoing. I still see places working or posting about it. And it's so wild to me how many companies were resistant to that at first. And as more and more have done it and everybody has been like, hey, this is great. Thank you. And those people are successfully getting more applicants and quality applicants when they're posting jobs and now more following suit. It's just wild to me that there's this mentality that everything has to be so tight lipped like everything companies feel like they have to keep everything a secret from employees and employees are like that seems super sketchy. I'm, um, not going to apply there pretty much anyway.
Rachel: So, I'll just close out by saying transparency is good and taking care of your people if you want to keep them as super important.
Cheyenne: Very true.
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