Blockchain for HR: Salary and equal opportunities are hot topics in every country.
In July 2017, the BBC was in the news for a salary discrepancy of up to GBP 150,000 between employees appearing on the same broadcast. Staff asked that the BBC adopt a policy of pay transparency which to them was, “by far the most effective way to uncover pay discrimination of all kinds…”. [The Guardian]
In 2006 the World Economic Forum issued a framework around the Global Gender Gap Index, with the goal to highlight the magnitude of gender-based salary discrepancies. Yet, here we are, over a decade of information, yet still, we live in a world with extreme salary gaps. Read the 2018 report here
Blockchain for HR is an actual solution that will allow for salary and subsets of related information onto a decentralised blockchain, allowing global transparency on gender-based salaries and other points of inequality.
Salary is defined by several factors for this reason the blockchain would also have to hold meta data such as education, relevant experience, performance, location, sector, demographic, talent pools within a region and other soft data such as language spoken, cultural fit, relocation, taxation within the region, benefits and other package details.
Keeping GDPR in mind, it is worth noting that we would be able to build a system that keeps identities private but core comparative data accessible.
The opportunity here is massive, not only from a transparency perspective but from a revenue perspective as highlighted in the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Index 2017 the report:
‘’estimates suggest that economic gender parity could add an additional US$250 billion to the GDP of the United Kingdom, US$1,750 billion to that of the United States, US$550 billion to Japan’s, US$320 billion to France’s and US$310 billion to the GDP of Germany….’’
One of the key issues about such a solution would be who would be the ideal target market for such a solution. The good news is that prospective users for Blockchain for HR are broad.
1. Regulators looking to ensure that employment laws are followed without auditors.
2. Organizations looking to comply with the law and be transparent about gender equality within their firm.
3. Individuals looking to share personal information that relates to education, experience, and salary to build a more transparent employment ecosystem (in a GDPR compliant way)
A frequent issue with all things blockchain is commercialisation, however, with such a solution we can imagine a business model based on the 3 user types:
1. Regulators could incentives companies with tokens for timely submissions.
2. An organization could pay tokens to access global information but also receive tokens for sharing information.
3. Users could receive tokens for providing and updating information.
This use case outlined here only works with a shared decentralized economy mindset. So from a Marketing and Sales perspective, companies it must see this as complimentary tool alongside talent acquisition services and supporting a specific corporate culture mindset. For users it must be seen as a place of trust and equality for all.
It would be naive to think that there is no one already working on such projects already however competitors are focusing on creating the LinkedIn model on a blockchain, others that are applying blockchain to enhance the recruitment process by focusing on verification of identity, documents, certificates, and payroll. Others are incentivizing employee performance however, the focus on salary discrepancy is sidelined.
Primary steps to seeing such a use case implemented would be to further validate this business case by considering a suitable market or industry for roll-out and assess the primary criteria needed to successfully start development.
