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At my previous company, we didn't stop anyone from discussing pay. That's obviously illegal. What we did instead is make sure that everyone, including new colle

At my previous company, we didn't stop anyone from discussing pay. That's obviously illegal. What we did instead is make sure that everyone, including new college hires, understood that talking about pay almost always leads to interpersonal friction, resentment, conflict, lower work productivity, and slower progress of our company toward an IPO. In short, talking about pay would actively damage their bottom line, which is in not something in anyone's best interest. It's not a threat if you just explain how the real world works and that actions have consequences.

yupper32 5y ago
Is this satire? Talking about salaries have always resulted in better or equal pay for everyone involved (except the higher ups, like you) in my experience, and the experience of everyone I know. Your post sounds like companies claiming that unions would actually hurt you. If you're underpaying people in order to get to an IPO, people deserve to be aware of that and know the risks involved.
- usui 5y ago
  I'm not sure why you are interpreting the parent's comment as similar to "claiming that unions would actually hurt you". It's just a post talking about how management in companies works around the illegality of telling employees not to talk to about pay. It's in the first sentence. It's not like the parent comment is defending the practice, just how it's done in practice to discourage employees. Yes, groups of employees that don't band together believe that it will hurt their own bottom line if they talk about pay.
  - yupper32 5y ago
    Are you saying that the poster is saying that they lie to their employees? I'm honestly not sure what you're saying.
- mfogikds 5y ago
  "Talking about salaries have always resulted in better or equal pay for everyone involved" What is the exact source on this? I highly doubt every company in existence has the budget to pay everyone "better or equal"
  - yupper32 5y ago
    I address that in the second half of the sentence: "in my experience, and the experience of everyone I know." I'm not claiming a universal truth. I do think that the original post is much farther away from the truth than my claim, though.
    - mfogikds 5y ago
      Have you done an actual survey? I doubt you know the inner workings of every workplace of everyone you know.
  - makeitdouble 5y ago
    You’ll need pretty solid justifications to lower salaries. In a case where a bunch of employees realize they’re underpaid, there’s only three natural outcomes: - lower paid employees don’t get anything, and start looking for a better paying job - lower paid employees get compensatory raises - lower paid employees get nothing and the higher paid members are expected to get lower pays. They proceed to leave for greener pastures (and they only need to find at least equal paying jobs to make it worth it) The scenario where salaries go down and employees don’t do anything is unrealistic.
- kube-system 5y ago
  I think the person you're responding to is referring to the social (not economic) outcomes that result when people realize they're paid differently than their peers. Depending on how diverse a team is (in terms of ability, experience, performance) this can open up discussions about what "equal pay" really means. If ability, experience, and performance are part of how you pay your employees, then a discussion about comparative pay of employees inherently means you are opening up a discussion about the comparative ability, experience, and performance of employees. I'm not saying that's a bad thing -- but -- some feelings might get hurt in the process.
  - b3morales 5y ago
    Mostly agree, but I think there's a companion reason for the triggering of discomfort. The idea that pay is completely merit-based -- as you say "in terms of ability, experience, performance" -- is a comforting lie that we tell ourselves, in my experience. No company has truly objective decisions for salary. There is always a large handful of historical accident and personal relationships stirred in. (If nothing else, in tech a person's salary is partly determined by their previous salary at other companies!) Discussing the raw numbers of pay exposes that fact as well.
    - kube-system 5y ago
      For sure, pay is much more driven by immediate staffing needs for retention or hiring. This has more to do with the labor markets and work pipeline than anything about an individual employee. But people say they should be paid based on ability, performance, and experience. So this is what the conversation will be centered around, whether it is the complete reality for the considerations made by the employer or not. Alice won’t care that Bob was hired for $10K more because there was a labor shortage and the company was going to lose a contract if they couldn’t hire another person. She just wants her $10K. So, the marginal cost of hiring an additional employee is not only the cost of that employee, but the additional wage demand that would result from the rest of your workforce. This is likely why we see many companies giving bonuses in this labor crunch rather than higher base wages.
willcipriano 5y ago
I don't think I ever talked about pay with my coworkers, but the first thing I'd do if someone gave me that speech would be talk about pay. The lady doth protest too much, methinks.
antisthenes 5y ago
> What we did instead is make sure that everyone, including new college hires, understood that talking about pay almost always leads to interpersonal friction, resentment, conflict, lower work productivity, and slower progress of our company toward an IPO. I hope you've provided some very concrete examples how talking about pay delayed an IPO by a certain period of time, and quantified how much exactly hires were losing because of it, in exact dollar values. Because otherwise, it's just a gaslighting scare tactic. > It's not a threat if you just explain how the real world works and that actions have consequences. One of the consequences of bullshitting new hires with vague examples of how the real world works is that you end up with people willing to drink the kool-aid, regardless of their skills and ability. Now maybe that was your primary goal in the first place, but somehow I doubt it.
brandonmenc 5y ago
> talking about pay almost always leads to interpersonal friction, resentment, conflict You could take this as an indication that your pay scale is screwed up. But I guess it's easier to just bully your employees.
farmerstan 5y ago
Sorry but this is complete bullshit. Everyone should be on an even playing field. Keeping secrets only helps the execs control the peons. The best places I’ve worked at was very open and transparent. I mentioned below that sharing salary helps everyone. It doesn’t hurt the company at all unless the owners want to save every penny they have for themselves.
gooseus 5y ago
This approach works for all kinds of destructive conversations in the workplace. You don't need to explicitly stop people from complaining about a manager's behavior or other toxic workplace features, you just need to explain to people how discussions around how they feel about a particular management style almost always leads to interpersonal friction, resentment, conflict, lower work productivity, and slower progress of our company toward an IPO. You see, it's not a threat if you just explain how the real world works and that actions have consequences. /s
handrous 5y ago
Telling—being very generous—a lie couched in exaggerated hypotheticals (the lie: if sharing comp harms the company, it's the fault of the person who shared it, not management; exaggeration: this will have some huge and harmful effect on the company such that employees are significantly harmed) to your employees to keep them from acting in their own best interest is—still being very generous—kinda shitty.
triceratops 5y ago
Pro athletes' contracts are fairly public knowledge. Does that affect how professional sports teams perform?
- legerdemain 5y ago
  Yes? Teams lose valuable players all the time, often to everyone's detriment, over failed contract negotiations. Pay in professional sports is an extremely sore topic. See US women's soccer last year.
  - triceratops 5y ago
    > Teams lose valuable players all the time If they were that valuable, they should've paid them accordingly. Compensation is the most direct marker of "value". If you're valued more, you get paid more. > often to everyone's detriment Presumably not the acquiring team's. > See US women's soccer last year They played 1 game in 2020, which they won. This year, their W-D-L record reads 15-3-2, which is pretty damn good.[1] Their contract negotiations might have been fractious, but they still performed on the field. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_women%27s_national_soccer_team#2020 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_women%27s_nation...
dmead 5y ago
I make it a point to talk about pay on the regular. I want to know if I'm getting fucked or not.
the_gipsy 5y ago
This is hilarious!
jahewson 5y ago
Ah so you gaslighted them, nice.
nexuist 5y ago
> talking about pay almost always leads to interpersonal friction, resentment, conflict, lower work productivity, and slower progress of our company toward an IPO Try this one with your SO: "Talking about chores almost always leads to interpersonal friction, resentment, conflict, lower work productivity, and slower progress of our relationship towards marriage"

yupper32 5y ago

Is this satire? Talking about salaries have always resulted in better or equal pay for everyone involved (except the higher ups, like you) in my experience, and the experience of everyone I know. Your post sounds like companies claiming that unions would actually hurt you. If you're underpaying people in order to get to an IPO, people deserve to be aware of that and know the risks involved.

usui 5y ago
I'm not sure why you are interpreting the parent's comment as similar to "claiming that unions would actually hurt you". It's just a post talking about how management in companies works around the illegality of telling employees not to talk to about pay. It's in the first sentence. It's not like the parent comment is defending the practice, just how it's done in practice to discourage employees. Yes, groups of employees that don't band together believe that it will hurt their own bottom line if they talk about pay.
- yupper32 5y ago
  Are you saying that the poster is saying that they lie to their employees? I'm honestly not sure what you're saying.
mfogikds 5y ago
"Talking about salaries have always resulted in better or equal pay for everyone involved" What is the exact source on this? I highly doubt every company in existence has the budget to pay everyone "better or equal"
- yupper32 5y ago
  I address that in the second half of the sentence: "in my experience, and the experience of everyone I know." I'm not claiming a universal truth. I do think that the original post is much farther away from the truth than my claim, though.
  - mfogikds 5y ago
    Have you done an actual survey? I doubt you know the inner workings of every workplace of everyone you know.
- makeitdouble 5y ago
  You’ll need pretty solid justifications to lower salaries. In a case where a bunch of employees realize they’re underpaid, there’s only three natural outcomes: - lower paid employees don’t get anything, and start looking for a better paying job - lower paid employees get compensatory raises - lower paid employees get nothing and the higher paid members are expected to get lower pays. They proceed to leave for greener pastures (and they only need to find at least equal paying jobs to make it worth it) The scenario where salaries go down and employees don’t do anything is unrealistic.
kube-system 5y ago
I think the person you're responding to is referring to the social (not economic) outcomes that result when people realize they're paid differently than their peers. Depending on how diverse a team is (in terms of ability, experience, performance) this can open up discussions about what "equal pay" really means. If ability, experience, and performance are part of how you pay your employees, then a discussion about comparative pay of employees inherently means you are opening up a discussion about the comparative ability, experience, and performance of employees. I'm not saying that's a bad thing -- but -- some feelings might get hurt in the process.
- b3morales 5y ago
  Mostly agree, but I think there's a companion reason for the triggering of discomfort. The idea that pay is completely merit-based -- as you say "in terms of ability, experience, performance" -- is a comforting lie that we tell ourselves, in my experience. No company has truly objective decisions for salary. There is always a large handful of historical accident and personal relationships stirred in. (If nothing else, in tech a person's salary is partly determined by their previous salary at other companies!) Discussing the raw numbers of pay exposes that fact as well.
  - kube-system 5y ago
    For sure, pay is much more driven by immediate staffing needs for retention or hiring. This has more to do with the labor markets and work pipeline than anything about an individual employee. But people say they should be paid based on ability, performance, and experience. So this is what the conversation will be centered around, whether it is the complete reality for the considerations made by the employer or not. Alice won’t care that Bob was hired for $10K more because there was a labor shortage and the company was going to lose a contract if they couldn’t hire another person. She just wants her $10K. So, the marginal cost of hiring an additional employee is not only the cost of that employee, but the additional wage demand that would result from the rest of your workforce. This is likely why we see many companies giving bonuses in this labor crunch rather than higher base wages.

willcipriano 5y ago

I don't think I ever talked about pay with my coworkers, but the first thing I'd do if someone gave me that speech would be talk about pay. The lady doth protest too much, methinks.

antisthenes 5y ago

> What we did instead is make sure that everyone, including new college hires, understood that talking about pay almost always leads to interpersonal friction, resentment, conflict, lower work productivity, and slower progress of our company toward an IPO. I hope you've provided some very concrete examples how talking about pay delayed an IPO by a certain period of time, and quantified how much exactly hires were losing because of it, in exact dollar values. Because otherwise, it's just a gaslighting scare tactic. > It's not a threat if you just explain how the real world works and that actions have consequences. One of the consequences of bullshitting new hires with vague examples of how the real world works is that you end up with people willing to drink the kool-aid, regardless of their skills and ability. Now maybe that was your primary goal in the first place, but somehow I doubt it.

brandonmenc 5y ago

> talking about pay almost always leads to interpersonal friction, resentment, conflict You could take this as an indication that your pay scale is screwed up. But I guess it's easier to just bully your employees.

farmerstan 5y ago

Sorry but this is complete bullshit. Everyone should be on an even playing field. Keeping secrets only helps the execs control the peons. The best places I’ve worked at was very open and transparent. I mentioned below that sharing salary helps everyone. It doesn’t hurt the company at all unless the owners want to save every penny they have for themselves.

gooseus 5y ago

This approach works for all kinds of destructive conversations in the workplace. You don't need to explicitly stop people from complaining about a manager's behavior or other toxic workplace features, you just need to explain to people how discussions around how they feel about a particular management style almost always leads to interpersonal friction, resentment, conflict, lower work productivity, and slower progress of our company toward an IPO. You see, it's not a threat if you just explain how the real world works and that actions have consequences. /s

handrous 5y ago

Telling—being very generous—a lie couched in exaggerated hypotheticals (the lie: if sharing comp harms the company, it's the fault of the person who shared it, not management; exaggeration: this will have some huge and harmful effect on the company such that employees are significantly harmed) to your employees to keep them from acting in their own best interest is—still being very generous—kinda shitty.

triceratops 5y ago

Pro athletes' contracts are fairly public knowledge. Does that affect how professional sports teams perform?

legerdemain 5y ago
Yes? Teams lose valuable players all the time, often to everyone's detriment, over failed contract negotiations. Pay in professional sports is an extremely sore topic. See US women's soccer last year.
- triceratops 5y ago
  > Teams lose valuable players all the time If they were that valuable, they should've paid them accordingly. Compensation is the most direct marker of "value". If you're valued more, you get paid more. > often to everyone's detriment Presumably not the acquiring team's. > See US women's soccer last year They played 1 game in 2020, which they won. This year, their W-D-L record reads 15-3-2, which is pretty damn good.[1] Their contract negotiations might have been fractious, but they still performed on the field. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_women%27s_national_soccer_team#2020 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_women%27s_nation...

dmead 5y ago

I make it a point to talk about pay on the regular. I want to know if I'm getting fucked or not.

the_gipsy 5y ago

This is hilarious!

jahewson 5y ago

Ah so you gaslighted them, nice.

nexuist 5y ago

> talking about pay almost always leads to interpersonal friction, resentment, conflict, lower work productivity, and slower progress of our company toward an IPO Try this one with your SO: "Talking about chores almost always leads to interpersonal friction, resentment, conflict, lower work productivity, and slower progress of our relationship towards marriage"