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Ask HN: Are CO salary disclosure laws affecting remote work opportunities?

• MattGaiser 5y ago
  https://www.coloradoexcluded.com/ https://www.coloradoexcluded.com/
  • 71a54xd 5y ago
    The tough thing with these laws is that the direction is clearly positive, yet it seems to just harm anyone doing remote work in CO. Hopefully they don't have to wait for the tax base to erode before making adjustments to the law or waiting for the rest of the country to enact similar laws?
  • tomhallett 5y ago
    Oh wow, here's the disclaimer on a marketing job for Abercrombie and Fitch [1] and [2]: "This position is not open to applicants residing in or otherwise based in the State of Colorado. The work location is flexible if approved by the Company, except that the position may not be performed remotely from within the State of Colorado." I looked at one of the links on the site for Spotify, but I couldn't see any mention of Colorado on the job req [3]. Maybe it's somewhere else?? [4] 1: https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/2818550867 https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/2818550867 2: https://www.coloradoexcluded.com/company/776 https://www.coloradoexcluded.com/company/776 3: https://www.indeed.com/viewjob?jk=11c21b0e0ec9f40d&tk=1fmsmo4lvt539801&from=serp&vjs=3 https://www.indeed.com/viewjob?jk=11c21b0e0ec9f40d&tk=1fmsmo... 4: https://www.coloradoexcluded.com/company/509 https://www.coloradoexcluded.com/company/509
    • andrei_says_ 5y ago
      Isn’t this a signal for a pay so low that publishing it would be disastrous?
      • namelessoracle 5y ago
        Whats weird is that there are plenty of hacks for companies. I have seen one posting with a range of 50 to 200k with a proviso of "Salary based on experience, education, location, blah blah".
        • tschellenbach 5y ago
          I mean that's not so weird, for some roles pay is standardized, but for other roles like a software engineer, or an AE it can vary widely based on experience. And nobody wants to post 7 job postings with level 1, level 2, level 3 etc.
          • namelessoracle 5y ago
            The weird part is that its an easy way to dodge the restriction, so why do exclude Colorado instead of the easy hack? 50 to 200k doesnt tell anyone ANYTHING about what kind of salary they will get, and people might go in expecting the 200 when 80 is the real offer to expect. Only reason I can think of is they dont want to argue with people who start demanding the 200 sense it was posted
            • MattGaiser 5y ago
              I suspect a lot of it is just corporate policy. Someone would need to make the decision to post salary bands.
      • nhumrich 5y ago
        No, its legal and HR saying its better to exclude Colorado than expose salaries. Doesn't mean they are low. It means they are unknown.
• mayneack 5y ago
  Isn't there a similar rule going into effect in NYC?
  • 71a54xd 5y ago
    Not sure, but it wouldn't surprise me if there was.
  • bjtitus 5y ago
    Yes, it goes into effect on May 15 [1]. 1: https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/talent-acquisition/pages/nyc-require-salary-range-job-postings.aspx https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/talent-acqu...
  • dml2135 5y ago
    Yes, it goes into affect May 15: https://www.natlawreview.com/article/new-york-city-to-require-disclosure-salary-range-job-advertisements https://www.natlawreview.com/article/new-york-city-to-requir... Companies aren't going to be able to pull this sort of trickiness for too long -- the job market is too hot and laws like these are popping up in areas they can't afford not to hire from.
• _se 5y ago
  There are plenty of companies (mine included) that are moving into Colorado despite all of this. Tech is growing rapidly in Boulder and Denver. I wouldn't worry too much about it. Boulder is an amazing place to live!
• sanderjd 5y ago
  I have been actively searching and haven't noticed any impact at all.
• bgoldste 5y ago
  I spoke with a recruiter who works for a VC firm and hires for many of their portfolio companies yesterday. She mentioned the difficulty here, but framed it as a reasonable + manageable lift a company would make for a sufficiently senior hire. EG Director+, sure, for a single junior sales or CS role, maybe not so much. Don't think there was anything she took issue with here aside from a little extra logistics work.
• quxbar 5y ago
  Nobody trying to keep their salary a secret is holding onto good developers, or even mediocre ones.
  • foobiekr 5y ago
    This is unfortunately not true. Inertia is a huge problem.
    • infamouscow 5y ago
      Care to elaborate?
      • quxpar 5y ago
        Under-paid developers with decent skills are so rare and precious, I can get $30k a head poaching them. I'll split the fee two ways if you want to let me in on your secret stockpile ;)
      • namelessoracle 5y ago
        A company that gets a solid junior and promotes them on reasonable timelines (say once every 2 years) can easily get a person with skills "beyond" what the company that hire them can really afford and the person doesn't actively try to move to a different company because we are in a industry where a flat 100k is considered low by some, but still allows a fairly comfortable life style that doesn't engender wanting to make big changes. Combine that with fear of the unknown, plus the cargo culting of hiring practices that ask for skills that dont actually get used on the job and are thus completely atrophied by actual experienced devs all encourage inertia in current role. Especially if they are getting okayish equity refreshers and are in a stable company.
        • Ancapistani 5y ago
          > and the person doesn't actively try to move to a different company because […] For me at least, there’s also the barrier of actually liking working there. I don’t take jobs at companies where I can’t see myself “drinking the Koolaid”. I want to be engaged in the product, the company, and the work culture. If I’m working somewhere that checks those boxes, it’s going to take a fairly substantial increase in compensation for it to be worthwhile for me to start over in that process.
• imglorp 5y ago
  Does anyone have an opinion of open salaries? Ray Dalio's radical transparency idea is one example, and GitLab is another. Note it's also federally illegal to block employees from discussing salaries on their own. It seems like salary negotiating -- and the necessary secrecy that goes with it -- benefits only employers who systematically shorting some workers and pocket the difference. https://www.efinancialcareers.com/news/2019/10/salaries-bridgewater-associates https://www.efinancialcareers.com/news/2019/10/salaries-brid... https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/total-rewards/compensation/ https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/total-rewards/compensation...
  • slatascosu 5y ago
    > Does anyone have an opinion of open salaries? There's no such thing as a secret. Anyone, CEO included, that thinks they have a secret tier of comp... we know. We all talk about you and what a sweet deal you got and we make jokes about how your one or two good attributes are worth at least $$$ and we roll out eyes and chuckle. I love gossiping about salary information in the open "But, the thing about rumors..." Dude, we know what you make. We show each other screenshots. We could get fired for it and we still do it
    • MaknMoreGtnLess 5y ago
      > Anyone, CEO included, that thinks they have a secret tier of comp... we know No you don't. You have no clue what benefits and comp the CEO gets. Not even the CFO, CTO, COO, CxO knows benefits and comp the CEO (or each other) gets unless they share with each other.
      • Animats 5y ago
        If it's a public company, the compensation of the top 5 people is disclosed once a year in SEC filings.[1] Overpaid CEO + company losing money is a big red flag to investors. [1] https://www.sec.gov/answers/execcomp.htm https://www.sec.gov/answers/execcomp.htm
        • 5y ago
• gumby 5y ago
  The kinds of companies that oppose transparency do not deserve our assistance. It’s a form of boycott: fuck them
  • MaknMoreGtnLess 5y ago
    majority of companies oppose transparency. Also, transparency is not a technical issue. The people here can easily setup an Airtable spreadsheet where everyone writes the offers they are getting. There's no such Airtable spreadsheet currently because this is a people issue - we want to know what the companies budget are but want to hold the information to ourselves without sharing that information with anyone else interviewing. The root cause is us
    • mikeryan 5y ago
      There's no such Airtable spreadsheet currently You mean like Glassdoor? https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/boulder-software-engineer-salary-SRCH_IL.0,7_IM110_KO8,25.htm?clickSource=searchBtn https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/boulder-software-engineer...
      • MaknMoreGtnLess 5y ago
        > You mean like Glassdoor? No. Glassdoor are posts by (ex)employees and you have to fill out their existing template, which leaves out a lot of perks/benefits/options/RSUs at companies. If you looked at Glassdoor, you would think people at FAANG make no more than $120k/yr because the rest of the perks/benefits/options/RSUs match or often exceed (eg: 2021) the cash component. I literally meant an Airtable spreadsheet that you and I fill out after speaking to the recruiter from NewCo, even if we dont interview nor ever work there.
    • deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
• NeoTar 5y ago
  Sorry to raise an irrelevant point to the question asked, but if you are a United-States American, could you please either not use two-letter state abbreviations, or spell them out on first use. A lot of people who use this site are located outside of the USA, and for these people, the abbreviations are not commonly known. This can genuinely cause confusion - in this case I thought `CO` might be the abbreviation for an senior position which is unknown to me (i.e. like CEO, CTO, etc.).
  • aerovistae 5y ago
    I'm from the US and I skimmed past this post 6x before finally stopping and thinking about it because I had no idea what CO was. Although it's obvious in context if you're American, without context nobody would recognize state abbreviations, they're far too generic. MS ME MN MA etc could stand for so many things. I thought CO was "Chief Officer" at first.
    • fetus8 5y ago
      I'm a Colorado resident, and even I didn't realize the OP was talking about the state at first...
  • function_seven 5y ago
    My personal rule is that two-letter state abbreviations should only be used on postal addresses. For writing, spell it out, or use the longer abbrev. (like Calif., or Colo.) I live in Ontario, CA. Pop quiz, where do I live? :)
    • joegahona 5y ago
      This is the correct advice. Postal abbreviations should be used for postage only. If you're a newspaper writer who for whatever reason is constrained for space, feel free to use Associated Press abbreviations like "Calif." if and only if it's preceded by a city. In all other cases, spell it out. Nobody should have to think more than a nanosecond what state you mean when you write MS (Mississippi? Missouri? Massachusetts?) or AK (Alaska? Arkansas?).
• programmarchy 5y ago
  If you're considering moving to Boulder, it'd probably be better to work with a company based there. For one, Colorado companies get the mountain vibe of taking off for bluebird days to go ski, and two it has a really good local network to get plugged into.
  • sitzkrieg 5y ago
    and insane rents
• sitzkrieg 5y ago
  many co listings are showing a range for the position. helpful to know the bottom but there are still caveats. with that said i have applied to listings in other states (often with no salary listed) as a CO resident, and it never came up at any point
• nojito 5y ago
  Not really. The new thing is disclosing only CO salaries or asterisking that the published salary is for CO residents only.
• tedivm 5y ago
  I think it's making it hard for some companies to hire. I don't live in Colorado, but when people reach out to me for roles and they say anywhere but Colorado they get my blanket response- > Sorry, I have a rule against companies that refuse to hire in Colorado. I feel that sharing a salary band is something that most honest companies are willing to do upfront, and if a company finds sharing that information so reputation damaging that they'll refuse to work with people from an entire state then the odds are their salary bands are low and their culture is not worker friendly.
  • slickdork 5y ago
    This is the correct way, imo. Why start a relationship with a company that's going out of it's way to pay you less?
• bwh2 5y ago
  I live and hire people in Colorado, and a bunch of recruiters contact me about remote roles. Most companies that fear transparency just advertise very broad ranges, e.g. $100-200k. I'm sure some companies refuse Colorado employees, but nobody I've talked to seems concerned. The market for engineers in Colorado is very hot. What we're seeing is the smaller Boulder/Denver startup scene from the past decade transforming into a larger and more stable market as companies like Ibotta, Guild Education, SendGrid, etc. are hiring a ton of engineers. And you still have lots of smaller startups competing for talent.
  • MelvinButtsESQ 5y ago
    This is what I've seen basically. Some companies meet the requirements of the law technically by putting a HUGE range like "75,000USD - 310,000USD". I would argue this is disingenuous by employers, but that is a problem with the law as written based on my understanding.
• tschellenbach 5y ago
  Stream hires in Co, Amsterdam and remote. I think it's a good trend that jobs show a salary indication. The only thing that makes it tricky is that the range can be quite wide depending on experience. So for some roles, where you are ok with a wide range of experience your low to high range can be 3-4x. So it doesn't solve all problems, but it solves some. Probably a good initiative.
  • el_benhameen 5y ago
    I support legislation like this, but I think it's actually made some of the bands wider so that companies can continue to be vague. I think California mandates disclosure when a company is asked about a position, but every time I've tried that with a recruiter I get a "well, I've got some really wide ranges, it depends on experience and how the interview and your placement goes, but somewhere between $N,000 and $3N,000". Given that N is often less than my current salary and 3N is way more, this makes the question useless for determining whether proceeding with the company is a waste of time (although I guess you could say it's a waste of time to engage with a company that refuses to discuss salary in good faith).
• shaggyfrog 5y ago
  What would happen if the Colorado state legislature passed a law that said you can't sell goods or services to people in Colorado if you refuse employment to people in Colorado?
  • chrismcb 5y ago
    Most likely the federal government would step in and point out how stupid that law would be. In addition companies outside if Colorado would stop doing business with people inside Colorado.
• jppope 5y ago
  Colorado is a totally fine state, my brother lives in Denver. I've spent plenty of time there and have a lot of love for it... Denver/Boulder have changed alot in the last 5 years though. If you're trying to get more nature in your life though Denver won't be quite as good as smaller metros with easier access: Salt Lake City, Provo, Portland, Bend, Flagstaff, Reno, or Boise. New Hampshire/ Vermont also have a lot going on but it seems like a different vibe than I'm picking up from the post, and I would guess Canadian Cities like Calgary are out too. Why not look at other cities before having to worry about any of the legal stuff?
• Kapura 5y ago
  Would you want to work for a company that goes out of its way to avoid states with worker-friendly laws like the Colorado's wage disclosure? It seems a pretty clear sign that they will try to screw you over. There are plenty of companies that you can work for, if you're just trying to get a salary. But on the flip side, have you visited Colorado recently? Large parts of the state are now what I would describe as a "suburban hellscape." There are other states with nature and fewer people.
  • deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  • trowawee 5y ago
    Your first point is really the most important part for me. I've been in tech now for around a decade; finding new work isn't that hard and I know roughly what I'm going to get paid wherever I go. But "does this company treat its workers well?" is frequently a trickier thing to get good signal on, especially if you don't know anyone there (more common now in the new mostly-remote world), and "role open to any state but Colorado" is now a useful data point (and an immediate red flag).
• dibujante 5y ago
  What's keeping a company from posting a salary of $1-$1000000 and then always being compliant?
  • trowawee 5y ago
    Some combination of market pressure and regulatory pressure. Market pressure: it'll be harder to attract people to a position without a listed salary band once they get used to listed salary bands. Regulatory pressure: the law in Colorado isn't being enforced too strictly, per bkjelden elsewhere in the comments, but the law does require "the hourly rate or salary compensation (or a range thereof) that the employer in good faith believes it may pay for the particular job"[0]. If you post a ridiculous range, you're playing with fire; one report and one pissed-off regulator later and you might end up being the poster child for the state's enforcement of the law. I would personally not want to be on the receiving end when they decide to make an example of someone. [0]: https://www.skandslegal.com/sks-blog/2021/1/15/colorados-new-law-requires-compensation-details-in-all-job-postings https://www.skandslegal.com/sks-blog/2021/1/15/colorados-new...
• namiller2 5y ago
  My large company just opened up to hiring remote workers and they specifically state no Colorado workers.
• bkjelden 5y ago
  Coloradoan here, my experience is that this law is pretty loosely enforced and many job postings don't comply, even for local, in-person positions (although it's getting better). Most "anywhere in the US" job postings don't list a salary range for CO candidates, and I doubt the people posting them are even aware of this law. My experience is there are roughly three categories of jobs: 1) "Anywhere in the US (or global)" jobs. Very unlikely they'll list a salary range, probably because the person posting a job has no idea about the Colorado law. 2) Companies not HQed in Colorado, but with a Colorado presence (e.g. a company with its HQ in NYC has an office in Boulder). It's maybe 50/50 whether or not they'll list a salary range, especially if the job can be filled in one of many offices in multiple states. 3) Colorado-only companies. Maybe 75%-90% of them will post a salary. Definitely not 100%, but it's better than it was a year ago. As far as I know there's also no penalty for a company going paying someone outside of the posted salary range, and they also don't have to include any non-salary compensation (e.g. RSUs). I wouldn't consider this law a major detriment to living here. I have yet to see one actual example of someone being harmed by it.
• ADent 5y ago
  It did for me - it delayed my start by a few weeks. They had to consult legal. Repost the job w/salaries. Then extend the formal offer.
  • tedivm 5y ago
    That's actually a really good outcome, your company gets points for fixing their postings instead of just shutting down the offer.
• grst 5y ago
  Norway is going one step further: it is possibly to check the net income of every resident online: https://www.skatteetaten.no/en/forms/search-the-tax-lists/ https://www.skatteetaten.no/en/forms/search-the-tax-lists/
• pjmercurio 5y ago
  I was a manager for a 100% remote company. Because of the job listing software they used, all postings had to have a city associated with it (you had to read the body of the posting to see that it was open to anyone in the US). They would change the city occasionally to attract a new crop of applicants. When they changed the city of one of my openings to Denver, I pointed out that it was illegal to post a job in Colorado without a salary range. I was fired a week later. Some companies _really_ don't want to post salaries.