When you can’t compete on salary, how do you attract great talent?

Determining the ‘right’ salary for employees requires developing a multi-pronged employee value proposition that go beyond just remuneration, writes Leonie Green.

In short:

• This article outlines four key points to help law firm set the ‘right’ salary.

• Firms are advised to focus on culture, employee development and a sense of belonging.

• Employee value propositions are most effective when they are unique to a firm.

If you are striving to attract top talent without the leverage of competitive salaries, you might find inspiration from an unexpected source – the animated classic Kung Fu Panda. The unlikely hero of the movie, Po, embodies the essence of a firm that competes above its weight class through a distinct sense of identity and unique market offerings.

Salary is by no means the main or sole currency to attract or retain talent. To be clear, though – salary is relevant, if not foundational, so let us deal with it first, and then we can come back to being Po.

I have often considered how salary connects to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, with salary representing the foundational need for security. We need to get the salary ‘right’ for the employee. That is, we need to meet the security need. Otherwise, anything we provide on top of it by way of other benefits will fail to tap into the discretionary effort we need from our employees to ensure our firm reaches its own self-actualisation.

When salary is not ‘right’ (I will explain what I mean by that in a moment), it will always be ‘wrong’, which means we will have employees who are not fully engaged, at best, and, at worst, who are actively disengaged.

Salaries need to be ‘right’ for the employees and the firm’s owners. Otherwise, we will have firm owners who are frustrated with what they are paying and not feeling they are getting the full benefit or output from the employee or employees in exchange. We should always be seeking the unique-for-our-firm win-win balance when it comes to salary.

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