New Delhi: LinkedIn’s latest edition of the Workforce Confidence Index has revealed interesting insights on Indian workplace behaviours, such as the taboo around sharing pay-related information at the workplace.
Only one in 10 professionals feel comfortable discussing their salaries with coworkers they trust (13%) and peers they trust in other companies (9%). Findings also highlighted that professionals were more comfortable sharing such details with family and friends — 61% with family and 25% with friends as well.
Of these workers, roughly 72% of Gen Z and 64% of millennials would share their pay information with family members, while 43% of Gen Z and 30% of millennial workers would also confide in their close friends. Gen Z workers (23%) are also the most likely to share their pay information with co-workers they trust followed by millennials (16%) and Gen X (10%).
Gen X includes people born between 1965 to 1980 who are between the ages of 42 to 57 while Millennials are born between 1981 and 1996 and are of ages 25 to 41. Gen Z are the youngest working generation, born between 1997 to 2012.
The report also finds that 45% professionals believe that pay discussions among peers are discouraged at their workplace. Millennials (48%) and Gen X professionals (47%) are most likely to believe in such statements, followed by Gen Z professionals (42%), highlighting a generational shift in attitudes at the workplace.
Thirty six percent professionals also reportedly feel anxious discussing their pay despite believing that pay transparency would lead to better pay equality. Of these professionals, millennial workers (42%) are more likely to feel anxious than Gen Z (33%) or Gen X (32%) professionals.
Nirajita Banerjee, India Managing Editor at LinkedIn News, said, “Professionals are still not comfortable to have conversations about pay in the workplace, however our LinkedIn Workforce Confidence Index data reveals that a generational shift is at play. Family and friends remain India’s closest confidantes when it comes to sharing the size of their paychecks, but the current generation of young professionals are more willing to share pay information with their coworkers and industry peers as compared to other generations.”
However, the Indian workforce remains optimistic about navigating these challenges, with 7 in 10 professionals feeling confident about growing in their field, their work experience and education as well as possibilities of their incomes increasing. More than two in five professionals in India (41%) feel well compensated for their work and also plan to ask for a raise in the next six months. India’s younger professional generations, Gen Z (51%) lead such behaviours and millennials (51%), who are most likely to ask their boss for a raise as compared to Gen X (40%) and Boomers (26%). Boomers are those born between 1946 and 1964.
These results in LinkedIn’s Workforce Confidence Index 2022 are based on online responses of 4,684 participants between 4 June and 9 September this year. The index uses a scale from -100 to +100 to reflect the professional’s current sentiments about the job market, their financial status, career progression, and expectations of their well-being in the future. It measures how professionals feel about their job stability and access to opportunity as well as how business leaders expect to invest in their companies in the near and mid-term.
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