Should you hear your colleagues in HR talking about peanut butter, you might be disappointed to find out they’re not actually planning to restock the office pantry.

Instead, they may be referring to the decidedly less tasty practice of compensation planning. In the total rewards world, “peanut butter” pay can refer to giving workers flat raises across the board, in the same way you might spread the snack evenly across a piece of toast.

Starbucks recently said it would switch to the peanut butter approach, giving all salaried employees in North America the same 2% raise, rather than allowing managers to grant merit raises at their discretion. The shift is part of a broader turnaround effort that necessitates cost containment, the coffee chain said.

Granting flat raises isn’t unusual when companies are dealing with tighter budgets, experts told HR Brew, but employers should clearly communicate the strategy behind this decision, and consider its implications for performance management.

For more on the implications of peanut butter pay, keep reading here.—CV

Compensation platform Payscale is acquiring Datapeople, an AI-powered recruiting platform, the company announced on Sept. 16.

Payscale executives say they hope Datapeople’s features will help talent acquisition (TA) and recruiting professionals think more strategically about compensation in their job postings, and remain compliant with pay transparency laws taking effect across the world.

Datapeople, which launched in 2015, helps compensation and talent professionals write and edit job descriptions that integrate with their applicant tracking systems. The software also has a feature that monitors compliance with pay transparency laws, and flags any job postings that are missing salary information.

Its compliance capabilities were of particular interest to Payscale, as they align with how the company thinks about pay transparency and compensation strategy, explained Peh Keong Teh, chief product officer.

For more on what Payscale hopes to achieve through the acquisition, keep reading here.—CV

Internal mobility has been a hot buzzword in HR for a while.

As the labor market cools and companies pull back on external hiring, more are considering how to best develop and leverage their existing workforce.

Caroline Bethune, manager of internal mobility at the conglomerate Cox Enterprises, says most companies take one of two routes when developing existing talent: They either dedicate part of their talent acquisition team to internal mobility and requisitions, or create a team focused on developing strategy around and creating (but not overseeing) initiatives like a talent marketplace or mentoring program.

Her team is trying to strike a balance between the two—an approach, she says, she hasn’t seen at many other companies.

For more from our conversation with Caroline Bethune, keep reading here.—PM

More than a dozen states now require salary ranges in job postings, but the gender pay gap hasn’t budged much. Some companies embrace transparency as a recruiting tool, while others resist or post meaningless ranges. Has pay transparency lived up to its promise or just shifted the conversation? Explore what’s working, what isn’t, and what HR leaders need to know.