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Making all salaries public will almost certainly mean your wage costs go up. There are bound to be a range of different salaries given to people doing the same

Making all salaries public will almost certainly mean your wage costs go up. There are bound to be a range of different salaries given to people doing the same job. So all the ones at the bottom end will be turning up to the annual review demanding to be uplifted to match their peers. If they are turned down then they are likely to leave or just be less productive because they are not happy. Any need people recruited can see the public salaries and therefore negotiate a better pay deal than they might have otherwise. It is hard to find a case where making the salaries public does not lead to higher wage costs.

meric 9y ago
I think government and military have standardised pay grades.
- futhey 9y ago
  This is correct. Everyone knows what everyone else is making. Part of why rank and the "pecking order" are so much more pronounced and obsessed over.
  - zimpenfish 9y ago
    > Everyone knows what everyone else is making. How wide are the grades? I know a few corporate places that have "standard pay grades" except they're normally wide enough to grant managers almost laughable latitude in what they pay people on the same grade. There's at least one place I know which has a single grade covering £40k to £80k.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
gigatexal 9y ago
For proper capitalistic and rational decisions to be made both parties need as much information to make wise decisions. Lower skilled workers might demand higher wages but they can be told no and they can leave. There’s plenty of supply of contract workers to fill the gaps but in the end it will leave firms with people who are not only happy with the compensation packages they have also the products or services or tech stack the firm is creating / using.
ubernostrum 9y ago
The solution to this is not to hide data (it's illegal in the US to forbid employees talking about it with each other anyway, which means they can compile a list of what everyone's making). The solution is to take salary negotiation out of it. Flat pay structure within a job title/level, with criteria laying out what the requirements are for each title and each level, solves this immediately, and rather than turning into "Why should Bob make more than me when I work as hard", turns into "Here's what we need to see in order to promote you to Widget Adjuster level 3, would you like to work out a plan for how to get there?"
- UK-AL 9y ago
  I think in reality that doesn't work either. When they want to promote you they can gloss over certain criteria. When they don't to give you pay rise, they can point to oddly specific criteria

meric 9y ago

I think government and military have standardised pay grades.

futhey 9y ago
This is correct. Everyone knows what everyone else is making. Part of why rank and the "pecking order" are so much more pronounced and obsessed over.
- zimpenfish 9y ago
  > Everyone knows what everyone else is making. How wide are the grades? I know a few corporate places that have "standard pay grades" except they're normally wide enough to grant managers almost laughable latitude in what they pay people on the same grade. There's at least one place I know which has a single grade covering £40k to £80k.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]

gigatexal 9y ago

For proper capitalistic and rational decisions to be made both parties need as much information to make wise decisions. Lower skilled workers might demand higher wages but they can be told no and they can leave. There’s plenty of supply of contract workers to fill the gaps but in the end it will leave firms with people who are not only happy with the compensation packages they have also the products or services or tech stack the firm is creating / using.

ubernostrum 9y ago

The solution to this is not to hide data (it's illegal in the US to forbid employees talking about it with each other anyway, which means they can compile a list of what everyone's making). The solution is to take salary negotiation out of it. Flat pay structure within a job title/level, with criteria laying out what the requirements are for each title and each level, solves this immediately, and rather than turning into "Why should Bob make more than me when I work as hard", turns into "Here's what we need to see in order to promote you to Widget Adjuster level 3, would you like to work out a plan for how to get there?"

UK-AL 9y ago
I think in reality that doesn't work either. When they want to promote you they can gloss over certain criteria. When they don't to give you pay rise, they can point to oddly specific criteria