When a mid-sized Melbourne professional services firm first advertised a role with a salary range, their HR manager braced for awkward conversations with existing staff. What she didn’t expect was that the applications were significantly stronger, the time-to-hire dropped, and three current employees who had been quietly job-hunting came off the market because seeing the range confirmed they were being paid fairly.

Pay transparency is having a moment. Several Australian states have introduced or are considering legislation affecting how pay is discussed in workplaces, and the federal government has strengthened protections against pay secrecy clauses under recent Fair Work changes. Employees now have an explicit right to discuss their pay with colleagues if they choose, and employers cannot lawfully include clauses that prohibit this in employment contracts.

That doesn’t mean you’re required to publish salaries. But it does mean the question of how much transparency you want — and whether it’s working for you — is more pressing than it used to be.

 

The Case For Sharing Ranges

The strongest argument for pay transparency is trust. When employees don’t know whether they’re paid fairly relative to their colleagues and the market, they fill the uncertainty with assumptions — and those assumptions are often negative. Pay secrecy doesn’t prevent comparison; it just makes comparison less accurate and more anxiety-inducing.

Sharing ranges, particularly in job advertisements, also tends to improve application quality. Candidates self-select more accurately. You get fewer people who are fundamentally misaligned on compensation expectations, which saves everyone time.

For businesses with genuine gender or diversity pay gaps, transparency creates accountability. It’s harder to let gaps persist when they’re visible.

 

The Legitimate Concerns

There are real reasons why some businesses are cautious. If your pay structure has inconsistencies — people in similar roles earning different amounts for reasons that aren’t clearly defensible — transparency will surface that. That can create short-term tension.

In smaller businesses where every compensation decision is essentially an individual negotiation, publishing ranges can make every salary review a comparison exercise. Managing that requires more rigour and process than some SMEs currently have in place.

The practical middle ground for most small and medium businesses isn’t full public disclosure — it’s building a pay structure that you’d be comfortable defending, and then gradually increasing transparency as your confidence in that structure grows. Start by sharing ranges in job ads. Then work towards being able to explain to any employee how their pay was determined. Neither requires publishing everyone’s salary.

 

What Australian Requires

Under the Fair Work Act as updated through recent legislation, pay secrecy clauses in employment contracts are not enforceable. An employee cannot be disciplined or disadvantaged for disclosing or asking about their own pay. You can still ask employees to exercise discretion, but you cannot require it. Getting your contracts reviewed for legacy pay secrecy clauses is a practical step worth taking.

Pay transparency isn’t just a trend. It’s a direction the market and the legislation are both moving. Getting ahead of it now is considerably less disruptive than being caught on the back foot later.

Ready to build a better workplace? Book your free 30-minute consultation at  Blue Kite HR Consulting 

 

A food manufacturing business in Adelaide had a warehouse worker who was brilliant at picking errors in the production line — faster and more accurate than anyone else on the floor. He was also frequently in trouble for not following the team communication protocols. His supervisor described him as “difficult.” His colleagues thought he was “a bit odd.” What nobody had noticed, or asked about, was that he was autistic.

Once that was understood and accommodated — simple adjustments to how tasks were briefed and feedback was given — he became one of the highest performers in the operation. Nothing changed about his capability. Everything changed about how the environment was set up for him.

Neurodiversity refers to the natural variation in how human brains process information. It includes autism spectrum conditions, ADHD, dyslexia, dyspraxia, dyscalculia, and a range of other conditions. Around one in seven Australians is considered neurodivergent. In any team of reasonable size, you almost certainly already have neurodivergent employees — whether or not anyone knows it.

 

Why Standard Workplaces Miss Neurodivergent Talent

Most Australian workplaces are designed around a fairly narrow set of assumptions: that people communicate in particular ways, process information at roughly the same pace, work well in open-plan environments, handle ambiguity comfortably, and manage the unwritten rules of professional interaction without difficulty. For neurodivergent people, many of these assumptions don’t hold.

The result is that genuinely talented people struggle — not because they can’t do the work, but because the environment creates unnecessary friction. They may be labelled as “not a team player,” “poor communicator,” or “inconsistent performer” when the actual issue is a mismatch between how they work and how the workplace is structured.

The Fair Work Act prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability, which in many cases covers neurodivergent conditions. But compliance is a floor, not a ceiling. Building an environment where neurodivergent people can genuinely thrive requires going further.

 

What Inclusive Workpalces Actually Do Differently

The adjustments that make workplaces more accessible for neurodivergent employees tend to benefit everyone. Clear, written instructions rather than verbal-only briefings. Explicit expectations rather than assumed cultural knowledge. Structured agendas for meetings. Quiet spaces available alongside collaborative areas. Flexibility in how work is delivered rather than rigidity around the method.

These aren’t expensive. They’re mostly about clarity and choice.

The most important step is normalising the conversation. When employees feel they can disclose a condition without it affecting how they’re treated or perceived, you get honest information that lets you support them effectively. When disclosure feels risky, people mask — and masking is exhausting, damaging, and costs you their best work.

 

What To Start With

If you haven’t thought about neurodiversity in your business before, start here: audit your communication practices for unnecessary ambiguity. Look at your physical or remote work environment for sensory overload. Review how you give feedback and whether it’s explicit enough. And create a way for employees to share needs without it becoming a performance management issue.

You’re not trying to fix people. You’re trying to build a workplace that works for more of them.

 

Ready to build a better workplace? Book your free 30-minute consultation at Blue Kite HR Consulting 

 

Day 31 of 31 Days of Better Workplaces — the final day of the series, and I’m sending you into then last quarter of 2026 with a practical action list.

 

 

1. Review your employment contracts and policies

If you haven’t looked at them since before the last round of Fair Work Act changes, they need a review. Employment law has moved — pay rates, Award obligations, flexible work rights, psychosocial safety requirements. What you don’t know about is still your legal liability.

 

2. Address any outstanding performance issues 

If you’ve been managing a performance concern informally and it hasn’t resolved, formalise it now. A structured improvement process started in September gives you a proper timeframe to assess progress and make informed decisions before the holiday disruption of December.

 

3. Run retention check-ins across the team  

Have direct, genuine conversations with your key people. Not a formal survey — a human conversation. Ask how they’re going. Ask what would make their work better. Listen to the answers. People tell you when they’re thinking of leaving, if you ask the right questions and make it safe to be honest.

 

4. Audit your leave balances

Excessive annual leave balances are a liability on your balance sheet and, in many Awards, a compliance issue. If people are accruing significant leave entitlements, now is the time to encourage and plan leave before December when everyone wants to take it simultaneously.

 

5. Plan your last quarter resourcing

Are you going to need additional capacity for your busiest period? If so, the recruitment process needs to start now — not in October when you need someone by November. Identify the gaps, build the plan, start the process.

 

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That’s 31 Days of Better Workplaces 

 

Book a free 30-minute consultation at Blue Kite HR Consulting