Research from HiBob, the company behind people management platform Bob, has found a growing ‘fairness gap’ between how organisations make pay decisions and how they are experienced, defended and trusted.
Despite 83 per cent of people managers saying they can clearly justify pay and promotion decisions with supporting data, scrutiny of those decisions is widespread. In the past 12 months, over three-quarters report decisions being formally challenged or appealed across promotion allocation (76 per cent), setting or adjusting base pay (78 per cent), and assigning performance ratings that influence pay (78 per cent).
The ‘fairness gap’ has consequences beyond dissatisfaction for employees. Over nine in 10 (93 per cent) managers say a lack of timely and relevant people or financial data contributed to a negative team outcome over the past year. 30 per cent say it played a large or very large role in a high performer being underpaid or under-recognised, while 27 per cent say it contributed to a promotion being given before the individual was ready.
Others report wider business impacts, with 24 per cent saying pay spend was misallocated, and 29 per cent blaming data gaps for a decline in team engagement or morale driven by perceived unfairness or poor recognition.
Concerns about consistency underpin many of these outcomes. More than two-thirds (68 per cent) of people managers worry that similar roles are evaluated using different metrics in different teams, and 67 per cent say they cannot ensure fair pay decisions without a unified view of people and financial data.
The research shows the challenges with pay and promotion decisions are being caused not by a lack of data, but by a lack of effective data access.
While most managers have timely access to HR (82 per cent) and finance data (75 per cent), over half (61 per cent) spend at least three hours assembling information from multiple systems before making people decisions – 15 per cent take more than five hours.
As pressure builds, decision quality erodes. Almost two-thirds (65 per cent) say when getting the right HR or finance data feels like too much of a hassle, they opt for an educated guess rather than miss a deadline. 64 per cent say role permissions or privacy rules limit access to data they reasonably need.
Only 2 per cent of managers currently have access to a unified HR and finance dashboard. This leaves most organisations to make people decisions across disconnected systems, tools and spreadsheets, without a shared source of truth.
“Bringing HR and finance together has never been an easy brief,” says Toby Hough, VP of People and Culture EMEA at HiBob. “These teams work to different rhythms, different priorities, and often from different versions of the truth. But as scrutiny on pay and progression increases, that gap is becoming impossible to ignore.
“When people and financial data aren’t aligned, decisions take longer, feel harder to defend, and are far more likely to be challenged,” Hough adds. “Unifying that data doesn’t just make decisions faster – it makes them fairer. It gives leaders the confidence that the choices they’re making are in the best interests of both the business and their people, and that’s going to matter more than ever as we move into 2026 and beyond.”
As scrutiny of pay and promotion decisions continues to rise, the research suggests fragmentation is becoming a material risk. When decisions must balance cost control, performance and fairness, relying on disconnected systems leaves organisations exposed – to challenge, disengagement and compliance risk.
