Whose Futures are Nurtured?
With a name like Nurturing Futures Recruitment, work seekers may be inclined to believe it’s their own future they’re nurturing. This is far from the truth! Nurturing Futures believes it operates above the law, this is evidenced when the CEO publicly demands confidential wage information from interested parties.
Pay Secrecy
Nurturing Futures advertises vacancies without including a salary range. Job adverts containing pay information improve the quality and quantity of candidates applying. Pay transparency has been found to attract more than 30% more applicants than an advert adopting pay secrecy. If pay transparency is viable but employers opt-out, it can only be because they benefit from pay secrecy.
Pay transparency means you must pay fairly. Fair pay means you adopt a compensation policy, perform job grading and peg a position, not a person, to a range. When studying human resources you are taught to price jobs, not people.
Recruitment as Wage Scoping
Job adverts that adopt pay secrecy create an unfair information advantage for employers. But that’s not where it ends. The recruitment process is not just about advertising a post but about screening and selecting candidates most suitable for an organisation. Applicants are used to provide wage information about other employers in the same or similar markets in order to be considered for these selection processes.
When asked why they make these demands, Nurturing Futures clammed up and refused to engage publicly or respond to emails. They don’t have the conviction to defend their conduct because they understand that their business conduct is deviant and violates both the Constitution and Competition Act.
Fair Competition for Talent
The opening statement of the Competition Act states:
To provide for the establishment of a Competition Commission responsible for the investigation, control and evaluation of restrictive practices, abuse of dominant position, and mergers.
Restrictive and Abusive
Nurturing Futures protects their revenue streams and abusive employer power when they adopt pay secrecy and use recruitment to scope the market for competitor wage information.
We reported them to the Competition Commission who commits or committed similar offences and doesn’t wish to draw attention to this deviance. They killed the complaint to protect their own lawlessness. The Competition Commission seldom reports on offences in labour markets yet income inequality is thriving and deepening on their watch.
Is Mitchell Restricting Worker Rights?
Power is both fragile and monumental. Employers, recruiters and work seekers coexist in labour markets. Who holds the most power and do they share this power or enjoy it for themselves?
Do job seekers ever have power? Yes, in markets where their skills are in demand or scarce. Exceptional workers can also build a reputation for themselves and create a demand for their specific skill sets. Recruiters may ‘headhunt’ someone they believe possesses what they are looking for and in this way give a potential candidate some power.
For most applicants, recruitment is a culling and wage scoping process where they either abide by recruiter and employer rules set for them or they refuse to provide wage information and cannot participate further.
After Jodi Mitchel posted a job advert that was not upfront about pay, she asked interested candidates for their pay information. This is called an asymmetric information advantage.Mitchell is unresponsive to questions. Is this responsible conduct, should the public trust Nurturing Futures’ leadership?
Conventional legal advice is to ignore our questions as there simply are no answers to justify this conduct. Each recruitment firm using pay secrecy and demanding current wage information knows that what they are doing is unlawful, but the lack of law enforcement means they need fear no consequences.
Lawyers advise firms to ignore PaySlipBanSA as they believe we have no real objectives, but are merely trying to be sensational. Click the licks to read more about our long term goals.
Talk about power
The Competition Act describes consumers, owners (employers) and worker interests as equal. This means neither of the three market groups can dominate another, that there is a balance of power.
For example, workers cannot demand wages resulting in massive price increases for consumers as this could end the business. In the same way, employers and shareholders cannot force workers to accept low wages in order to maximise profits.
To be lawful, Nurturing Futures must compete fairly in markets yet they demand rival employer wage information from job seekers.
This confidential information places them at an unfair market advantage over both rival firms and candidates. The only party to benefit from such disclosures are the prospecting employers who can use the information to poach talent and price-fix wages.
When Nurturing Futures knows the compensation packages competitor firms offer, what will they do with it? After numerous emails and LinkedIn comments, she failed to respond.
If a CEO is unwilling to clarify her public conduct, does that suggest anything about her business ethics, acumen and the people she hires?
- ethics: that she has none?
- acumen: that her credentials are questionable and she lacks intellectual tenacity to substantiate her professional conduct in the public domain?
- her hires: willing to violate the law and be led by someone with the above traits?
Job Advert Pay Secrecy
Mitchell’s Nurturing Futures consistently adopts pay secrecy in recruitment adverts. Pay secrecy is when no salary ranges are included resulting in job applicants applying for positions without knowing how much is on offer and if the application is worth their while.
Labour markets must be competitive for fair labour practice to exist. Employers who compete unfairly spy on rivals to poach and price-fix pay
What do you think?
- Does Nurturing Futures restrict job seekers wage negotiation ability by demanding current wage information?
- Does Nurturing Futures restrict a fair competition for talent among firms when they spy on compensation packages without fear of reprisal?
- Do job applicants have the right to pursue better economic opportunity and higher pay? Must they be restricted?
- Is Nurturing Futures abusing their market position by forcing candidates to submit sensitive, competitive and confidential wage information that can be used against them in a breach of trust?
- Does Nurturing Futures abuse their market position by adopting pay secrecy in market signals (adverts) and extorting wage information from unwilling job seekers?
MAKE YOUR VOICE HEARD WHILE YOU STILL HAVE ONE!
