Data has repeatedly highlighted the damaging effect high staff turnover and attrition can have on both the culture of a business and its bottom line, while research shows that the only way to truly close pay gaps and promote fairness is through salary transparency.
With that in mind, Figures, a real-time compensation benchmark application created to help companies power up their compensation policy and drive salary fairness, has launched Salary Bands. This platform offers European real-time compensation benchmarking tools for companies that need to attract and retain talent.
“Fair pay the simple way” is the motto of Figures, the app founded in 2020 by Virgile Raingeard and Bastien Formery.
Virgile spent his first 11 years working in HR in various industries, including three years at Criteo as HR Director for the Tech functions (FR/US). Frustrated by the lack of qualitative and reliable data on the compensation market in the start-up/scale-up ecosystem, he decided to tackle the problem, working with Bastien (CTO) to create a product around his vision. So far Figures has raised €8.4 million and in 2021, they acquired Payspective to cement Figures as the foremost salary benchmarking product.
The launch of Salary Bands is part of Figures’ ongoing efforts to bring greater fairness and more constructive decision-making to businesses across Europe. It also comes as the EU Pay Transparency Directive is adopted by the European Parliament. As part of this directive, companies will have to display applicable salary ranges on each online job posting, making structuring, updating and sharing salary ranges critical to businesses of all sizes.
Virgile Raingeard, founder and CEO of Figures, says: “Pay fairness is a hot topic at the moment and while lots of companies say they’d like to be more transparent on compensation, it’s either not that easy to do or they’re fearful of the outcome. This is not helped when their compensation strategy and decisions are blurry, inconsistent, or arbitrary. With Salary Bands, we’ve spent more than a year working with HR and industry leaders to build a tool that materially shifts the dial for businesses and their employees. One that helps them address business-critical needs while also removing the fear, uncertainty and barriers that typically come with opening up discussions around salary.”
Figures’ Salary Bands tool enables companies across the UK and Europe to promote pay fairness by defining clear and concise salary ranges across their entire organisation, including how much a company is willing to pay for each job at a given level of execution, at different locations (if applicable), and are composed of multiple salary ranges.
The bands themselves are then determined by a range of factors, including overall compensation strategy, internal fairness, company positioning compared to the external market, budgets and competitor data. Employers can set up salary bands for each role, with the ability to adjust them based on experience, location and other factors. As well, the feature will give companies the ability to share ranges seamlessly and securely with managers, employees and even candidates if they wish to, at their discretion.
With a clear framework, candidates and employees are more likely to understand and accept pay decisions because they are reassured that they’ve been made fairly. All of which builds healthier employer-employee relationships, based on trust, and boosts the engagement and retention of top talent. What’s more, Salary Bands aligns hiring plans with budgeting to make the process more straightforward and reliable.
