In November 2019, GEiHP attempted an experiment in collaborative transparency by inaugurating an open salary-sharing spreadsheet for Jewish communal professionals. Approximately 1% of all Jewish professionals in the United States participated in this effort to create a resource for benchmarking salaries and engaging in market research, as part of a communal reach toward pay equity. Since 2019, so much about our Jewish communal ecosystem has changed, but salaries have not yet changed substantially. Salary transparency norms–and laws–are rapidly changing, and our belief in transparency is firm.
The Open Salary Spreadsheet invites data shared by full-time employees across the North American Jewish communal workforce. Sharing salary and benefits data lifts up the power of transparency and builds a culture of trust and participatory community, as it works to create pay equity and narrow wage gaps. In doing this work, we hand the tools of transparency to Jewish communal professionals. We invite you to contribute by sharing your data.
You have questions. We have answers.
And if you have a question that we haven't answered,
Our Goals
01
To understand the real value of work.
02
To amplify a spirit of transparency that cultivates equity, trust and collaboration
03
To use knowledge and data to support equitable compensation processes
Many employees across the Jewish communal sector feel they need more information about how compensation works at their organizations, including how salaries, raises and advancement are constructed, and plans to improve and structure compensation processes in the future. While we know that everyone wants to earn more, what we see is that employees want to know that the ways in which they are being compensated are equitable and fair.
Our goals are simple:
to understand how work is valued, amplify transparency, and to lift up data as a resource in a variety of these processes.
In November 2019, The Gender Equity in Hiring Project attempted an experiment in collaborative transparency by inaugurating a salary-sharing spreadsheet for Jewish communal professionals.
In less than 6 weeks, over 700 individuals contributed their data. The data was analyzed, shared, and offered to the community in various formats, including a public presentation and articles (see resources below). Our short-term goal was to provide a resource for benchmarking salaries and engaging in market research, in our communal striving toward pay equity--and for those organizations seeking to engage in benchmarking salaries.
However, over time, we noted an increased enthusiasm for this experiment in radical transparency, and a collective desire to both continue experimentation and learn from the experience of transparency. Since 2020, up to 115 users a month have accessed the Open Salary Spreadsheet data, and have utilized the information from this resource to engage in negotiations, restructuring their compensation, and conversations about salary with colleagues. Of course, over time, this has created certain challenges, and we appreciate that some organizations and individuals are not yet ready to be transparent with their compensation or their compensation philosophies. Yet as more states and localities move toward salary transparency, and as we understand that pay equity is a vital place to begin to close wage gaps, this is a place to begin to address individual questions and systemic questions about pay, and a tool for creating conversation and change. We recognize that transparency is at the heart of what we all seek--and that striving for that clarity in our organizational processes and in our conversations with one another is at the foundation of this work.
In November 2019, The Gender Equity in Hiring Project attempted an experiment in collaborative transparency by inaugurating a salary-sharing spreadsheet for Jewish communal professionals.
In less than 6 weeks, over 700 individuals contributed their data. The data was analyzed, shared, and offered to the community in various formats, including a public presentation and articles (see resources below). Our short-term goal was to provide a resource for benchmarking salaries and engaging in market research, in our communal striving toward pay equity--and for those organizations seeking to engage in benchmarking salaries.
However, over time, we noted an increased enthusiasm for this experiment in radical transparency, and a collective desire to both continue experimentation and learn from the experience of transparency. Since 2020, up to 115 users a month have accessed the Open Salary Spreadsheet data, and have utilized the information from this resource to engage in negotiations, restructuring their compensation, and conversations about salary with colleagues. Of course, over time, this has created certain challenges, and we appreciate that some organizations and individuals are not yet ready to be transparent with their compensation or their compensation philosophies. Yet as more states and localities move toward salary transparency, and as we understand that pay equity is a vital place to begin to close wage gaps, this is a place to begin to address individual questions and systemic questions about pay, and a tool for creating conversation and change. We recognize that transparency is at the heart of what we all seek--and that striving for that clarity in our organizational processes and in our conversations with one another is at the foundation of this work.
Read More About Our 2019 Open Spreadsheet Experiment
An Invitation To Transparency: Reflections on an Open Salary Spreadsheet (January 5, 2021), Sara Shapiro-Plevan and Rabbi Rebecca Sirbu
The Truth No One Wants to Hear (December 18, 2019) Anonymous
http://ejpprod.wpengine.com/the-truth-no-one-wants-to-hear/
Jewish Nonprofit Employees Are Sharing How Much They Make in A Google Spreadsheet (November 20, 2019) Molly Boigon https://forward.com/news/breaking-news/435115/google-spreadsheet-jewish-nonprofit-gender-pay-gap-salary-negotiation/
Anonymous Spreadsheet Shines Light On Jewish Professionals’ Salaries (November 19, 2019) Shira Hanau