The race for top AI talent is prompting some employers to offer multimillion-dollar pay packages to candidates with in-demand skills that are currently in short supply. It’s also occurring at a time when job-seekers have more access to information about how companies pay their workers than ever before, and are highly attuned to inequities.
To ensure fair compensation practices, HR teams tasked with hiring AI talent can focus on building out a clear, detailed job architecture that helps explain why these roles are commanding higher salaries, experts told us. Employers should also consider how to upskill their current workforce so that employees can grow their career—and earning potential—in AI-related roles.
What’s driving up AI salaries? An imbalance between the demand for certain AI skills and the supply of candidates who have them is part of the reason AI jobs are currently commanding a pay premium, HR Brew previously reported.
While multimillion-dollar offers represent a small share of the total market, many employers are willing to make major investments in top AI hires because the potential payout from the technology is so significant, recruiters and compensation experts told us.
If software engineers at a tech company see that new hires with AI skills are making higher salaries than them, it’s easy to imagine that HR teams might field concerns about pay inequities. But just because disparities exist, it doesn’t necessarily mean companies are paying unfairly, Kaitlyn Knopp, founder and CEO of compensation software firm Pequity, explained.
US federal law requires that employers pay workers equally for “substantially equal” work, but generally allows them to pay competitively for talent, or “role-related reasons,” Knopp said. Education, seniority, and the scope of responsibility level of certain roles are among the factors that could be driving up salaries.
Quick-to-read HR news & insights
From recruiting and retention to company culture and the latest in HR tech, HR Brew delivers up-to-date industry news and tips to help HR pros stay nimble in today’s fast-changing business environment.
Making transparency a priority. Even if the pay premium that employers are offering for AI skills can be backed up by the factors Knopp cited, HR pros can invest time in building out a job architecture for AI roles so that they’re “able to offer the salaries that they want for AI engineers” in a way that’s “defensible,” said Shankar Raman, a global coleader for consulting firm Willis Towers Watson.
In their job architecture, employers should specify exactly what the work of an AI engineer is, and how that work compares to other engineers within their company, Raman said. They should also clarify how work progresses at different levels, from a junior to a principal engineer, even within the AI domain, he added. “That way, employees can also understand [how] that work is unique, and [that] these are the unique skill sets required to perform that work…It feeds a motivation for employees to figure out what they need to do to develop those skill sets.”
As workers look to improve their earning potential with AI skills, learning and development is one area that can help them get there. In some ways, upskilling employees in AI is a double-edged sword, as those workers become more valuable when they acquire new skill sets, said David Turetsky, CHRO and VP of consulting at Salary.com. If an employee sees how companies are pricing AI skills externally, they might look elsewhere. “Yes, you can train them on emergent technologies and make them more valuable for you today. But also, then you’re also making them valuable for your competition,” he said.
Nevertheless, Turetsky said he would advise HR departments to lean in on training their people, especially those who are at risk of losing their jobs to AI.