When pay transparency laws started going into effect about five years ago, employers had to decide what level of transparency was right for their organizations.

A common fear was that disclosing too much information—beyond the stated requirements of publishing expected salary ranges for open roles—could prompt employees to become dissatisfied with their pay, and lose motivation in their jobs.

But recent research suggests that learning what the typical employee earns at a firm actually boosts pay satisfaction among average rank-and-file workers.

These findings may be helpful for HR teams at organizations that are weighing whether to make additional salary information available to their employees.

For more on the findings, and what they mean for HR strategy, keep reading here.—CV

A new buzzword has hit the collective consciousness.

“Quiet cracking” describes the feeling of increased disengagement and unhappiness among employees who, amid a weakened labor market, feel stuck at work, Business Insider reported. More than half of employees feel unhappy at work either frequently (20%) or occasionally (34%), research from learning management system company TalentLMS found.

While employee dissatisfaction isn’t new, economic turmoil, AI uncertainty, and return-to-office mandates have pushed the workforce into this new era, according to Rishad Tobaccowala, futurist, business leader, and author of Rethinking Work.

“Right now, [employees] are basically saying, ‘This sucks, but there’s nothing I can do about it,’ so that’s why you have this quiet cracking going on,” Tobaccowala told HR Brew.

For more on what HR needs to know about quiet cracking, keep reading here.—MC

How prepared are new accountants to enter the workforce? Depends on who you ask.

Early-career accountants tend to think their skills are pretty solid, according to a new survey by the Illinois CPA Society (ICPAS). Their managers, you may be surprised to hear, don’t exactly agree.

ICPAS surveyed 185 staff with five years’ experience or less in accounting and finance, and 285 managers who supervised early-career accounting and finance staff. Across a set of 37 skills, early-career accountants rated themselves an average of 7.39, on a 10-point scale. But the managers gave the new accountants an average of just 4.95 across the board. On every single skill, new accountants rated themselves higher than managers did.

For more on the skills and perception gaps in accounting, keep reading on CFO Brew.—CV

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