Full transcript: Pay Equity and Transparency (Sandrine Dorbes)

Topics covered (excerpts):It is the company's responsibility to be transparent about everything, including salaries. Women are just as good at negotiating as men; that's not the issue. They conduct eight interviews and at the end, they say to themselves: "Actually, we don't agree on the salary." At one point, there was a very strange roundtable discussion. We don't go to the same parties. That also includes employee benefits. We don't always want to give up that little bit of power. But for equivalent positions and equivalent salaries, you can have a company where you have very strong salary growth. Compensation isn't just about money, my friend. What is the biggest taboo in business today? Sex, politics, or compensation? According to one study, 63% of employees say they have no idea how much their colleagues earn. And yet, fantasies run rampant, frustrations mount, and inequalities widen. In 2026, a European directive will change the rules of the game. Minimum salary displayed in job offers, pay gap reports, right to information, penalties for discrimination. To discuss this, we are joined by Sandrine Dorbes, compensation strategy expert, speaker, author of La rémunération n'est pas qu'une question d'argent(Compensation is not just about money), published by Éditions Dunot, and founder of the firm How Much. Welcome to Beyond Work & Life. I'm Benjamin Suchar, co-founder and CEO of WorkLife. Let's get started.

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Benjamin Suchar: Hello, Sandrine. Hello, Benjamin. Thank you for accepting my invitation.

Sandrine Dorbes: Thank you for inviting me.

Benjamin Suchar: I'd like to start with a fairly direct question. Does salary transparency ultimately shed light on the value of a position or the ego of the person who occupies it?

Sandrine Dorbes: That's a very good question. For me, salary transparency... Well, before the directive, which came into force in May 2023, when people talked to me about transparency, I would say: From my point of view, transparency means answering two questions: how salaries are determined and how they will evolve over time. Since then, the directive has refined this concept of transparency. And this concept of transparency as seen by the directive focuses on the communication of information, or at least transparency and visibility around the rules that define salaries in the broad sense, not just fixed salaries. And how do these salaries evolve within the company?

Benjamin Suchar: But ultimately, this demand, this request, has become less urgent, because the directive must inevitably lead to something that was already there. Employees, managers—what do you see?

Sandrine Dorbes: The directive is not some crazy idea dreamed up by woke Brussels bureaucrats. It comes from a fairly clear historical context. Equal pay has been enshrined in law since the Treaty of Rome in 1957. So it's been around for quite some time. Since the Treaty of Rome, there have been several pieces of legislation, including a directive to address the issue of inequality, or at least the pay gap between men and women. In 2023, progress is not fast enough. I had a client who was calculating his professional equality index. He asked me: OK, how much do I need to put on the table now to get rid of wage inequality in my company? The idea was that he had an overall budget. He wanted to know how many years it would take to achieve perfect equality. The answer was several decades, assuming the same scope. That is, no one is fired, no one is brought into the company. And besides, what is equality? Do we have to bring equality into the company? There are many political and philosophical questions that complicate the implementation. I'll come back to what we were saying. In 2023, we had to reduce the pay gap between men and women. Why? Because when it comes to recruitment, ultimately, some people are better at defending their interests. Because the rules are not very clear. When you apply for a job, you never really know how much you're playing for. When you're being recruited, the recruiter will ask you: How much are you making now? And that salary will serve as a kind of anchor, to say: OK, this person is at 40. If I offer them 45, they're already making a nice gap. So there's no point in going any higher, even if my budget is 50,000. So when it comes to recruitment, we're not reducing the gap.

Benjamin Suchar: But that's because men and women will have very different views on how they should propose and ask for their salary demands, right?

Sandrine Dorbes: Beyond men and women, it's true that we often say that women don't know how to negotiate, which annoys a lot of people. Men are more likely to talk about compensation. A Harvard researcher begins her paper by explaining that she is tired of people saying that women don't know how to negotiate. Women are just as good at negotiating as men. That's not the issue. However, there is a social cost to negotiation that women have to bear, such as being seen as difficult. Negotiating for your team is very well regarded; it makes you look like a team player. But negotiating for yourself makes you look a bit selfish, like you're trying to pull the blanket over to your side. Women don't want to bear that burden, so they decide, not consciously, because that would be too simple, but unconsciously, not to negotiate, or at least not to play as hard as men might.

Benjamin Suchar: What I also observe, beyond negotiating skills, is that there is a real difference in the way men and women negotiate. That is to say, women often tend to negotiate based on their past skills, on what they have actually achieved. Whereas when you're negotiating with a man, he's more likely to focus on future projections, on what he's going to be able to achieve. And so, as a result, the gap can widen. Is that something you've experienced yourself?

Sandrine Dorbes: Yes, that's something people say a lot. There were statistics coming from who knows where, but they said that women wait until they have 110% of the skills required for a job to apply, whereas men, when they have 80%, say to themselves: OK, I'll eventually acquire the remaining 20%, so I'll give it a shot anyway. There's this thing that we see. I think it comes from... It's not genetic, it's true, it's about the socialization of women, how we raise little girls, how we welcome them into the world. I mean, when we start school, we don't treat girls and boys the same way. Today, we're aware of this and we're trying to correct it. Nevertheless, there was something that struck me, and that was Christine Lagarde in 2020. Christine Lagarde was not known for being a great feminist. She was against quotas and had quite strong views. And in 2020, she made a video for Brut, where she explained that she had had a very long career in the public and private sectors, in consulting and in industry. And that, looking back on this long career, she remembers many male colleagues who came to ask for a raise or negotiate a bonus, whereas she never had any female colleagues who did so. Very good. There is this very feminine thing that comes from education and socialization and that we reinforce in our daily lives and at work.

Benjamin Suchar: Ultimately, greater transparency also means greater gender equality. In other words, if, when you apply for a job, you are told from the outset exactly what the salary range is, whether your name is Michel or Michelle, it doesn't matter. You will aim for that range. And if you are offered the lower end of the range, you will challenge it and say, "OK, thank you, but why the lower end of the range?" And the employer will be forced to justify this position, which is not the case today. Today, you can have several interviews. When someone told me the other day about a process involving eight interviews, it made me smile. I rolled my eyes and said, "But these guys are hired by Google." And even when Google does it, it makes sense to me. You mean they do eight interviews and at the end they say, "We don't agree on the salary."

Sandrine Dorbes: It's still extremely frustrating. Yes. Eight interviews, the person invested themselves, they looked ahead, only for the salary offer to ultimately not be acceptable. And everyone wasted a lot of time. And that's extremely frustrating. Agreeing from the outset, first, will prevent those who find it difficult to negotiate from being taken advantage of, and second, it saves a lot of time.

Benjamin Suchar: Why is that happening? Do you think that in the end, people will say: With eight interviews, maybe there will be a higher proportion willing to accept the job for a lower salary?

Sandrine Dorbes: Part of me wants to answer you. They conduct eight interviews to be like Google. And the other part of me says, yes, that's true. Sometimes people say to me, "We'll manage to convince him or her." Because by seeing us over and over again, and seeing that the project is great and that we're great and that our manager is supervising, the person will accept the salary.

Benjamin Suchar: Does that ever happen?

Sandrine Dorbes: No, but it does happen, but it would be the same from the start. That is to say, someone who, from the very first interview, lays their cards on the table and says: This is how much you'll be earning. Now, do you want to continue seeing each other or not?

Benjamin Suchar: Do you think it ever happens that you fall in love with a job and are willing to lower your initial salary expectations? I might not even have gone to the interview. And in the end, something happens that makes you see prospects for the future, you finally see that your base salary could evolve much faster than in other companies. Has that ever happened to you? I've always been an entrepreneur, so has that ever happened to me? Probably not. But I think that when we first started out, we didn't have a lot of resources, and I think we succeeded, even though we didn't have salary transparency at the beginning, in allowing someone who didn't necessarily have the idea of going for such a low-level job. I remember one of my employees who became the co-founder of Work Life, named Sergio. At first, he came in for an internship that was paid for by the European Union, and he was supposed to go into consulting afterwards. He was supposed to leave completely. That was at the previous company called YouPease. He fell in love with the job and agreed to come and work at YouPs at the time for much less than he could have imagined earning. Things like that can happen, right?

Sandrine Dorbes: That can happen. Here, you're typically taking the example of someone who is already in the company, who can project themselves, who knows the ropes. That example isn't the most telling one. Yes, I think that happens, but my belief is that you can still avoid these people in the first interview. You can also change the way interviews are structured. In what order do we give information? We say: This is what we are prepared to give because this is our project. Are you curious, interested, and want to continue? Or is it a no-go for you? Those who say, "I'm curious, I'm interested," are the ones who start to do the math. They'll say, "OK, maybe this could be a step in my career that will take me somewhere else." Those who say, "No, no, no go," are the ones who can't or won't, for whatever reason, compromise on their compensation because their whole life is based on a salary and they won't leave their job for less or not much more. So my belief is really no. People who are willing to compromise can be convinced from the outset. It's not after eight interviews. That's a bit like game theory. At that point, they're so invested. Someone who, from the outset, is unable to compromise on their salary will not be able to do so after eight interviews either.

Benjamin Suchar: But in fact, I think it's up to the company to be transparent about everything, including salary. But with equivalent post and equivalent salary, you can have a company where you have very strong salary growth and another where your salary will remain the same for the next three years. Ultimately, it's also the employer's role to be able to put these elements into everything that concerns remuneration, not just salary, which I know you talk about a lot, but also how much that salary can evolve and be reevaluated quickly.

Sandrine Dorbes: That's what I was saying at the very beginning about transparency. Transparency means how my salary is determined and how it will evolve over time. And that's what the directive provides for. Because the first part is at the time of recruitment, the information must be clear. And during their time at the company, employees must have access to information about their position and salary. I earn €40,000, but why €40,000? Why not €42,000? And if I'm in grade J, what does that mean in practical terms? And if I want to move up to the next grade, what is expected of me? That's also what transparency is about.

Benjamin Suchar: But you see, it's quite interesting because I've obviously had salary negotiations many times. On the other hand, I've rarely had someone come to me in an interview and say, "On average, how much of a raise do you give each year?"

Sandrine Dorbes: That's terrible. In fact, beyond remuneration, in France, we don't really like talking about money and we don't know how to talk about remuneration because we're not taught to. Talking about remuneration is emotional, it means talking about money, and we don't like that. And it means talking about our needs, our emotions. And we don't like that either. When I talk about emotion, people immediately think, "Here we go again." Yes, yes, in HR land. No. An emotion is a signal that what is happening is OK for us or not. So when we have to talk about compensation and I'm already stressed and you say something that makes me angry, we're not just talking about money, we're talking about something deeper. What does it say about me and my desires? We're not taught how to talk about compensation, and I was having a conversation with a friend who was going for an interview, and she had no idea how much she was worth, but she had salary expectations. She didn't know what to say for her salary expectations. She said to me, "I don't know what to say." I said, "How much do you want?" I said, "I want 60." "Okay, great. Why don't you say 60?" "Because imagine if their budget is only 50, and I don't want them to close the door on me." "But if it's only 50, are you going to go for it or not?" She said, "But that's out of the question, it's not possible." So what are we talking about? Yes, because I'd like to tell them that I want 60, but I'd still be OK with less. It's not complicated. I say it in a slightly peremptory way, but in reality, we weren't taught to say: It's OK to say: Listen, today I'm asking for €60,000. Now, what was your budget and what were you thinking? Exactly. It's not because she was afraid we'd slam the door in her face. I told her: Listen, if you say that, we're not going to say: Listen, ma'am, you've completely overstepped the mark, that doesn't correspond to our values, we're ending the interview. We're going to tell her the truth. We're going to say, "No, listen, 60 is what we had in mind." We're going to say, "Oh dear, we were thinking more like 55." And then, why 55? Is it 55 because, ultimately, she might not be the right person? Maybe we're going to look for someone who is a little less competent or with a little less responsibility. Or maybe it's 55 because internal equity means that we won't put this position at more than 55. But then, that's a discussion we need to have. And then it's up to the candidate to decide whether that's OK for them or not. And that's where I remember where I was earlier, where I went off on a tangent. I'm a master of digression, so you have to be careful. There was a client who had a very strict salary scale. There is a scale that applies to everyone, and no exceptions are made. When this scale was put in place, and especially when the policy of not deviating from the scale was put in place, managers were afraid that they would lose candidates. They were worried that being too rigid would make it difficult to recruit. They realized that the opposite was true because not only did they present the scale during interviews, but they also presented the criteria for advancement, saying, "This is our scale. So if you join us, you will be here on the scale. To move up to the next level, you will have to do all of this." It usually takes a year, a year and a half, two years. And you'll be there. The criteria we expect for this position, look, boom, a template for annual evaluations, allowed people to project themselves and, as a result, there were people who asked for more, but who, in the end, had a very clear idea of where they were going and preferred to come to this company, which was very clear about these criteria and fairly transparent, rather than going to another where they would have managed to scrape together €2,000, but in the end had little visibility on developments.

Benjamin Suchar: Ultimately, the issue isn't the compensation itself, it's what lies behind it. It's not the figures, it's what comes after them.

Sandrine Dorbes: Compensation isn't just about money, my friend.

Benjamin Suchar: Okay. Precisely, as you said, there is a real taboo. And they say that after work, French people can talk about sex, but they can't talk about their salaries. Where does all that come from?

Sandrine Dorbes: It comes from many things, from our French identity. It comes from a whole socio-cultural heritage that we share from the moment we grew up in France. Ultimately, it comes from the heritage of the aristocracy. I'm going to take some big shortcuts here. Those of you listening who are very particular about historical accuracy, hang on tight, because it's going to be a bumpy ride, as I haven't been given three hours. The idea is that, during the Ancien Régime, working was frowned upon. Nobles had an income without working. So, if someone had money and lived a life of luxury, it was a bit suspicious where they got that money from. We have a cultural issue surrounding the Catholic religion, which is certainly the topic that is always on the table, but between the baptism of Clovis and the separation of church and state, we still have 1,400 years of social, political, economic, theoretical, philosophical, educational, and, of course, religious hegemony by the Catholic Church. And when you read the Bible—I don't do it every weekend, but I have leafed through it—there are lots of negative injunctions about money. My favorite one says: Don't let your life be guided by the pursuit of money; be content with what you have. That's beautiful. Don't you want to put that above the coffee machine in the break room before the annual evaluations? Be content with what you have. There are lots of things like that in our Catholic heritage, whether we're Catholic or not, whether our parents are Catholic or not, but it's part of the package that we all carry with us as French people.

Benjamin Suchar: And besides, you don't have that in Protestant culture.

Sandrine Dorbes: No, because in Protestantism, you fulfill yourself through work. And the more you work, the more money you earn, which means that God approves of your project in some way. Hence the proportion that Americans have, in terms of money and work. In their private lives, it seems to be a little more touchy, but at work, they have no problem saying how much they earn, because if they earn a lot, it's because they deserve it and there's no debate. Whereas here, often in conferences, I take this example, I say: Here, I could tell you my salary right now. I could tell you my salary. Instinctively, you're going to compare it to yours right away. It's not that you're a bad person. You're not going to do it on purpose, you're just going to compare it to yours.

Benjamin Suchar: But everyone knows that, even Americans.

Sandrine Dorbes: Of course. But as a French person, if I give you my salary and I earn the same as you, or even more, you're going to have doubts. Because it's normal, given my age, my career, my impact on society, is it normal that I earn so much? If I earn less, then you'll say to yourself: OK, what she does isn't that crazy. And people often say to me: The younger generations don't have this issue. So it's really interesting because young people, let's say those under 30, do talk about pay more easily in the workplace, but they haven't grasped the emotional aspect.

Benjamin Suchar: But also, we have to remember that it's not the same when you're starting your career, even for younger generations. Yes. Because everyone is at roughly the same level. So maybe it's even easier when you're young, right?

Sandrine Dorbes: It may be a little easier, but I was talking to a young woman. What's more, she was an apprentice, so she has a clearly defined salary scale, which makes it easier to talk about salary when there's a clearly defined scale. And she told me that she talks about salary at work. At the same time, there's a scale. She talks about salary with her family. Okay. She talks about salary with her friends. But she pauses for a moment, because friends aren't that easy. So I thought to myself: Where does this pause come from? And she said: No, but there are friends I don't want to talk about it with. I say: "Who don't we talk to about it? Who are these friends you don't talk to about money?" She says: "Actually, I have friends who are studying finance, they're also apprentices, so they also have a salary. They earn more than me, and I don't want them to think that what I'm doing isn't right. They're able to talk about it, but they still can't see that when we talk about pay or money, we're talking about something else. And the bigger the differences, the harder it is.

Benjamin Suchar: Yes. That's why it's difficult, probably not for the same position, but between the CEO and the lowest-paid person, it's also important to be able to have this discussion and for it to be transparent within the company, right?

Sandrine Dorbes: That depends on the corporate culture. I'm not sure that the amounts are always very... It's funny, this is the second time this week that someone has mentioned executive compensation to me. These are executives who have their wishes on the table. I don't think it's a coincidence. But there's always this fantasy about how much the boss earns. In one company, I drew up their compensation policy, and the two executives—it was a small company—earned $60. The two executives had to present the compensation policy and the salary scale to their team. I check in with them, and they tell me: It didn't go well at all. They give me a list of the uncomfortable questions that were asked during the session. Given the nature of the questions, I say: OK, I suggest I come. In fact, we do another session, but this time I lead it. However, I was the one who led it, I was the one who explained it. The two managers agreed, and then they were busy, so they went to do something else. They took the opportunity to take calls. This was not planned at the outset. It was really by chance that on that day, at that moment, they finally decided to go and do something else. The employees were very calm and asked very polite questions. I thought to myself: "This is what I expected." I was a little nervous going in, but I thought to myself: "Actually, everything is going well." And after a while, there was one person who was remote. There were five people remote. One remote person dared to ask the question that made the audience breathe a sigh of relief. The salary of the executives is not included in the grid. The salary of the executives is not included in the grid. And in fact, I think to myself: "Actually, all these slightly roundabout questions that people were asking were because they didn't know the executives' salaries and suspected them, somehow, of lining their pockets at the company's expense."

Benjamin Suchar: When there is transparency, you cannot apply transparency to only some of the employees.

Sandrine Dorbes: Should executive compensation be transparent? In an ideal world, I would say yes. However, if executives are not OK with it, then it's best not to go ahead with it, because there's nothing worse than doing something under duress and without being ready.

Benjamin Suchar: So what happened in your example?

Sandrine Dorbes: Yes, indeed, there is no hourly wage. In fact, one of the two managers had come back and heard the question. So he explained, he told them clearly how much he earned and how his remuneration was determined, but rightly or wrongly, in this company, there was a suspicion that somewhere, the bosses were overpaying themselves or, in any case, getting something back. I don't know where it comes from, but sometimes there are suspicions, and that's what needs to be addressed rather than giving out raw figures.

Benjamin Suchar: Very well, because that means that it's definitely the result of something, and that needs to be resolved. But so, making salaries visible ultimately makes things fairer, or makes people more jealous.

Sandrine Dorbes: My captain is right. There is no question of making salaries visible, because we are really talking about statistics. What the directive requires us to do is to produce post-equivalent averages. Now, transparency: do we want to use it as a tool, which is what it is, or are we going to make it a rule? A few years ago, I was asked about the pay scale. We have to create a salary scale, and then the salary scale blocks us, and then we can't do anything, because our scale... The salary scale is a tool that serves HR strategy. If the tool is more suitable, we change it. Salary transparency, if we make it a tool that serves cohesion, trust, and performance, can have great results. If we decide to make it a constraint and say that, according to the transparency synchrosyme, we can't do anything anymore, because if I do that, I'll have to explain to the team that I'm going to pay him more because he performs better, but I don't want to tell them because then he'll be mad at me. That's going to be complicated. So it can be something very positive, but it takes work. It can be something very positive if we embrace it and do things right. It can be quite harmful if we decide to stick with it and make it responsible for the decisions we make.

Benjamin Suchar: I see. So, you often say that ultimately, it's the negotiation bonus that creates inequality, which we talked about a little bit, but it's the people who are best at negotiating who will succeed in getting the best salaries. Do you really believe that remuneration truly reflects this ability to negotiate rather than the value of work?

Sandrine Dorbes: I think so. When I was younger, when I was a young compensation specialist and employees would say, "Anyway, when it comes to compensation, only those who ask for it get it," I would think to myself, "Come on, people are exaggerating because there are policies and rules, and we are responsible for enforcing them." As time has gone by, I've realized that no, it's actually true. Only those who ask get it. You're more likely to get it when you ask. And when you look at how companies work, it makes sense. You're a manager, you have a small budget because the economic situation isn't great. You have an employee who comes to you every week to tell you how great she is, how she's done amazing things, and how she deserves it. You're going to give them a raise because that way, you'll be rid of them for a few weeks. And what's more, you have plenty of good reasons to give them a raise. They're great, they promoted you, they did your marketing, they gave you their press release. So you already have all the talking points. I mean, I'm giving this person a raise with my tiny budget because she's great. She's great. So I'm not even doing anything horrible. Whereas if you had sat down and looked at the team members one by one, maybe you wouldn't have put her at number one, maybe number two, maybe number three.

Benjamin Suchar: So, what you're saying is that transparency will ultimately have an impact on managerial courage.

Sandrine Dorbes: Absolutely. And that's where, at a conference, there was a man who had worked for a long time at Arthur Andersen. So, a consulting firm with a very American culture. And he said: At our company, transparency was the norm and managers had to explain their decisions. When it came to raises and bonuses, he said: With the whole team, we would say that we had gotten them. And if you were the one who had received the least, you would go to the manager, ask for an explanation, and the manager had to explain very objectively why you had received less than the others. This transparency allowed everyone to defend their interests, but on the other hand, it forced managers to be very rigorous and very objective.

Benjamin Suchar: But then, shouldn't we also coach people to be able to talk about raises?

Sandrine Dorbes: What I believe is that, first, compensation policies need to be defined, meaning a set of rules that explain how salaries are determined and how they evolve over time. Then, HR staff in the field need to take ownership of this because, depending on the size of the company, you have HR staff who may be very far removed from the decision-makers, but in the field, working on the front line with employees all the time, they are not always equipped to answer questions. Managers need to be trained to answer these questions, and then the teams need to be trained, to say: These are our rules, this is how compensation works. And in my opinion, this needs to be done very regularly, because we're all a bit disingenuous about it. HR always tells me: But we've already done that. We've defined the policy. Someone even had the nerve to tell me: And it's been around for 17 years. So, Jesus, your policy is almost of age. We shouldn't be celebrating. We have a policy, it's on the intranet, we've explained the rules, we have a BSI, people have all the answers they want, which is a bit disingenuous. And on the other side, the employees say, "But we don't know anything, we don't have access to anything." So, since we're all being disingenuous, let's force ourselves to do this job to make sure that the rules still make sense. We've had the same policy for 17 years, and maybe it's time to see if there's anything that needs to be adjusted. And then to open up dialogue with the teams. At first, transparency is really scary. Once you're in, once you've done the work... In fact, what's demanding is getting started. There's a bit of a heavy initial effort involved in defining the rules and forcing yourself to talk about them. But once you do that, you're firm enough in your convictions, solid enough in your convictions to take the questions. And then there's the emotional side, which isn't easy to deal with, but it's OK to say to someone: Listen, these are the rules in the company. I understand that you're not happy with them. Unfortunately, these are the rules that apply to everyone.

Benjamin Suchar: What I hear in what you're saying is that, ultimately, transparency, or at least the structuring of a salary policy, is the result of much more general and generic HR work that you have to do within a company to provide vision and visibility and, ultimately, to enable employees to better understand their place and where they can go.

Sandrine Dorbes: Absolutely.

Benjamin Suchar: Very well. Let's talk a little bit about the directive, the European directive. I asked you whether this directive will have the same impact on all companies. Are some companies better prepared than others? Are startups today ultimately more advanced than large corporations? And you didn't answer me at all. What do you mean?

Sandrine Dorbes: Not at all. There is already a misconception that needs to be dispelled. This directive will apply to all companies, even small ones. The only significant requirement concerns reporting. The directive has eight sections. All eight sections will apply to everyone, except for the reporting section, which will apply to companies with more than 50 employees. Is that how it works, 50? It's no big deal. It happens quickly. So, first of all, it will apply to everyone. Then, there is sometimes a belief that in large groups, as they have fairly strong HR teams that are well equipped and have the tools, for them, the experience will be fairly easy. But that is not the case. Especially since in large groups, there is a culture of mobility, and in a way, the employer promise of large groups is also...

Benjamin Suchar: You mean changing jobs?

Sandrine Dorbes: Yes. When you join AXA as a customer advisor, maybe in 5 years, 10 years, or 15 years, you'll be doing a different job and you'll be able to spend your entire career at AXA doing different jobs. So, obviously, maybe at 45, you'll take a junior position, but your salary will reflect your history. And that's a whole other issue that's quite a sensitive one. Another myth is that startups have a culture of transparency, so it will be easy for them. What is easy in startups is to embrace transparency in the sense that there is still little history, even if we already have some. There is little history, there is a culture of agility. So we can put things in place.

Benjamin Suchar: And change things more quickly.

Sandrine Dorbes: On the other hand, when it comes to transparency, once again, we're talking about money. There's a strong emotional aspect to it. Transparency means relinquishing some of your power. And we don't always want to relinquish that little bit of power. Off the record, I'll give you the example of two companies that I recently followed, not five years ago, not ten years ago, no, recently, which were OK with publishing their salary scales. So anyone could see how much a marketing manager at a certain level could earn. However, what was very unclear was what was behind the levels. So in the end, we had their compensation, we had the compensation for the level above. But then, what defines my level? What is expected of me in very concrete terms? And what is expected of me to move up to the next level? That's total transparency. And these two companies told me: No, we don't want to give that out. The funny thing is that, in reality, they thought they were being transparent. There are lots of companies that say: It's fine, we have a scale, we're transparent. But no, not at all.

Benjamin Suchar: No. Transparency is how much I earn,

Sandrine Dorbes: It has been defined and how it will evolve over time.

Benjamin Suchar: Very clear. There are five key points in this directive. I would like to go over them and discuss them together. The first point, before hiring, is that the vagueness is over. Job offers will have to display a salary or at least a clear range. Does that mean that for years, some HR departments have kept it secret solely to negotiate lower salaries?

Sandrine Dorbes: Not only that. Not only to negotiate a lower price, but sometimes I have clients who say to me: Let's leave ourselves some room for opportunity. In other words, we have a job offer, and there may be people we didn't target initially who will apply, and we'll say to ourselves: This person is the right person. We wouldn't have thought of hiring someone so senior and therefore paying them so much, but in fact, we fell in love with the idea, so we went for it. And conversely, sometimes we say to ourselves, "Oh dear, he or she applied even though they're very junior, but in fact, we interview them, we feel that they are responsive, that they have enormous potential, so we take them anyway. Exactly. Whereas, yes, if we set a consistent range, say between 50 and 55, the very junior ones won't apply, and neither will the very senior ones. Whereas potentially... But that's like what we were saying earlier, it's still a minority of cases. In most cases, people don't know how much they're worth, so they find it difficult to defend their interests. So it's not just to hide it, it's also sometimes because internally, if tomorrow you have to recruit an accountant and you don't already have transparency internally, how much do you put? You have a long-standing accountant who has been there for 15 years, who we've given a small raise because it's always easier to give raises internally than externally, who is a little below par. But anyway, as long as he doesn't leave, we'll keep our fingers crossed. We're our own insurer, as I've been told before. And you have someone who joined not long ago, who is very highly paid. What range would you put on that?

Benjamin Suchar: Isn't the risk of setting huge ranges, for example between 50 and 154, too great?

Sandrine Dorbes: Some people have tried that. You have to be careful. Because often, people say to me: Yes, but Netflix did it. Yes, but you don't have Netflix's employer brand. Netflix does it, and people still apply because they want to work at Netflix. Cogip does it. We take a screenshot and post it on social media saying, "Cogip is taking the piss." So be careful with this... I understand the temptation to say, "We're going to set a very wide range, it's going to be very badly received by the public, and we may have to deal with unexpected bad buzz." Or people will say: No, I'm not even applying because the range doesn't mean anything, so they're going to hide things from me. What I've noticed is that my clients and the companies I come across that don't list the salary are doing so because they don't always know how much to put. Because internally, it's not clear, and externally, it's not clear, so they don't put a figure. Then they kind of wing it, based on people's expectations and what they were earning in their previous job. So we have an idea of the budget, but sometimes we're not sure exactly what we want to put. And also, sometimes we don't have to explain it internally. Again in the United States, there was a tweet that was quite funny. It was a girl who had taken a screenshot of a job offer from her employer with a salary range well above what she was earning. And she replied, ordering this photo, saying, "My company is recruiting my counterpart to do the same thing as me. I'm considering resigning to apply for my job, because this person is going to earn a lot more money than me." We don't want to deal with that. And yet, it's an issue. I used the example of accountants because it's an issue I'm dealing with in a company I'm currently working with, where accountants are in high demand on the market right now. What do we do? Do we do without an accountant and continue to overload the team? Do we hire an expensive accountant, but have the team sulk? Do we increase the entire team's pay, which is out of the question budget-wise, and even if we did, what would the other team think? All these questions, at the very least, need to be asked before and not after.

Benjamin Suchar: Absolutely. You know, it's interesting because I was quite skeptical at first about posting job offers with salaries. That's what we do today at WorkLife. But at first, I was tempted to, as you say, have someone very senior as someone with a lot of potential and more junior. What I realized was that there were a lot of candidates who appreciated it and who, in fact, told us: Actually, it makes the offer stand out. On the other hand, we won't have that anymore soon because all the offers will be identical. So, I don't know if it will make a real difference.

Sandrine Dorbes: What will change in the future, at least what I hope will change for companies, since we will all be publishing salaries. There will be a small market effect, we will all adjust to each other a little, and ultimately, salary will be the differentiating factor. What else are we selling? What other story are we telling? First of all, what else are we offering? Beyond the fixed salary, what overall package are we offering? Sometimes there are companies that offer a lot of things and don't mention it anywhere. And sometimes there are employees who say... Someone said to me the other day: I saw this company, they cover 100% of health insurance, but that's the bare minimum. No, it's not the bare minimum. The bare minimum is 50%.

Benjamin Suchar: Absolutely. The idea of having an individual social balance sheet where you can see all your benefits is not the same thing. If you have meal vouchers, Sustainable Commuting, a teleworking allowance, and 100% paid health insurance, at the end of the day, it really starts to weigh on your salary. And today, too few companies take advantage of these benefits to be able to highlight them in their job offers. That's what we see all the time at WorkLife. We see that companies struggle to promote these schemes. You're right about hiring, but also throughout the employee's career. And having a BSI, an easily accessible individual social report, where you can see all your benefits in one place, is obviously something that is absolutely key and that allows you, when you're thinking about looking elsewhere, to remember everything you have within your company.

Sandrine Dorbes: In my opinion, this directive will push us in that direction. Because, on the one hand, at the time of recruitment, we will have to provide a complete range, but then, during their time at the company, everyone will be able to request information about their salary position, i.e., why they are at that level, as well as the average post-equivalent salary broken down by gender. So, we will have this internal benchmark. We won't know our colleagues' salaries, but we will know the average post-equivalent and therefore be able to ask questions. And maybe there's a very good reason why we're below average.

Benjamin Suchar: Absolutely. Because if everyone is average, there is more average.

Sandrine Dorbes: There is more than an average. This will push employers to provide information and explain why we are below the average. Is it objective or not? And will that also include employee benefits? Anything that can be individualized.

Benjamin Suchar: Anything that can be individualized.

Sandrine Dorbes: Let me give you an example. I have a client who has a car policy. The car policy is public and well known within the company. There are no exceptions; it's impossible to deviate from it. So we're not going to include that in the report. I have another client with a car policy, but it's secret and at the discretion of the client. We'll have to include that because it's individualized. It depends on each person's proportion, which is negotiable. Anything that can be individualized will have to be included in the report to show the real differences in salary. Anything that is collective...

Benjamin Suchar: Yes, but it's in the company's best interest to add everything that's collective as well.

Sandrine Dorbes: It can. It will provide a true picture of remuneration. However, it will not differentiate between peers.

Benjamin Suchar: Yes, it won't be a differentiating factor. And you know, that reminds me of something. I met with a startup—since you were talking about startups earlier—and they told me: "First, we're transparent, because our pay scale is based on the concept, and second, we're extremely fair. We apply this pay scale all the time, all the time, all the time." I challenge you to find me a small pay slip. Later, I see that there are big differences in overall compensation. In fact, salaries were based on the pay scale, but if you asked for more, you could get a guaranteed bonus. So, for people who came...

Benjamin Suchar: Negotiating, there too.

Sandrine Dorbes: Negotiating, there were guaranteed bonuses that came in every year on top of the salary. So, the salaries were the same for everyone, but there were things going on behind the scenes. And that falls under the directive, or it has to be included in the statistics, or at least when you ask for the average salary for equivalent positions, that has to be included in the statistics. It also raises some quite philosophical and interesting questions. For example, we were talking about employee benefits. It turns out that at WorkLife, we gave a higher amount of benefits to parents in terms of personal services. So we wondered whether this would ultimately be easily accepted or whether having a different amount for parents and non-parents would call into question the principle of equality. And in fact, it depends a lot on people's sensibilities.

Bénédicte Tilloy: It depends on people's sensibilities. And I want to tell you that, since my clients are companies, it must depend on the corporate culture and what we want to do with it. There's a topic about compensation policies, I think, where we started with compensation policies, and they're all a bit similar. We all do the same thing. There aren't many differentiating factors. What's interesting is when you have a real bias and you own up to it. Let me give you an example. I had a company where there was an issue between two employees, two people doing the same job. They were both operators, they did the same job, they were interchangeable. There's Michel, who's been with the company for 20 years, and Michel is paid more than Kevin, who's been with the company for a year and a half. Because Michel has a seniority bonus. And Kevin thinks it's unfair to do the same job as Michel and not get the same pay. And the manager's point of view is: But that's unfair. It would be unfair if he said the same thing. Michel has been here for 20 years. And in my world, seniority is valued. Yes, in fact, we need to be very clear about what we're going to do and explain to Kevin: In this company, we value seniority. That's the way it is. You can take it or leave it, but that's the rule and we stand by it.

Benjamin Suchar: Another point in the directive concerns the correction of discrepancies. If an unjustified discrepancy exceeds 5%, the company must correct it with the employee representatives. So, in fact, will the CSEs become a review of salary policy?

Sandrine Dorbes: That's part of the risk. It's a risk, let's be honest. That's why it's important to include them in training. Earlier, I mentioned training HR, training managers, talking to employees. I think we also need to talk to social partners and explain how it works, and be quite clear about the company's resources and strategic directions. Depending on the company and the social dialogue, it can be a bit tricky.

Benjamin Suchar: And then there's another point, which is sanctions. If discrimination is proven, it's up to the employer to prove that there isn't any. Isn't all this going to turn into a legal tug-of-war?

Sandrine Dorbes: Before 1897 or 1898, I warned about the time frame involved, when someone had an accident at work, they had to prove that it was the employer's fault. There is a law that decided that no, when someone has an accident at work, it is up to the employer to prove that they did everything right to protect their employees. We come back to the same logic. Finally, now, when a person feels discriminated against, it is no longer up to him or her to prove it, it is up to the company to demonstrate that it is not the case, look at everything we have put in place. Look at our wonderful policy, look at all the communication materials, look at my evaluations. Evaluations that say that this person hasn't been very good in recent years and that's why we didn't give them a raise.

Benjamin Suchar: Very clear. Now I suggest we take a quick tour around the world to look at some salary practices, and I'd like to hear your opinion on these few countries. The first, as you might expect, is one you're probably familiar with: the Nordic countries. In Sweden or Norway, anyone can ask to see anyone else's salary; it's public information. As a result, there is little inequality and a real climate of trust. But some people compare it to Big Brother. Ultimately, we can monitor each other. There is social pressure. It also kills individual negotiations. So, is this total Nordic-style transparency a form of constant surveillance or a society based on trust?

Sandrine Dorbes: It's funny how individual negotiations are being killed off. Two people mentioned this to me recently. One man was quite vehement about it, saying, "This directive is unfair because I've been negotiating for myself my whole life. I've fought to defend my interests. It's not fair that I'm paid the same as everyone else." It's a matter of perspective. I understand that in his world, it's not fair. In the world of the directive, that's not the idea. And a woman who was less vehement said, "Listen, I don't like this directive at all. Because I negotiate with my boss every year. And in fact, when he's going to be accountable to other people, I'm afraid he won't give me as much. Again, good for her, good for him if they managed to come out on top, but the fact that he loses a non-objective advantage over others doesn't bother me. I understand. Very well. I accept that, but I...

Benjamin Suchar: But ultimately, do you think the Nordic model could be applied in France?

Sandrine Dorbes: No. No, because we're talking about two very different cultures. It won't work in France. In France, we don't disclose individual salaries. We stick to averages. If I ask for an average broken down by gender and there is only one man in an equivalent position, I don't receive the data. It is the social partners who will receive it and who will have to check that there is nothing blatantly wrong. But there is no question of revealing each other's salaries to employees.

Benjamin Suchar: Very clear. And precisely because you mention the gender pay gap, in the United Kingdom, large companies are required to publish the pay gap between men and women every year. This has brought the issue to the fore and created real public pressure, but publication alone has not changed anything. Many gaps remain, and some companies publish late without making any corrections. So, ultimately, is this annual publication, these famous reports, just social greenwashing? And how can we prevent this transparency from simply becoming a communication exercise?

Sandrine Dorbes: That's a good question. The others were good too. Thank you. In France, we already have the gender equality index. The gender equality index, which admittedly may not have revolutionized the face of equality in France. Nevertheless, there are companies that, faced with having to display a score, have made efforts to improve their score. Have they managed to improve equity internally? That's another issue, but the scores have been improved. Reporting is tedious, but what isn't measured can't be improved. And the directive stipulates that, on a post-equivalent basis, averages must be published with a breakdown by gender. So it is happening. What worries me about the directive is precisely the weight of control. Because I don't know anyone who knows anyone who has been fined. Yet there are companies that score below 75 out of 100 and could be fined. But I've never heard of anyone who knows someone whose cousin works in a business center where there's a company that So the question I ask myself is: are we really monitoring the index? And the question is: who is really going to monitor this rather ambitious reporting requirement, as defined by the directive, which will very soon apply to all companies with more than 50 employees?

Benjamin Suchar: Some directives have completely changed and defined different new positions within organizations. I'm thinking of the GDPR; today, there are people who specialize in GDPR within companies. This also places quite a few constraints on companies. But do you think there will be specialists, pay gaps, in addition to compensation and benefits managers?

Sandrine Dorbes: Listen, I come from the banking sector. It's not widely known, but the banking sector is highly regulated, particularly in terms of remuneration. Banks have specialists, super specialists in banking regulations, who deal with remuneration issues. So yes, of course, it's going to create a lot of work and therefore require people to work on it full time. What we don't see is that this directive is really just the tip of the iceberg. We talk about salaries, but in fact, there's everything that lies beneath. Employees will have the right to request the resources of an equivalent position. The vision of the person who wrote this in the directive and the vision of most employees is that HR will receive the request and it will be like in American movies. She will turn to her computer, type frantically, and the data will come out. We know that's not the case. When we have to do reporting in a company, we do these little extractions, we clean up the database we've just extracted, we do the stats, we challenge the stats. There are always things to correct, and it takes time. So the salary part, yes, but the data part is colossal. And I have companies that I work with that are currently beefing up their data capabilities. They're not ready yet. No. People have to constantly clean up the data to ensure that the reports can be produced correctly. People say to me: Yeah, but most of the reports will be done by the DSN. But the DSN is the same principle. I had a boss who used to say, I'm sorry, it's not elegant, but it's very telling, shit in, shit out. So, if the payroll data isn't clean in terms of job titles and levels, there's no reason why the DSN, or rather, the reports generated via the DSN, should be clean either. And you see, when it comes to data, if someone asks for the average, HR will have two months to provide it. Two months is a long time. So, if we're a day late, employees will really think we're messing with them. Whereas we know that two months is the limit for providing the data, but employees won't understand why it takes more than two months to provide data.

Benjamin Suchar: Very clear. Ultimately, won't this transparency also help to recognize the value of individual contributors? Because often, you see, you have a pyramid, with managers who are better paid than those they manage. Ultimately, we will also be able to show that some employees who do not have management roles can have higher salaries. It will be more transparent and will also allow for greater recognition.

Sandrine Dorbes: It depends on the company and what it wants to implement as part of its HR strategy, yes. But earlier, you said: We're going to kill negotiation, we're going to kill negotiation on issues that have no value for the company. Saying: For a company, unless you're recruiting salespeople. But what does it bring to the job that the person is able to negotiate for themselves? That's not what the company... Maybe there are companies that value that. And if that's the case, then it's OK to say: We need to put it in writing. In our company, we value the ability to negotiate for oneself, and you value it, so you won't be contravening the directive. But if we admit that no, it's not an objective argument, people who aren't used to drawing attention to themselves will have more tools at their disposal to defend their interests. And I want to say, I'm sorry if this sounds a little naive, but it's in the company's best interest.

Benjamin Suchar: So tomorrow, managers will also have to be able to explain pay gaps. As you said, that creates a greater emotional burden. We won't have managers anymore, will we?

Sandrine Dorbes: That's a problem. It's a problem because in the companies I work with, managers are sometimes... They're not very courageous, regardless of gender, but I often find them a little overwhelmed and ill-equipped, for many reasons. But I find that most of the time, they don't even have time to do their job as managers. That is to say, they also have an operational role that keeps them very busy, and doing management work doesn't seem to bring any short-term benefits to the company. So we put it aside a little, and we do management when we have time or when we're forced to. Typically, annual reviews are always a very emotional, very charged thing that managers hate, which always takes forever for a result that's not that great. Because you don't want to upset your team, everyone is pretty much OK. And everyone will put in their evaluations that everything is OK. And when HR sees that, they'll say, "Benjamin, I don't understand, you told me that things weren't great with Olivier." No, well, yes, but I told him. I didn't write it down because it's fine, we're not animals, but I swear, I told him. And that's part of my exberg because tomorrow, Olivier will say, "But I'm being discriminated against." How do you prove that he's just not performing well, but that it's not a matter of discrimination since we've written it down everywhere?

Benjamin Suchar: It should be part of the annual review. We need to include our real expectations in the annual review. It's not just a continuous process throughout the year. In politics, we need to say: This is what we expect from people, in plain language. This is what we expect from people, and in interviews, we really need to take stock. That way, when someone says, "I'm being discriminated against," we can say, "No, you're not being discriminated against. Look, you haven't been at your best this year, but next year will be better."

Benjamin Suchar: Very clear. Let's move on to the question: What is the consequence? Mean or clever. Let's play a little game. I'm going to suggest some radical measures on salary transparency that certain companies could implement. You tell me if it's petty, clever, or both. First measure: introduce a regional coefficient into the salary scale, 1.2 for Paris, 0.8 for Limoges, including a high-speed rail bonus, and achieve perfect pay equality to eliminate perceptions related to teleworking and geographical equity or inequity. Petty, clever, or both?

Sandrine Dorbes: Smart. Personally, I have no problem with regional coefficients as long as we accept them. It's no secret that life in Paris, Lyon, Bordeaux, and now Nantes is more expensive than in Melun or Chambourcy. There are places where the cost of living is higher, and if the company wants to compensate for that, I'm fine with it. Now, how do we acknowledge this? We just have to say it and acknowledge it. And compensating for teleworking is also a real choice. It's a question of asking ourselves: Do we believe in teleworking or don't we? Is teleworking an advantage or not?

Benjamin Suchar: Organize a giant speed dating event within the company where everyone reveals their salary face to face in order to quickly get through this uncomfortable but necessary step and begin the work of reducing inequalities.

Sandrine Dorbes: I'm afraid that introducing speed dating will cause more frustration than anything else, because once, at a conference, a young man, a student, asked me how much I earned. I said to him, "Listen, I'm a bit annoyed because I've been explaining to you for the last 45 minutes that remuneration is a sensitive subject. We don't like to talk about it. What wasn't clear?" He said, "No, but you're all about transparency and you don't want to be transparent. So your non-answer is an answer in itself." I can talk about my compensation with people who do the same job as me, whom I know a little, whom I trust a little, and with whom I share a common world. But why would I talk about my compensation with Christelle Delacontat during a speed dating event?

Benjamin Suchar: I understand. Creating an index of... What is it? It's transparency with premium badges for exemplary companies, an annual ranking, information in newspapers. Mean, clever, or both?

Sandrine Dorbes: Petty. Yet another label, yet another badge to buy, yet another expense for companies, yet more reporting, yet more... I think we have a lot of work to do, we have a lot on our plate. No, I won't be on the scoreboard.

Benjamin Suchar: We're going to move on to the dystopia or utopia sequence. You have two questions in front of you. I'll let you choose a card and show it to the camera.

Sandrine Dorbes: Utopia.

Benjamin Suchar: Utopia. Listen, the European directive on wage transparency has been fully adopted, but more importantly, it has been understood as an opportunity. Rather than instilling fear, it has opened up a new horizon of shared trust. In companies, salaries are no longer secrets, but benchmarks. Every employee knows the pay scale for their position, the criteria for advancement, and the steps to take. Instead of imaginary jealousy surrounding its adoption, dialogue has taken hold. Understanding why a particular position pays more, how to acquire the skills needed to get there, how to progress together. Managers no longer fear being judged. They explain, support, and take responsibility for their decisions, and employees are no longer condemned to suspicion. They know, they can plan ahead, they have confidence. Transparency then becomes a driver of fairness, a catalyst for attractiveness, and a force for engagement. It transforms the company into a place where value is no longer imposed from outside, but co-constructed by everyone. Sandrine Dorbes, if this future became a reality, what profound benefits do you see for companies, but also for society as a whole?

Sandrine Dorbes: The profound benefit that I see is that yes, this directive is the directive on salary transparency, and that in the coming months and years, we will talk a lot about it. But eventually, we will no longer talk about salaries. If it's objective and public information, it's no longer an issue. Because when I come to the interview, I know exactly what you're going to offer me. But in fact, we're finally going to talk about the real issues. Am I interested in the company and the project? Am I the right person to support the company's growth? And we'll stop negotiating over $2,000 because I want it, because I feel that once we reach this utopian level, which I believe is possible, although not everywhere, because the issue is more complex, unfortunately, there are companies where we will achieve this level of transparency. We'll talk about things other than salary.

Benjamin Suchar: And beyond the company, do you think it can have an impact on society?

Sandrine Dorbes: I'm not sure. We don't say to ourselves: We're very different from Swedes because they talk about their salaries. And Americans are the same, it's a bit anecdotal. The Chinese too. Earlier, you were talking about the French, saying it's easier to talk about sex than money. It was a Chinese woman who made that comment to me. She was expatriated to France and she was very shocked. One day, at an after-work gathering, there were no dirty jokes, but there were references to sex. She was very, very shocked. But she said to herself: OK, now that we're talking about sex, I'm going to talk to them about money. And she said: "Then I saw that my colleagues were even more shocked than I was that I dared to talk to them about pay. So, I don't know if that will change. Maybe we'll become a little more confident and we'll stop comparing and judging each other, and judging ourselves sometimes, and pay will be just one factor among many others." I had a friend who told me about a party where, at one point, there was a very strange round table discussion—we don't go to the same parties—where people started telling each other how much they earned. And when that happened, she didn't dare tell them, and since she arrived at the end when everyone had already given their salary, she didn't dare say: I really don't want to, it makes me uncomfortable. She said how much she earned, and it turned out that she was the one who earned the least that evening. The next day, she felt terrible. She felt humiliated. It was a bit extreme, but maybe, to come back to what you were saying, in the future, she'll feel less like that.

Benjamin Suchar: To conclude, I'll take up a phrase you said. You said: "Remuneration is not just a question of money, it's a question of recognition, dignity, and meaning." That's a phrase of yours. Ultimately, the problem is not that we earn too little, but that others earn too much.

Sandrine Dorbes: When I say that compensation isn't just about money, I mean two things. First, whether you're a manager or an employee, when you think of compensation, you think of salary. But compensation is everything that costs the company money and benefits the employees. So most of the time, we focus on our salary and forget about everything else. This includes tangible benefits, but also other benefits related to the work environment and the time we have at our disposal. I am currently working with a company in the social and solidarity economy that has very limited resources. What it offers its employees is, first, meaning, and second, time.

Benjamin Suchar: Skills-based sponsorship.

Sandrine Dorbes: No, not necessarily skills-based sponsorship, but there are people who work 80% of the time, which is much lighter. Working hours can be made more flexible depending on each other's constraints. That's what's interesting, that in this company, employees say: Yes, OK, we're not paid very well, but on the other hand, our hours are flexible enough to accommodate other needs we have in our lives." It's their first simple feather plucker, and that's OK. What I mean is that compensation isn't just about salary, it's about everything else that goes with it. The second thing I'm implying is that compensation isn't just a technical issue, it's also an emotional issue. Someone who comes in asking for a raise wants money, but that's not all. The key is to find out what I'm looking for when I come in asking for a raise. Is it a need for recognition? Is it a need for power? Is it a need to feel that I am growing? Is it the feeling that I am being treated unfairly and therefore I want this unfairness to be reduced? I knew a company where there was a huge clash within a team. One person had never complained about his salary because he was convinced he was being paid correctly. One day, he found out that this was not the case. He was earning much less than the other people in his team. He lost his temper. Even though he had never complained about his salary. For him, the salary was OK. But it was his need. So he lost his temper, and we gave him a raise. He was still very unhappy. The problem wasn't the money, it was the need for... He thought he was being treated fairly, and that wasn't the case. In a way, we broke the contract of trust.

Benjamin Suchar: And besides, absolutely, I see that the problems stem more from relative compensation than absolute compensation. When at one point we had to tighten our belts to get from one year to the next and be careful with the budget, and the increases weren't high, there weren't too many problems. On the other hand, when there were years when there were large increases, but the gap was significant and seemed unjustified, even if we had a nice increase in absolute terms, if it was less than someone else's, whether we judged that to be right or wrong, but equivalent in terms of impact and effort, we could end up with real managerial problems.

Sandrine Dorbes: In terms of compensation, this is called the theory of equity. In other words, we are constantly weighing up what we think we contribute—and what we think we contribute isn't necessarily what we actually do—against what we receive in return. We calculate a small ratio, a small equity ratio, and we compare this ratio with our colleagues. We imagine what our colleagues contribute and what we imagine our colleagues receive.

Benjamin Suchar: And what his colleagues are willing to say.

Sandrine Dorbes: It's a sensitive subject because I feel that there isn't much objectivity. And in fact, when you feel that there is too much imbalance, you take action. So sometimes, the action is to sulk, which is already an action. Sometimes it means working a little less to try to restore balance, to bring the issue back into focus. Okay, I'll work a little less. Sometimes we'll leave. There's that thing. Anyway, all this to say that when it comes to compensation, there's this thing called the theory of equity. What am I contributing? What am I getting? And what do I think of others?

Benjamin Suchar: Thank you, Sandrine, for sharing your vision.

Sandrine Dorbes: Thank you. And thank you for watching this episode. Feel free to share, like, and comment so you don't miss a thing. See you soon for our next debate.

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