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I like the idea of transparent salaries, but does a "transparent" formula ever become so convoluted, and open to gaming, that the company may as well just not b

I like the idea of transparent salaries, but does a "transparent" formula ever become so convoluted, and open to gaming, that the company may as well just not bother? It can be argued that not disclosing salaries is a way to suppress wages; an asymmetry of information. Is open salary information where "everyone at the same level gets the same salary, but there's some gotchas" another way to do the same thing?

baby 9y ago
It certainly goes hand in hand with a good culture, which is also one of the strong point of Buffer. Their transparent webapp thing[1] is really nice to play with btw, it feels like a no bullshit vibe for newcomers as well as current employees. It makes me think that these "formulas" will probably not age well with time. They're already at their version 3, which would probably not be a good formula at the early days of the start up and will probably not be a good formula in 3-5 years. Somehow related, I remember having something like these to rank posts on one of my boards (similar to the weight ranking of HN). I had: * time influence negatively * number of upvotes and downvotes in the comments influence positively * number of heavy posters influence positively * number of upvotes for the post influencing positively It was really tricky to tweak, in the end with the website scaling up I was constantly tweaking the formula. I don't think there is a "always work" formula. [1]: https://buffer.com/salary https://buffer.com/salary
- jatsign 9y ago
  That helps, thanks.
rplnt 9y ago
> We’re looking at other ways to recognize loyalty such as profit sharing, 401K matching, bonuses based on profitability, dividends, and future stock buyback programs. So, yeah, ti doesn't make much sense in practice. But it's nice to have the numbers open.
jimcsharp 9y ago
I have to wonder if they've ever run into 'call me when your formula matches my number' (in nicer / more convoluted words). In that case a simple transparent table would save them a lot of time and blog posts.
SatvikBeri 9y ago
It's a matter of degree: non-transparent salary "formulas" (to the extent that they are at all formulaic and not just based on random stuff like negotiation) tend to be much, much more convoluted and inconsistent than this.
conanbatt 9y ago
I think the formula makes very little sense. If someone comes and says " i want more than that" will Buffer turn away a candidate they like because it doesnt fit? They are unlikely to do it, and they should definitely not do it. What it does do is attract all the people that find those salaries public to be higher than the ones they have now. Im sure they get plenty of applicants on this measure alone.

baby 9y ago

It certainly goes hand in hand with a good culture, which is also one of the strong point of Buffer. Their transparent webapp thing[1] is really nice to play with btw, it feels like a no bullshit vibe for newcomers as well as current employees. It makes me think that these "formulas" will probably not age well with time. They're already at their version 3, which would probably not be a good formula at the early days of the start up and will probably not be a good formula in 3-5 years. Somehow related, I remember having something like these to rank posts on one of my boards (similar to the weight ranking of HN). I had: * time influence negatively * number of upvotes and downvotes in the comments influence positively * number of heavy posters influence positively * number of upvotes for the post influencing positively It was really tricky to tweak, in the end with the website scaling up I was constantly tweaking the formula. I don't think there is a "always work" formula. [1]: https://buffer.com/salary https://buffer.com/salary

jatsign 9y ago
That helps, thanks.

rplnt 9y ago

> We’re looking at other ways to recognize loyalty such as profit sharing, 401K matching, bonuses based on profitability, dividends, and future stock buyback programs. So, yeah, ti doesn't make much sense in practice. But it's nice to have the numbers open.

jimcsharp 9y ago

I have to wonder if they've ever run into 'call me when your formula matches my number' (in nicer / more convoluted words). In that case a simple transparent table would save them a lot of time and blog posts.

SatvikBeri 9y ago

It's a matter of degree: non-transparent salary "formulas" (to the extent that they are at all formulaic and not just based on random stuff like negotiation) tend to be much, much more convoluted and inconsistent than this.

conanbatt 9y ago

I think the formula makes very little sense. If someone comes and says " i want more than that" will Buffer turn away a candidate they like because it doesnt fit? They are unlikely to do it, and they should definitely not do it. What it does do is attract all the people that find those salaries public to be higher than the ones they have now. Im sure they get plenty of applicants on this measure alone.