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I personally don't know how it feels when you know your colleagues salaries. In all the companies I worked it was forbidden to reveal one's salary. But I can't

by greyman 16y ago

I personally don't know how it feels when you know your colleagues salaries. In all the companies I worked it was forbidden to reveal one's salary. But I can't think of any rational reason why I would want to know it.

kapilkaisare 16y ago
Perhaps. But knowing that someone doing the same work as you, and arguably not as well, is drawing more than you can be disturbing. What you don't know doesn't effect you at all, in this case; what you do know does.
- mansr 16y ago
  In this case, what you don't know, you'll suspect. That's at least as bad.
gaius 16y ago
I once interviewed at a company where not only were everyone's salaries published internally, but there were processes in place for challenging them if you thought anyone was paid too much or too little. Not a bad idea. But consider that a policy of forbidding one to reveal one salary is one-sided; the company knows what it's paying everyone. What's their motivation for it, exactly? It's not in your best interest, that's for certain.
spuz 16y ago
There is no rational reason but that's exactly the point. People are irrational when it comes to judging how much they think they or their colleagues should be paid. Most people think they deserve or at least try to get paid better than the average of their colleagues. Salaries should either be totally opaque or totally transparent. You don't want the situation where the politics of compensation damages a company as noted in this recent HN article: http://bhorowitz.com/2010/08/23/how-to-minimize-politics-in-your-company/ http://bhorowitz.com/2010/08/23/how-to-minimize-politics-in-...
robryan 16y ago
Well keeping your bosses honest would be the main thing, forcing the figures to be published would mean that they can't single out people to pay more or less without providing some kind of reason. Keeping them secret allows them to take advantage of company loyalty and those that don't make a big fuss.
- eitally 16y ago
  From the company's perspective, it's really hard to effect real fairness in pay. For example, how do you weigh someone who has 30yrs of 2-4% annual raises with a new hire who may be a hotshot but is never going to be brought on with an equivalent salary? Or, how do you handle geographically inequality? Or, what about collective bargaining agreements and mandatory increases that only affect a subset of the organization? If everyone's pay was published it would lead to lots of unpleasant questions, questions that don't have satisfactory answers in many cases.
loewenskind 16y ago
>But I can't think of any rational reason why I would want to know it. Are you serious? How about finding out where your market value actually lies for example? If you find out everyone on your team makes 20% more than you then you know (a) to quit and (b) what to ask for at your next position. Why do you think it's forbidden to reveal salaries? Because companies don't want to pay full market price if they can avoid it. The only way to do that is to hide what the actual value is.
- loewenskind 16y ago
  Anyone care to explain the downvote(s) here? Workers are a market just as much an any other value proposition. The difference between widgets and employees is that companies do everything they can to hide market signals about employees.

by greyman 16y ago

kapilkaisare 16y ago

Perhaps. But knowing that someone doing the same work as you, and arguably not as well, is drawing more than you can be disturbing. What you don't know doesn't effect you at all, in this case; what you do know does.

mansr 16y ago
In this case, what you don't know, you'll suspect. That's at least as bad.

gaius 16y ago

I once interviewed at a company where not only were everyone's salaries published internally, but there were processes in place for challenging them if you thought anyone was paid too much or too little. Not a bad idea. But consider that a policy of forbidding one to reveal one salary is one-sided; the company knows what it's paying everyone. What's their motivation for it, exactly? It's not in your best interest, that's for certain.

spuz 16y ago

There is no rational reason but that's exactly the point. People are irrational when it comes to judging how much they think they or their colleagues should be paid. Most people think they deserve or at least try to get paid better than the average of their colleagues. Salaries should either be totally opaque or totally transparent. You don't want the situation where the politics of compensation damages a company as noted in this recent HN article: http://bhorowitz.com/2010/08/23/how-to-minimize-politics-in-your-company/ http://bhorowitz.com/2010/08/23/how-to-minimize-politics-in-...

robryan 16y ago

Well keeping your bosses honest would be the main thing, forcing the figures to be published would mean that they can't single out people to pay more or less without providing some kind of reason. Keeping them secret allows them to take advantage of company loyalty and those that don't make a big fuss.

eitally 16y ago
From the company's perspective, it's really hard to effect real fairness in pay. For example, how do you weigh someone who has 30yrs of 2-4% annual raises with a new hire who may be a hotshot but is never going to be brought on with an equivalent salary? Or, how do you handle geographically inequality? Or, what about collective bargaining agreements and mandatory increases that only affect a subset of the organization? If everyone's pay was published it would lead to lots of unpleasant questions, questions that don't have satisfactory answers in many cases.

loewenskind 16y ago

>But I can't think of any rational reason why I would want to know it. Are you serious? How about finding out where your market value actually lies for example? If you find out everyone on your team makes 20% more than you then you know (a) to quit and (b) what to ask for at your next position. Why do you think it's forbidden to reveal salaries? Because companies don't want to pay full market price if they can avoid it. The only way to do that is to hide what the actual value is.

loewenskind 16y ago
Anyone care to explain the downvote(s) here? Workers are a market just as much an any other value proposition. The difference between widgets and employees is that companies do everything they can to hide market signals about employees.