5 ms·

Transparency at the Office: Psst...This Is What Your Co-Worker Is Paid

55 points by coffeegeek 14y ago

nvr219 14y ago
"...employees are each assigned to one of nine fixed salaries..." Reminds me of a less-complicated general schedule salary table: http://archive.opm.gov/oca/12tables/html/gs.asp http://archive.opm.gov/oca/12tables/html/gs.asp
aston 14y ago
Near the bottom of this article is an interesting post mortem of RethinkDB's transparent salary policy. When it was posted years ago [1] folks here took pretty kindly to it, though some were skeptical [2]. I'm kinda disappointed (who doesn't like to know?) but also not very surprised that it didn't work out. Negotiation doesn't work super well if the other players have complete information about your strategy. [1] http://web.archive.org/web/20100722162634/http://rethinkdb.com/jobs/ http://web.archive.org/web/20100722162634/http://rethinkdb.c... [2a] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1210336 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1210336 [2b] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1190533 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1190533
- coffeemug 14y ago
  Hey, I'm slava @ rethink. If you have questions about how things went, I'm happy to answer.
  - kmt 14y ago
    I take it you mean publicly. Really like to elaborate on this topic. How did things go?
  - temphn 14y ago
    What if you had front loaded the open salary information in the hiring process? Something like, "We have a no-haggle policy on engineering roles. In order to streamline negotiations, please only apply for this job if you are comfortable with X starting salary and Y options. We are very fair and promotions are rapid (see our comp ladders here), but want people to join who share our sense of efficiency." Law firms manage to pull this off with a standard $160k base, and probably something similar works in other spaces?
- rorrr 14y ago
  Looking at their salary model, I think they got it very very wrong: Position | Salary | Stock Options ———————————————+———————————————+———————————————— Intern | 50K - 60K, | prorated N/A Engineer I | 70K - 80K | 0.25% - 0.75% Engineer II | 85K - 100K | 1.0% - 1.5% Engineer III | 105K - 125K | 1.75% - 2.25% Your highest-level engineer makes only twice as much as your intern (stocks are worthless, on average). That makes zero sense to me. True senior level engineers are dozens of times more productive than interns, make infinitely fewer mistakes, and know infinitely more. To max out your engineer salaries at 125K in Mountain View, CA is just crazy. No surprise it didn't work out.
  - jackowayed 14y ago
    I'm not sure it's as insane as you think. First, interns at big-name tech companies are highly overpaid for the work the company gets now; it's seen more as a hiring cost than a salary. The company pays ~$50k (~20k is three month's salary; add in housing stipend, taxes, and overhead) per intern in the hopes that a decent proportion of them will be back. Those that are back are solid engineers that are known quantities; false positives should be much more rare than in your general hiring process because you get to see them work in your company for three months before deciding whether to make a full-time offer. Given how hard and expensive engineer recruiting is, this is an ok deal for a lot of companies. But regardless, comparing to intern salary isn't meaningful because few companies actually believe that they are paying for what the intern will produce in their three months when they pay top dollar for elite interns. Furthermore, while higher salaries are certainly available, those salaries don't seem absurdly low for the stage of company they were (tiny staff, no product released). Most companies at that early of a stage do expect employees to accept a nontrivial cut from their market rate in return for more interesting work, more autonomy, and fairly significant (if high-risk) equity.
    - InAnEmergency 14y ago
      Yep, I was hired by a company where I did an internship and was actually paid slightly less as a full-time employee than as an intern (more benefits, though). As an intern I made $40/hr, hired full-time at $80k/yr.
- tehwalrus 14y ago
  "Negotiation doesn't work super well if the other players have complete information about your strategy." Economist's point: perfect markets don't work if anyone has restricted information. Employees can't sell their labour at the market rate if they can't see every other salary in the economy... :)
cmadan 14y ago
When I was working in New York City, I always found employee secrecy over the salaries pretty interesting. It seemed like a taboo to tell someone your salary or ask them what they're paid. I understand why employers would want to disincentive salary disclosures but employees? Your peers salary is clear indication of your valuation to the company and there should be every incentive to share. Back home in India, pretty much everyone knows each others salaries for all sizes of companies.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- lemming 14y ago
  What I also found weird in NYC is that people can be really cagey about their rent, because our have a rent ceiling that most landlords won't let you go past, and that's a multiple of your salary. So if someone's paying X amount of rent, you know that their salary is at least Y. It's really strange.
  - colmvp 14y ago
    Really? I didn't notice this at all while living there. And it's also hard to peg someones rent with respect to their salary because some people chose to live beyond their means while others would potentially live 'cheaply' in order to save enough to buy a place.
- the1 14y ago
  asking what you make is like asking how often you get laid. and whom.
  - mietek 14y ago
    > asking what you make is like asking how often you get laid. and whom. Yes, as long as you consider your career to be an extension of your penis. This does seem to be a popular point of view in English-speaking countries.
GIFtheory 14y ago
This is not too uncommon for government employees, including (e.g.) professors, coaches, doctors at state schools. For example, I had no idea top surgeons raked in that kind of dough. Damn. http://www.sacbee.com/statepay/ http://www.sacbee.com/statepay/
- newman314 14y ago
  If you want to be pissed, look up troopers. Last I looked, there were a whole bunch making over $200k.
grecy 14y ago
I've always felt uncomfortable about how employees are not supposed to talk to each other about their salaries. To me, it reeks of manipulation feels just like saying to a child "Here's some candy, but you have to promise not to tell anyone I gave it to you, OK" ugh.
- dsymonds 14y ago
  There's nothing stopping you from talking to other employees about salaries. It's a myth that is propagated by companies in order to keep you in the dark about what they are paying other people, to deprive you of information, and to keep you at a disadvantage in any negotiation.
  - eshvk 14y ago
    Also, it is very much a western thing. I have a lot of Indian friends and they happily trade salary information amongst each other. This reduces any informational asymmetry that exists in such situations.
    - zuppy 14y ago
      I don't know if it's only a western thing. I'm in Eastern Europe and we still consider this subject a taboo (at least in IT). edit: To be more clear, you can talk about it with friends but not with your colleagues.
      - dawidw 14y ago
        It's not a taboo thing. In my contracts I've had always clause that all the information are confidential, including salary amount. And I can be sued by company if I break the agreement.
        Paul_S 14y ago
        How can such a thing be legally binding. Did you tell your wife? Can they sue for that? What if you're not married to your partner? Your bank and every person who has seen your bank statement (a lot of people) knows what you're earning. Can they sue for that?
greghinch 14y ago
I can see how this is interesting, but it seems like it would be too easy for no one to ever be happy. Employees tend to either over or under value themselves pretty strongly, and while trying to level the playing field seems like a good idea, it's just inviting confrontation if you have a mix of both (like a lot of workplaces). Combine that with the proclivity for workplace lawsuits at even a hint of discrimination (in the US) and I don't see how this could ever gain wide adoption. I also think the idea of scheduled raises breeds a sense of complacency.
lemming 14y ago
In my last job I was in a position where I got to see all the salary wrangling that goes on behind the scenes, and it was pretty awful. You get people with power dishing out preferential treatment to their mates, you get situations that are incredibly unfair but for whatever reason can't be easily resolved, and you get a lot of gossiping and speculation that is wildly unproductive for a company. I've never worked anywhere with salary transparency but I'd love to try it - I think with the right people it could work well but I'm sure there's plenty of scope for petty jealousies of other kinds. But I did come away with the fact that the secrecy in many cases is often to hide things that your average worker is going to be offended by, i.e. how much executives are paid.
- thisone 14y ago
  I've worked for a large company where if you know someone's band (and you generally know that just because you do, not by asking about) and how long someone has been there, you know within about a grand, how much they get paid. I now work for a place where I'm told to never talk about my salary, yet 5 members of the (very small) company were invited into my salary review. I often think that the more they stress to not talk about it, the more likely it is I'm underpaid compared to my coworkers.
vacri 14y ago
I once did a short stint at a phone survey company that specialised in health and social welfare surveys. I wasn't on this particular survey crew, but I remember a colleague telling me that it was strange - a stranger rings up and with your consent conducts a 20-minute anonymous survery on the subject of abuse, sexual or otherwise, that the respondant suffered as a child. It was a delicate survey and required a fair bit of rapport building, and lots of 'I need to remind you that the next question is voluntary'... but we were still getting plenty of respondants, and the weird thing was that despite being a (relatively) anonymous stranger with which you have just shared some sensitive, deep secrets about childhood abuse, the question that most balked at was the 'income level' question in the demographic rundown at the end.
- ryanmolden 14y ago
  I think our culture (well, American, capitalist society is all I can really comment on) has a very strong implied link between income and worth/value. We have magazines that routinely have lists of the highest paid / richest people. People give incredible leeway to highly paid execs, as if due to the number of zeros on their paycheck they clearly have to be right/smart. There are sayings like "that decision was made above my paygrade", that seem to show there is a pretty tight linkage, mentally, between income and value as a human. I don't agree with this mindset at all, mainly because I don't believe most organizations are truly meritocratic in any objective sense. It's a good PR story, but people, evolutionarily, tend to "look out for their own", for whatever traits puts someone in that in-group. I have seen many examples of people espousing meritocracy but clearly considering those with the most "merit" as being one in the same with "those they already seem to like", coincidentally enough. That isn't necessarily a bad thing, with balance. I think a 100% meritocratic org would be lacking in basic humanity and kind of a terrible place to work. All humans make mistakes, have struggles, have setbacks, etc... Even with that being said, and me not believing in the income -> value/worth link in general, I would not be comfortable talking about my salary with most friends/family. I live a comfortable life with little stress about money, but bragging about that (which even trying to downplay it sounds like a humblebrag) seems wrong somehow.
  - mc32 14y ago
diminish 14y ago
there are 2 types of people in the office, happy people and those who know the salaries of others.
- Nate75Sanders 14y ago
  And the first is exactly what managers want -- engineers who have no idea, whatsoever, what they're worth.
  - onemorepassword 14y ago
    Quite the contrary. If an engineer asks for considerably less than they're worth, that goes into the "may be out of touch with his profession" column. With the exception of starters and a few semi-autistic outliers, engineers that have no idea what they're worth generally aren't the best of engineers. Not asking for it however is a different matter.
    - jackowayed 14y ago
      That's just not true. Many, many engineers severely undervalue themselves for a variety of reasons. For some, underconfidence. Even for those that are confident in themselves, for many there's a fairness issue. ("Do I really need more than 100K?") Also, if they're in one underpaid job, the anchoring effect is pretty strong. I know someone who was in DC for <70k, applied to work remotely for a Valley company, and when they said yes, he asked for a big raise to 90k. They valued retention enough that they decided to actually pay him what he was worth and what comparable teammates got, tens of thousands a year more. People are socialized to try to make others happy, not inconvenience someone by asking for more than they feel is necessary and fair, etc. This does not speak to their competence, though it might also mean that they're less effective at making you realize how competent they are once you hire them (because they're also the type of people who don't flash all of their accomplishments in front of you). Women also tend to fall into this even moreso because of gender socialization.
- cmadan 14y ago
  Well, I wasn't happy in my last salaried job and I didn't know the salaries of my colleagues.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]

55 points by coffeegeek 14y ago

"...employees are each assigned to one of nine fixed salaries..." Reminds me of a less-complicated general schedule salary table: http://archive.opm.gov/oca/12tables/html/gs.asp http://archive.opm.gov/oca/12tables/html/gs.asp

aston 14y ago

Near the bottom of this article is an interesting post mortem of RethinkDB's transparent salary policy. When it was posted years ago [1] folks here took pretty kindly to it, though some were skeptical [2]. I'm kinda disappointed (who doesn't like to know?) but also not very surprised that it didn't work out. Negotiation doesn't work super well if the other players have complete information about your strategy. [1] http://web.archive.org/web/20100722162634/http://rethinkdb.com/jobs/ http://web.archive.org/web/20100722162634/http://rethinkdb.c... [2a] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1210336 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1210336 [2b] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1190533 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1190533

coffeemug 14y ago
Hey, I'm slava @ rethink. If you have questions about how things went, I'm happy to answer.
- kmt 14y ago
  I take it you mean publicly. Really like to elaborate on this topic. How did things go?
- temphn 14y ago
  What if you had front loaded the open salary information in the hiring process? Something like, "We have a no-haggle policy on engineering roles. In order to streamline negotiations, please only apply for this job if you are comfortable with X starting salary and Y options. We are very fair and promotions are rapid (see our comp ladders here), but want people to join who share our sense of efficiency." Law firms manage to pull this off with a standard $160k base, and probably something similar works in other spaces?
rorrr 14y ago
Looking at their salary model, I think they got it very very wrong: Position | Salary | Stock Options ———————————————+———————————————+———————————————— Intern | 50K - 60K, | prorated N/A Engineer I | 70K - 80K | 0.25% - 0.75% Engineer II | 85K - 100K | 1.0% - 1.5% Engineer III | 105K - 125K | 1.75% - 2.25% Your highest-level engineer makes only twice as much as your intern (stocks are worthless, on average). That makes zero sense to me. True senior level engineers are dozens of times more productive than interns, make infinitely fewer mistakes, and know infinitely more. To max out your engineer salaries at 125K in Mountain View, CA is just crazy. No surprise it didn't work out.
- jackowayed 14y ago
  I'm not sure it's as insane as you think. First, interns at big-name tech companies are highly overpaid for the work the company gets now; it's seen more as a hiring cost than a salary. The company pays ~$50k (~20k is three month's salary; add in housing stipend, taxes, and overhead) per intern in the hopes that a decent proportion of them will be back. Those that are back are solid engineers that are known quantities; false positives should be much more rare than in your general hiring process because you get to see them work in your company for three months before deciding whether to make a full-time offer. Given how hard and expensive engineer recruiting is, this is an ok deal for a lot of companies. But regardless, comparing to intern salary isn't meaningful because few companies actually believe that they are paying for what the intern will produce in their three months when they pay top dollar for elite interns. Furthermore, while higher salaries are certainly available, those salaries don't seem absurdly low for the stage of company they were (tiny staff, no product released). Most companies at that early of a stage do expect employees to accept a nontrivial cut from their market rate in return for more interesting work, more autonomy, and fairly significant (if high-risk) equity.
  - InAnEmergency 14y ago
    Yep, I was hired by a company where I did an internship and was actually paid slightly less as a full-time employee than as an intern (more benefits, though). As an intern I made $40/hr, hired full-time at $80k/yr.
tehwalrus 14y ago
"Negotiation doesn't work super well if the other players have complete information about your strategy." Economist's point: perfect markets don't work if anyone has restricted information. Employees can't sell their labour at the market rate if they can't see every other salary in the economy... :)

cmadan 14y ago

When I was working in New York City, I always found employee secrecy over the salaries pretty interesting. It seemed like a taboo to tell someone your salary or ask them what they're paid. I understand why employers would want to disincentive salary disclosures but employees? Your peers salary is clear indication of your valuation to the company and there should be every incentive to share. Back home in India, pretty much everyone knows each others salaries for all sizes of companies.

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
lemming 14y ago
What I also found weird in NYC is that people can be really cagey about their rent, because our have a rent ceiling that most landlords won't let you go past, and that's a multiple of your salary. So if someone's paying X amount of rent, you know that their salary is at least Y. It's really strange.
- colmvp 14y ago
  Really? I didn't notice this at all while living there. And it's also hard to peg someones rent with respect to their salary because some people chose to live beyond their means while others would potentially live 'cheaply' in order to save enough to buy a place.
the1 14y ago
asking what you make is like asking how often you get laid. and whom.
- mietek 14y ago
  > asking what you make is like asking how often you get laid. and whom. Yes, as long as you consider your career to be an extension of your penis. This does seem to be a popular point of view in English-speaking countries.

GIFtheory 14y ago

This is not too uncommon for government employees, including (e.g.) professors, coaches, doctors at state schools. For example, I had no idea top surgeons raked in that kind of dough. Damn. http://www.sacbee.com/statepay/ http://www.sacbee.com/statepay/

newman314 14y ago
If you want to be pissed, look up troopers. Last I looked, there were a whole bunch making over $200k.

grecy 14y ago

I've always felt uncomfortable about how employees are not supposed to talk to each other about their salaries. To me, it reeks of manipulation feels just like saying to a child "Here's some candy, but you have to promise not to tell anyone I gave it to you, OK" ugh.

dsymonds 14y ago
There's nothing stopping you from talking to other employees about salaries. It's a myth that is propagated by companies in order to keep you in the dark about what they are paying other people, to deprive you of information, and to keep you at a disadvantage in any negotiation.
- eshvk 14y ago
  Also, it is very much a western thing. I have a lot of Indian friends and they happily trade salary information amongst each other. This reduces any informational asymmetry that exists in such situations.
  - zuppy 14y ago
    I don't know if it's only a western thing. I'm in Eastern Europe and we still consider this subject a taboo (at least in IT). edit: To be more clear, you can talk about it with friends but not with your colleagues.
    - dawidw 14y ago
      It's not a taboo thing. In my contracts I've had always clause that all the information are confidential, including salary amount. And I can be sued by company if I break the agreement.
      - Paul_S 14y ago
        How can such a thing be legally binding. Did you tell your wife? Can they sue for that? What if you're not married to your partner? Your bank and every person who has seen your bank statement (a lot of people) knows what you're earning. Can they sue for that?

greghinch 14y ago

I can see how this is interesting, but it seems like it would be too easy for no one to ever be happy. Employees tend to either over or under value themselves pretty strongly, and while trying to level the playing field seems like a good idea, it's just inviting confrontation if you have a mix of both (like a lot of workplaces). Combine that with the proclivity for workplace lawsuits at even a hint of discrimination (in the US) and I don't see how this could ever gain wide adoption. I also think the idea of scheduled raises breeds a sense of complacency.

lemming 14y ago

In my last job I was in a position where I got to see all the salary wrangling that goes on behind the scenes, and it was pretty awful. You get people with power dishing out preferential treatment to their mates, you get situations that are incredibly unfair but for whatever reason can't be easily resolved, and you get a lot of gossiping and speculation that is wildly unproductive for a company. I've never worked anywhere with salary transparency but I'd love to try it - I think with the right people it could work well but I'm sure there's plenty of scope for petty jealousies of other kinds. But I did come away with the fact that the secrecy in many cases is often to hide things that your average worker is going to be offended by, i.e. how much executives are paid.

thisone 14y ago
I've worked for a large company where if you know someone's band (and you generally know that just because you do, not by asking about) and how long someone has been there, you know within about a grand, how much they get paid. I now work for a place where I'm told to never talk about my salary, yet 5 members of the (very small) company were invited into my salary review. I often think that the more they stress to not talk about it, the more likely it is I'm underpaid compared to my coworkers.

vacri 14y ago

I once did a short stint at a phone survey company that specialised in health and social welfare surveys. I wasn't on this particular survey crew, but I remember a colleague telling me that it was strange - a stranger rings up and with your consent conducts a 20-minute anonymous survery on the subject of abuse, sexual or otherwise, that the respondant suffered as a child. It was a delicate survey and required a fair bit of rapport building, and lots of 'I need to remind you that the next question is voluntary'... but we were still getting plenty of respondants, and the weird thing was that despite being a (relatively) anonymous stranger with which you have just shared some sensitive, deep secrets about childhood abuse, the question that most balked at was the 'income level' question in the demographic rundown at the end.

ryanmolden 14y ago
I think our culture (well, American, capitalist society is all I can really comment on) has a very strong implied link between income and worth/value. We have magazines that routinely have lists of the highest paid / richest people. People give incredible leeway to highly paid execs, as if due to the number of zeros on their paycheck they clearly have to be right/smart. There are sayings like "that decision was made above my paygrade", that seem to show there is a pretty tight linkage, mentally, between income and value as a human. I don't agree with this mindset at all, mainly because I don't believe most organizations are truly meritocratic in any objective sense. It's a good PR story, but people, evolutionarily, tend to "look out for their own", for whatever traits puts someone in that in-group. I have seen many examples of people espousing meritocracy but clearly considering those with the most "merit" as being one in the same with "those they already seem to like", coincidentally enough. That isn't necessarily a bad thing, with balance. I think a 100% meritocratic org would be lacking in basic humanity and kind of a terrible place to work. All humans make mistakes, have struggles, have setbacks, etc... Even with that being said, and me not believing in the income -> value/worth link in general, I would not be comfortable talking about my salary with most friends/family. I live a comfortable life with little stress about money, but bragging about that (which even trying to downplay it sounds like a humblebrag) seems wrong somehow.
- mc32 14y ago

diminish 14y ago

there are 2 types of people in the office, happy people and those who know the salaries of others.

Nate75Sanders 14y ago
And the first is exactly what managers want -- engineers who have no idea, whatsoever, what they're worth.
- onemorepassword 14y ago
  Quite the contrary. If an engineer asks for considerably less than they're worth, that goes into the "may be out of touch with his profession" column. With the exception of starters and a few semi-autistic outliers, engineers that have no idea what they're worth generally aren't the best of engineers. Not asking for it however is a different matter.
  - jackowayed 14y ago
    That's just not true. Many, many engineers severely undervalue themselves for a variety of reasons. For some, underconfidence. Even for those that are confident in themselves, for many there's a fairness issue. ("Do I really need more than 100K?") Also, if they're in one underpaid job, the anchoring effect is pretty strong. I know someone who was in DC for <70k, applied to work remotely for a Valley company, and when they said yes, he asked for a big raise to 90k. They valued retention enough that they decided to actually pay him what he was worth and what comparable teammates got, tens of thousands a year more. People are socialized to try to make others happy, not inconvenience someone by asking for more than they feel is necessary and fair, etc. This does not speak to their competence, though it might also mean that they're less effective at making you realize how competent they are once you hire them (because they're also the type of people who don't flash all of their accomplishments in front of you). Women also tend to fall into this even moreso because of gender socialization.
cmadan 14y ago
Well, I wasn't happy in my last salaried job and I didn't know the salaries of my colleagues.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]