4 ms·

1. If the new hire is worth 10% more, then the employer will be able to justify that. "He's got much more experience than you" or such. Put differently: you can

1. If the new hire is worth 10% more, then the employer will be able to justify that. "He's got much more experience than you" or such. Put differently: you can only offer those extra 10% if you can actually justify it in a way that others agree with you. Might actually turn out to be a rationality corrective so to say. 2. If you don't want people to job-hop because they see what some new hire earns, then you're either overpaying the new one (and unnecessarily alienating your workers) or you're underpaying the current employees, and you should raise their salary or expect them to hop.

ChuckNorris89 7y ago
1. Worth is relative. You can't know the performance of someone you've just interviewed for an hour to someone who's been working there for years. The new guy might just be good at whiteboarding and negotiating but could be a mediocre employee at best on your codebase. When you get a job your pay isn't dictated by your "worth", whatever that is, but by current market conditions. 2. That's how it should be in an ideal world but the reality is different and companies know through years of experience that the current system works better for them rather than the one you'd want.
- madeofpalk 7y ago
  > Worth is relative. You can't know the performance of someone you've just interviewed for an hour to someone who's been working there for years Supposedly you can because you're offering them 10% more than the rest of your employees...
  - ChuckNorris89 7y ago
    Like I said previously, you're offering them 10% more because of market conditions(you need some fresh meat on your project ASAP), not because of their (yet unknown) performance, and hedge your bets that the ones already working for you won't find out(here salaries are confidential) or are to tied down to be looking for new jobs so soon. I hate this approach, but for most companies in Europe it's the reality that works in their favor.
  - yibg 7y ago
    Lots of reasons view points could be different: - Worth is subjective. I'm sure we've all had conversations about someone where some view the person as great and others view the same person as meh or under performing. Value is also determined based on information, which usually people don't have the same amount of. So very possible the hiring person or committee sees different value in a person than fellow engineers or teammates. - Value judgement, especially for hiring is also point in time. Could very well be the person as presented during interview is a rockstar, but after landing on the team doesn't perform well for whatever reason.
AmericanChopper 7y ago
> If the new hire is worth 10% more, then the employer will be able to justify that. If you have established salary bands, then you cannot justify offering somebody something outside of that range. That defeats the entire purpose of having salary bands to begin with, and not complying with them would be lying to your employees. What salary bands are, is a levelling mechanism. The answer to “why does x get paid more than me?” should be “because for some particular reason we decided x was worth more to us than you”. With the levelling mechanism, you have less options for paying people what they’re worth, instead you simply decide that everybody will get paid +/- a few % of whatever the average value of an employee in that role is, regardless of their contribution.
- sokoloff 7y ago
  If those bands are more narrow than the distribution of talent/contribution at any given level, then you’re very likely to shut yourself out from the top contributors. In my experience, bands are always vastly more narrow.

ChuckNorris89 7y ago

1. Worth is relative. You can't know the performance of someone you've just interviewed for an hour to someone who's been working there for years. The new guy might just be good at whiteboarding and negotiating but could be a mediocre employee at best on your codebase. When you get a job your pay isn't dictated by your "worth", whatever that is, but by current market conditions. 2. That's how it should be in an ideal world but the reality is different and companies know through years of experience that the current system works better for them rather than the one you'd want.

madeofpalk 7y ago
> Worth is relative. You can't know the performance of someone you've just interviewed for an hour to someone who's been working there for years Supposedly you can because you're offering them 10% more than the rest of your employees...
- ChuckNorris89 7y ago
  Like I said previously, you're offering them 10% more because of market conditions(you need some fresh meat on your project ASAP), not because of their (yet unknown) performance, and hedge your bets that the ones already working for you won't find out(here salaries are confidential) or are to tied down to be looking for new jobs so soon. I hate this approach, but for most companies in Europe it's the reality that works in their favor.
- yibg 7y ago
  Lots of reasons view points could be different: - Worth is subjective. I'm sure we've all had conversations about someone where some view the person as great and others view the same person as meh or under performing. Value is also determined based on information, which usually people don't have the same amount of. So very possible the hiring person or committee sees different value in a person than fellow engineers or teammates. - Value judgement, especially for hiring is also point in time. Could very well be the person as presented during interview is a rockstar, but after landing on the team doesn't perform well for whatever reason.

AmericanChopper 7y ago

> If the new hire is worth 10% more, then the employer will be able to justify that. If you have established salary bands, then you cannot justify offering somebody something outside of that range. That defeats the entire purpose of having salary bands to begin with, and not complying with them would be lying to your employees. What salary bands are, is a levelling mechanism. The answer to “why does x get paid more than me?” should be “because for some particular reason we decided x was worth more to us than you”. With the levelling mechanism, you have less options for paying people what they’re worth, instead you simply decide that everybody will get paid +/- a few % of whatever the average value of an employee in that role is, regardless of their contribution.

sokoloff 7y ago
If those bands are more narrow than the distribution of talent/contribution at any given level, then you’re very likely to shut yourself out from the top contributors. In my experience, bands are always vastly more narrow.