On 3: I suspect that it's hard to get too precise on the A+++ to B grading scale. It's an imperfect measure and there's already plenty of disagreement between

On 3: I suspect that it's hard to get too precise on the A+++ to B grading scale. It's an imperfect measure and there's already plenty of disagreement between 4, let alone going to 10. You can fix some of the bias by using other measures that may correlate to the grade, but also provide some other guidance. Years of experience is one of them. You'll see that grade has a much higher impact than years of experience, so it's just modifying the total on the margin. I haven't worked at a company with total transparency, at least not at the worker bee level. I have worked at partnerships where all the partners knew what each other made, and it was generally heavily weighted towards seniority. The system seemed to work better than I would have expected. My experience in "secret" systems is any time two people compare salary, one gets very pissed off. This is why I keep my comp private.