5.1. How to Use TalentUp Salary Benchmarking to Achieve Salary Transparency

Salary transparency is more than a trend—it’s a foundation for trust, fairness, and employee engagement. Transparent compensation practices have been shown to improve retention, reduce pay gaps, and strengthen employer branding. However, implementing transparency requires more than just publishing salary ranges; it requires reliable data, a clear framework, and consistent communication.

TalentUp helps organizations achieve transparency by providing market-aligned benchmarks and structured compensation models. Here’s how to use it step-by-step.

Step 1: Set a Salary Framework

The first step toward salary transparency is building a clear and consistent salary framework. TalentUp gives you the data you need to define structured compensation plans that are fair, scalable, and easy to communicate.

Use TalentUp to:

Create salary bands by role and level
For example, you can define a range for Junior Software Engineer in Berlin and a separate one for Senior Marketing Manager in Madrid. Each role should have its own structured range based on TalentUp’s market data.

Design consistent compensation progression
Use percentile benchmarks (P25, P50, P75, P90) to illustrate how pay evolves with performance, experience, or tenure. For example, junior employees may start at P50, with top performers advancing to P75 over time.

Define policies for bonuses, benefits, and equity
Go beyond base salary by using TalentUp insights to establish standard practices for variable pay and perks. This includes things like remote work allowances, commissions, or stock option eligibility based on role or level.

With a clear structure in place, your salary decisions become easier to explain and defend—internally and externally.

Step 2: Back Salary Decisions with Data

One of the most powerful benefits of TalentUp is that it allows you to justify salary decisions with real market evidence. This brings objectivity into conversations that are often emotionally charged.

Use TalentUp data to:

Justify hiring offers
Show candidates how their offer aligns with the market—e.g., “We’re offering you P75 for your role in this location.” This builds confidence and reduces negotiation friction.

Support promotion-based raises
When an employee is promoted, TalentUp data can help determine what raise is appropriate for the new level, ensuring consistency across departments.

Defend internal equity decisions
If employees question their pay relative to others, percentile-based benchmarks from TalentUp offer a clear explanation: “You are paid at the market median (P50) for your level and experience.”

These data-backed justifications reduce ambiguity, promote fairness, and increase trust in the organization’s compensation practices.

Step 3: Communicate Clearly

Transparency is not just about publishing numbers—it’s about effective communication. TalentUp gives HR teams the structure and data they need to confidently engage with employees around compensation.

Here’s how:

Discover TalentUp salary platform 💡

Get any salary for any location.
Real-time trustwhorty salary data.

Share salary ranges, not exact figures
Providing bands based on market data (e.g., €50,000–€60,000 for a Mid-Level Product Manager) promotes openness without exposing sensitive individual data.

Educate managers on how salaries are set
Equip your managers with context from TalentUp so they can explain to their teams why someone is in a particular range or percentile.

Use percentile language to reinforce fairness
Phrases like “You’re currently at the P75 for your position in Madrid” help employees understand their placement and performance relative to the market.

Clear, consistent messaging increases employee understanding and decreases salary-related dissatisfaction or confusion.

Step 4: Train Managers

Managers play a key role in delivering compensation messages. TalentUp allows you to give them the tools they need to explain pay decisions with confidence and consistency.

Here’s how to make the most of this:

Use TalentUp data in performance and compensation calibrations
During review cycles, equip managers with real-time benchmarks to ensure raises and bonuses are market-aligned and equitable.

Provide managers access or tailored reports
Give managers direct access to TalentUp or share custom salary benchmarking reports for their teams. This empowers them to guide meaningful conversations with their direct reports.

Training managers to use compensation data correctly helps prevent miscommunication and keeps salary discussions grounded in facts, not assumptions.

Step 5: Enable Auditing and Compliance

Transparency also means accountability. TalentUp’s reporting and benchmarking features make it easier to conduct internal audits and demonstrate compliance with fair pay practices.

Export reports for auditing
Download structured compensation data by role, location, or department to identify inconsistencies or gaps.

Detect and address pay disparities
Regularly review salary distributions by gender, region, or role to uncover potential inequalities and take action proactively.

Support DEI and ESG reporting
Compensation transparency plays a critical role in your diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives—as well as environmental, social, and governance (ESG) metrics. TalentUp helps quantify and communicate your progress.

With these tools, you don’t just build trust—you build a culture of fairness that can stand up to external scrutiny and internal expectations.

5. Implement Salary Transparency

Cookie Settings

Your message has been sent.