Month: September 2022


Establishing fairness in pay involves careful and thoughtful decision-making that is not as straightforward as simply assigning the same salary to all employees in the same position. Staff development is never uniform. Employees develop at different paces, with some gaining skills and experience around specific areas of the job faster than others. To ensure fairness and equity through pay, employers need to carefully assess the unique skills and knowledge of each employee, while providing clarity in approach.

Clarity in Pay Through Transparency

Historically, disclosing one’s salary has always been considered private and taboo. Salaries have always been an emotional and sensitive subject, as it is typically associated with one’s value to the company.  According to this LinkedIn article, one of the reasons for keeping wages and salary ranges private is that companies want to keep the status quo. They are afraid to upset employees which can inevitably happen when pay gaps in the organization are exposed. But the reality is that every organization will have pay gaps, and a major step in eliminating those gaps is through transparency.

In recent years, both lawmakers and leading companies have been addressing gender and race-related pay gaps through laws and compensation policies. In 2006, Denmark introduced legislation that required companies to disclose wage statistics between men and women with the same job if the company has more than 10 men and women working in the same position. In this study done by Professor Morten Bennedsen from the Economic Institute at the University of Copenhagen and INSEAD Business School in France, the law appears to have decreased the pay gap between men and women by 13%. In Canada, public sector employers are required to disclose salaries and benefits of employees that are paid $100,000 or more in a year which led to a 30% drop in the gender pay gap according to a study by the National Bureau of Economic Research .

In Birches Group, we too, believe and practice transparency in pay which is demonstrated through a couple of ways. First, the company’s salary scale is published to all staff. All employees are allowed to see the salary ranges not only for their grade level, but also others. Simply making our salary scale public allows everyone in the organization to see predictable movement within each grade level, the difference between one grade level to the next, and possible career progression for each role.

Second, our compensation policies on setting pay, variable pay movement, and milestones to determine promotion readiness are made clear as part of the company’s onboarding process and refresher trainings are regularly provided to all staff. When organizations make it clear how employees are paid and how they can chart their careers, staff feel more empowered to take equal ownership of the level and pace of their development, positively contributing to employee retention, while holding the organization accountable to provide clarity to their employees on how they are assessed and recognized.

Fairness and Equity in Pay by Measuring Staff’s Skills & Knowledge

Managing pay increases has always been a complicated process. People want to be paid according on their level of experience, but traditional approaches have never allowed managers to clearly measure experience apart from time (through time-based “steps” in the salary scale) or performance (through merit pay).

Using time-based steps or increments was never effective in recognizing one’s experience. As long as an employee completes another year with their employer, they get one or two steps in their pay regardless of whether they do their job or not. Merit pay, on the other hand, allows for variable pay movement based on the employee’s performance ratings from the preceding year. While this approach was designed to award pay increases to employees with good outputs and results, using performance ratings is not reliable because it doesn’t guarantee the same results the following year. When performance is used to drive pay increases, the organization is essentially rewarding an employee’s one-time achievement with a salary increase forever.

To truly establish equity in the workplace, we at Birches Group, believe pay movement should be based on the level of skills and knowledge the employee brings to the company. Over time, as an employee acquires and demonstrates new levels of skills and knowledge, their capacity to perform their job becomes better, making it a more effective and objective way to drive pay increases.

A big challenge to employers has always been how to measure one’s experience – “How do I know, what you know?” Birches Group has come up with a framework and an assessment tool that can explicitly measure your employees’ skills and knowledge. Using our Community™ Jobs approach as the underlying foundation, Community™ Skills consists of a progression of five skills stages across six indicators which is used to measure the continuous growth of an employee within their job.

Through Community™ Skills, pay management policies can be developed and aligned to use skills and knowledge growth to drive variable pay movement. Community™ Skills can also be used to demonstrate equity and fairness through deliberate developmental assignments for staff, as well as providing an objective criterion for succession planning and promotion decisions.

Pay equity and transparency in the workplace doesn’t happen overnight. Companies must take active steps to ensure clarity around pay management policies, as well as standards on how employees are assessed and developed. Birches Group has extensive experience developing compensation policies for organizations across different sectors and markets. Our Community™ Skills tool can help organizations assess the capacities in their workforce, facilitate pay movement, as well as guide learning and development assignments. Contact us to learn how we can improve your talent management programs today.


Kai works in our Marketing Team in Manila. She creates online content around Community™ concepts and assists in developing promotional campaigns answering why Community™ should be each organization’s preferred solution, focusing on its simplicity and integrated approach. She has had years of experience in social media content creation handling different brands over the years.

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Birches Group has been keeping track of the volatile economic conditions in Zimbabwe and wants to share updates on the current labor market conditions there.  

Waning trust in local currency 

Al Jazeera reports that Zimbabwean authorities are struggling to pull the Southeast African nation from the grip of a severe economic crisis characterized by a rapidly devaluing local currency. Trust in the Zimbabwean dollar (Zimdollar) has been low after people saw their savings depleted by hyperinflation in 2008. Our July 2022 salary survey of the Zimbabwe labor market notes that the economy had dollarized between 2009 and 2019. 

Although the Zimdollar was reintroduced in February 2019, it continues to be sidelined in favor of the United States dollar (USD). Businesses and individuals see the USD as more acceptable overseas and better at holding long-term value. Because the Zimdollar became untradeable outside the country, employers were required to start paying salaries in USD.  

Local media outlets such as NewsDay have confirmed that demand for USD salaries has increased across economic sectors. In an opinion piece for New Zimbabwe, African affairs expert Teresa Nogueira Pinto writes, “There are now increasing fears that the country will experience another hyperinflation crisis as in 2008.”  

An exceptional situation 

Our Market Monitor categorizes labor market conditions according to six levels of volatility. Since mid-July, Zimbabwe has been classified as Level Five, indicating a prevailing practice to denominate salaries in USD or Euros. In our most recent salary surveys of the country, we have further noted that employer participants across sectors (including the NGO sector) now denominate and pay salaries in USD. This includes cash and in-kind benefits. 

However, our latest surveys indicate little to no market movement since February. We have not observed any activity in our multi-sector salary survey. But as of July 2022, we have seen minimal movement in our NGO salary survey: pay rates for support-level staff increased by 1.9% and at the professional or managerial level by 0.2%. Nevertheless, inflation has continued to soar in the triple digits since May. The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, the country’s central bank, reported an annual inflation rate of 256.9% in July from 191.6% in June. 

Next steps for employers 

It is vital to have policies and procedures to keep pay programs functioning and maintain business continuity in countries like Zimbabwe, where the labor market is unstable. A Special Measures Policy should be established to determine the triggers for updating salaries and benefits. In addition, organizations must decide how they plan to implement the next steps for their staff. Employees need to know that they can rely on their employer to assist them during times of crisis.

How we can help 

We at Birches Group have extensive expertise in developing Special Measures Policies for organizations across different markets and sectors. Contact us today to find out how we can create one for you. 

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Birches Group wants to provide updates on the current labor market conditions in Ukraine, where the situation has been volatile.

Nearly six months under siege

Russia’s armed attacks against neighboring Ukraine show no signs of ending, and fighting intensifies after months of escalated conflict, said Rosemary Di Carlo, United Nations (UN) Under-Secretary-General for Political and Peacebuilding Affairs, at a UN Security Council briefing in late July. As the 2022 Russia-Ukraine conflict soon enters its sixth month, attention is increasingly turning to longer-term humanitarian, recovery, reconstruction, and socio-economic impact.

The war in Ukraine has prompted a massive outpouring of support since it began on February 24. The UN and its humanitarian partners have offered aid to 12 million people. Help has come from food and livelihood assistance, protection services, mine clearance, and clean water and sanitation access. Emergency hygiene items, health care, mental health care, and shelter have also been provided to Ukrainians directly affected by the conflict.

The UN Refugee Agency estimates that nearly one-third of Ukrainians have been forced to evacuate their homes. Over 11.1 million people have fled Ukraine’s borders; within the country, over 6.6 million people remain displaced.

Global NGOs respond

The global humanitarian response to the crisis has been swift and dynamic. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said at least 250 local and international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) were helping in the aid response—a number that has more than doubled from before the war. An ACAPS report noted that international NGOs have scaled up their humanitarian operations in and around Ukraine in recent months. They are settling in for the long haul while developing recovery and reconstruction plans.

For example, the Médecins Sans Frontières team has almost quadrupled, with more than 650 staff. Save the Children International, whose Ukraine program was one of its smallest worldwide, is now set to become one of the largest.

Although the aid response has been positive, it has not been without challenges.

Challenges facing NGOs

As the Ukraine crisis pushes on, so has the demand for people with the skills and experience to fill critical humanitarian and development roles, Devex reports. With pledges to support Ukrainians continuing to be announced, Devex also notes a steady flow of job opportunities for development professionals. Among the international NGOs actively hiring in response to the invasion are Catholic Relief Services, HelpAge International, International Medical Corps, Red Cross and Red Crescent partners, Chemonics International, and Oxfam International. Response program managers, coordinators, and directors are among the advertised positions on job boards.

Next steps for employers

NGOs and commercial development organizations seeking to expand to or scale up their activities in Ukraine will need salary survey data. Salary survey data is a vital component in recruiting and hiring new staff. It helps organizations understand the market, identify key employees and potential talent, and ultimately make better decisions. Without this data, organizations are left in the dark and are unable to identify opportunities or assess talent.

Salary survey data can be used to benchmark compensation packages against the local market and help make informed decisions about how to retain employees. Survey data can also help organizations determine an appropriate salary for current staff, as well as the market rate for positions when hiring new people.

How we can help

We at Birches Group survey leaders in over 150 countries with a consistent methodology designed for developing markets such as Ukraine. We survey labor markets of different sizes, focusing on leading employers that set market trends. Our survey data empowers you to benchmark positions in local markets and to create salary structures tailored to each country’s requirements while conforming to global standards.

Speak with our consultants and experts to understand our data and how to use it for your organization today.

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