Compensation is the reason people turn up for work. A great company culture helps, and the value of the work itself can make a difference, but realistically, money is what keeps people coming in each day. Indeed, compensation is one of the key factors in employee wellbeing, performance, and retention. However, as revealed in BambooHR's Compensation Trends for 2025 report, things are looking somewhat bleak in this area across the United States.

In this episode, we chew over the report, talk about some of the key findings, and explain what’s going right and what’s going wrong for the employees surveyed. We discuss the data at length, talk about the divide between generations and genders, and explain how current economic conditions play into all this.

While many are pessimistic about work and compensation, fear not: there are still positives to draw on and many actionable steps that businesses can take to improve employee satisfaction and engagement.

Key moments: 

• How the uptick in dissatisfaction with pay from employees is linked to current economic conditions
• The value of salary tools such as MIT’s Living Wage Calculator
• Why transparent negotiation may be the reason Gen Z is seeing higher salary increases than other generations
• The optimum time to send out employee surveys
• Why total pay transparency is not always optimal
• How to develop a compensation philosophy
• Why leaders are seen as out-of-touch by their employees – and how leaders can prevent this
• Using data to see whether pay has been mapped right and coaching leaders in trends

Key links:

• Subscribe to HR Unplugged Series: https://www.bamboohr.com/resources/podcasts/hr-unplugged/
• Join HR Heroes Slack Community: https://join.slack.com/t/hrheroesworkspace/shared_invite/zt-21ad3f1r8-dkWC2EdmyhxUAHw9cGLdQw
• Bamboo HR Homepage: https://www.bamboohr.com/
• Compensation Trends for 2025 Report: https://www.bamboohr.com/resources/data-at-work/data-stories/2025-compensation-trends#:~:text=Average%20Salary%20Increase%20YoY&text=6.2%25-,For%20the%20second%20year%20in%20a%20row%2C%202%20in%205,42%25%20decrease%20over%20two%20years.