Pay transparency for job postings
Table of Contents
Last updated: August 14, 2025
Overview
Washington state law requires the University to disclose in job postings for staff and student positions the pay range or fixed (if only a fixed wage is offered for the job opening) and a general description of all benefits and other compensation to be offered to the hired applicant. Additionally, upon request, an employee in a staff or student position offered an internal transfer or promotion must be provided with the wage scale or salary range of their new position.
To ensure compliance with pay transparency posting requirements, hiring managers should—as part of planning for a recruitment and before posting a position—identify the pay range or fixed wage to be offered the hired applicant and collect information to include in the listing of other compensation.
Job posting
A job posting is an announcement intended to recruit job applicants for a specific available position that includes qualifications for desired applicants. This includes recruitments done directly by the UW or indirectly through a third party and includes electronic and hard copy postings. Examples include, but are not limited to, jobs posted through Workday, Handshake, listservs, websites such as LinkedIn or Indeed, department webpages and hard copies placed on physical bulletin boards or given to potential applicants.
Advertising that links to a job posting is often part of a recruitment strategy. Job advertisements that do not list qualifications or refer to a specific position are not required to include the wage, benefits and other compensation.
The following social media examples are not considered a job posting:
- “Custodian jobs available. Apply now online.”
- “My team is hiring a Grants Manager! Find out more and apply online.”
Pay range
The pay range that is disclosed in a job posting is intended to provide applicants with the most reasonable and genuinely expected range of compensation for the job. If a job posting does not offer a fixed wage, it must use a range with a minimum and maximum.
Values outside the range
Hiring range maximums outside of the default associated with the job profile for professional staff postings require Compensation office approval prior to posting. Compensation office approval is also required prior to posting hiring ranges for professional staff positions Grade 11 and above.
The Compensation office cannot approve offers outside of the pay range advertised on job postings. Hiring managers should take the following steps to ensure that posted pay ranges are competitive and accurate:
- Advertise pay ranges that are broad enough to accommodate variations in experience that qualified candidates may bring to the position and account for any flexibility you may afford should a finalist counteroffer.
- Establish processes for regularly reviewing posted pay ranges to make sure they are accurate and competitive and request that your recruiting office partner update the job posting if needed. This is especially important if you are working on an extended recruitment over many months. While your recruiting office partner cannot revise the pay range in job postings to accommodate an offer to an identified finalist, they can update the range as needed during a recruitment as described above.
- Communicate the posted pay range to search team members when candidates are referred. This will ensure candidates receive consistent and accurate information.
- Review the pay range with candidates during both the phone screening and interview processes.
Updating pay ranges
If the pay rate or range changes after publishing a job posting, the posting must be updated to reflect the changed information. Circumstances for changes may include:
- Pay range revisions because of collective bargaining, new salary surveys, or minimum wage laws.
- A recruitment strategy where the hiring range is revised to further build an applicant pool.
General description of all benefits and other compensation
A general description of all benefits should provide the applicant with the most reasonable and genuinely expected benefits to be offered to the hired candidate. These may include health care benefits, retirement benefits, the number of paid days off and other benefits that must be reported for federal tax purposes.
Other compensation may include forms of compensation that would be offered to the hired applicant in addition to their base pay such as overtime, premiums, differentials, recruitment incentives and standby and/or callback pay.
The total monetary value of benefits and other compensation does not need to be provided. In electronic job postings, a general description of benefits and other compensation may be used if a link is provided with more detailed information. If the benefits or other compensation change, the posting must be updated to reflect the changed information.
Approach for Staff Job Postings
Pay ranges
All job postings will display the position’s pay range, which is the pay range associated with the job profile the position is in. However, for job postings for professional staff positions, hiring managers may elect to display a narrower hiring range within the minimum and maximum associated with the job profile. Use the Workday report R0028 Compensation Ranges by Job Profile to find the default pay ranges by job profile, using the job profile’s job code.
Hiring Managers will provide recruiters with other compensation information and a narrower professional staff pay range for the job posting:
Campus – Complete Pay Transparency Information in “Additional Data” of the Job Requisition.
Medical centers – With your partnership, your recruiter will assist in obtaining this information for you
Pay ranges for Classified job postings
The default pay range for classified job postings is provided as an hourly range for hourly-paid positions and an annual range for salaried positions. For example:
- Hourly:
- Pay Range Minimum: $22.65 hourly
- Pay Range Maximum: $30.39 hourly
- Salaried:
- Pay Range Minimum: $47,112 annual
- Pay Range Maximum: $63,204 annual
Job postings will reflect these default ranges which should not be overwritten unless a fixed wage within the range will be offered; then reflect the same value in both the Salary Minimum and Salary Maximum fields in the Pay Transparency Information Additional Data section of the requisition in Workday.
If a job is less than full-time, please remember to add language in the Job Description explaining that the displayed pay range is prorated based on the part-time FTE.
Pay ranges for Professional staff, Represented Civil Service Exempt, ICA Contract Staff, and Husky Health Physician job postings
The default pay range for professional staff, represented civil service exempt, ICA contract staff and Husky Health Physician job postings is provided as an hourly range for hourly paid positions and an annual range for salaried positions. Example of job posting display:
- Hourly:
- Pay Range Minimum: $22.65 hourly
- Pay Range Maximum: $30.39 hourly
- Salaried:
- Pay Range Minimum: $47,112 annual
- Pay Range Maximum: $63,204 annual
Units must enter the salary range they would like to have listed in the job posting. For salaried positions, enter the Salary Minimum and Salary Maximum as monthly values in the Pay Transparency Information Additional Data section of the requisition in Workday; they will display as annualized values in the Pay Range Minimum and Pay Range Maximum fields of the job posting. If the unit is going to offer a fixed wage, then reflect the same value in both the Salary Minimum and Salary Maximum fields.
If a job is less than full-time, please remember to add language in the Job Description explaining that the displayed pay range is prorated based on the part-time FTE.
Other compensation for job postings
The “Other compensation” fields should provide information on compensation that would be offered to the hired applicant in addition to their base pay. This must include overtime eligibility for all FLSA nonexempt positions and any FLSA exempt positions eligible for additional pay under collective bargaining agreements, but may also include premiums, differentials, signing bonuses, standby pay, callback pay, and holiday premium, as applicable. For example:
Other Compensation 1: Overtime eligible
Other Compensation 2: Evening shift differential: $1.00 per hour
Other Compensation 3: Certification pay: $1.25 per hour
Other Compensation 4: Signing bonus $1,000
Benefits description for staff job postings
All job postings include a standard statement about benefits with links to more information relevant to the position.
External postings
For recruitments not managed through the Workday (e.g., search firm), job postings must include a rate of pay or pay range, a standard descriptions of benefits, and other compensation specific to the position. Your recruiting office partner can review external job postings to ensure they comply with Washington’s pay transparency law.
Updates to these requirements
Law change effective July 27, 2025: Washington state law requires that employers post a fixed wage amount rather than a scale or range if the employer is only offering a fixed wage for an opening.