4 ms·
Not only is it an example of the idiotic decision making processes that companies use that are not effective in the long run, it demonstrates how they are happy
by bmitc 3y ago
Not only is it an example of the idiotic decision making processes that companies use that are not effective in the long run, it demonstrates how they are happy to pit employees against one another.
It is awkward for a person to know that they make substantially more than coworkers. It forms a feeling of guilt and other negative feelings. But what are they supposed to do? Negotiate lower salaries when starting or after working for a while? And it's definitely frustrating knowing other coworkers with the same or less experience and responsibilities as you make a whole lot more. It forms feelings of jealousy, not feeling valued, self worth, and other negative feelings. And all of this is caused by the company simply not caring about actually employing and managing humans.
And it's always been insane to me that companies will let an experienced person leave because they won't raise their salary and then immediately put out a job requisition at a salary that would have kept the experienced person. It makes no sense, and yet, this happens constantly.
- peteradio 3y agoThe social order is fundamentally nepotistic. Family/Tribe/Caste matters more than experience/performance within the managerial bubble. Keeping the actual workers down helps to keep them desperate to put food on the table, but you better perform well enough to float the non-workers. Deloitte/Wipro/Infosys/et.al know how to play this game very well to discourage anyone not in the tribe from advancing.
- ironmanszombie 3y agoYep. It's not the clueless HR but systematic. I have yet to read anything specific about why this happens and the benefits of it.
- bmitc 3y agoOne of the reasons I have realized is that it's sometimes about control. A manager (people, project, product) will not have as much control over an experienced employee who has potentially been at the company a long time or just has a lot of experience in general in terms of getting what they want from the employee, despite the employee having the business' best interest in mind. So it's an implicit attrition that seems to sometimes be desired.
- bevekspldnw 3y agoShhhh…never mention caste in SV.
- fakedang 3y agoHonestly is it company culture, or is it just clueless HR teams who can't hire for shit? I'm not complaining though, stupid HR and hiring policies are the reason we're consistently getting some really good people from FAANG to join our tiny firm.
- JohnFen 3y ago> It is awkward This is why I don't discuss my salary, nor do I want to know what my coworkers make. It's not information that is terribly useful, but can make for very awkward situations. I do want to know whether or not I'm making a salary that is in line with the norms in my area, but I can easily find that information without knowing what any individual is making.
- andruby 3y ago> I can easily find that information without knowing what any individual is making. How do you usually find that information?
- JohnFen 3y agoThe city and state governments have pretty solid data that is easily available.
- thrwaway1985882 3y ago> It's not information that is terribly useful This opinion feels alien to me. Some of the most useful information you can have in a company is around salary/bonus/commission structures. From a purely self interested perspective, knowing this makes you a far better negotiator around review season. And from an organizational perspective, understanding what kind of things get people their bonus or commission goes a long way to understand what kind of decisions they make and how to influence them. As a manager, though: thanks, employees with this perspective reduce the number of awkward meetings I might have.
- JohnFen 3y agoI think that it's a matter of priorities. I am not interested in making the most money I possibly can, I'm interested in doing the most interesting work that I possibly can. I have even taken jobs where I was paid well below market rates because the work itself was interesting enough to me or taught me a skill that I really wanted to learn. As long as I'm being paid at least an amount that I consider fair, it doesn't matter to me what anyone I'm working next to makes. If I disclose my salary and I'm making substantially more or less than my teammates, that can cause reactions in them that make the job much less tolerable regardless of my pay rate. So I don't want to know what they make, and I don't want them to know what I make. I have to work with these people, and want that to be as pleasant as possible. Now, saying that is not saying that people who prioritize maximizing pay are wrong at all. They just have a different priority.