10 ms·

I've always felt the culture of hiding salaries was doing a significant disservice to employees. It creates a significant and largely artificial information di

by tikhonj 13y ago

I've always felt the culture of hiding salaries was doing a significant disservice to employees. It creates a significant and largely artificial information disparity, giving a major market advantage to the employer. In turn, this makes the entire labor market less efficient for the employee. This also makes the employer less accountable to the employees. The employer can easily pay somebody significantly more or less than they contribute, and the rest of the team cannot really say anything about this. Now, there are some cultural reasons to do this--preventing jealousy, hiding inequality. But it really feels like a social band-aid, a temporary solution hiding the symptoms but not the underlying problem. Besides, everyone ends up having a reasonable guess as to who makes more and who makes less anyhow! The same dynamics develop, just with more uncertainty. On the other hand, making salaries public takes these problems head-on. Inequality isn't bad in and of itself; some is basically necessary. But hiding that fact doesn't really help anyone. Instead, forcing people to see it head-on, deal with it and talk about it is probably a better solution. I really applaud Buffer and the general movement towards transparency. I think it's a very healthy cultural progression and hope it catches on more widely, so that people stop having knee-jerk reactions to salary information. EDIT: As an interesting additional note, all salaries (beyond a token minimum) at Berkeley (and the whole UC system) are publicly available at http://ucpay.globl.org/ http://ucpay.globl.org/. I've looked up various professors at the ParLab (where I did some undergraduate research). The fact that their salaries range from ~120k to ~350k did not change my perspective of anyone and did not seem to affect the lab's culture at all. Essentially, I'd be perfectly happy to see this outside of public universities.

mrjatx 13y ago
I disagree completely. You should, as the potential employee, be well aware of the market pay and what you are willing to be paid to perform the job that you're applying for. Not to mention their job postings actually list a salary window ($88-110k for Backend/Frontend). What the person sitting next to you is paid should bear absolutely no impact on your life or your work ethic. If you're happy to make $88k and the guy doing the same job next to you is making $110k, I don't see any problem. Maybe he has a few more years of experience than you, maybe he's a better negotiator, maybe his suit looked nicer. The point is that you accepted it and were willing to take that salary for that position. I can't fathom what being aware of your coworkers salaries could possibly do for positive team building. Somebody is going to be upset, egos will be triggered. Yes, in day to day business we're typically aware of the fact that an engineer or programmer makes more than a customer support or cashier. But here it's thrown in the employees face. "John sits next to me, he takes 3 hour lunches and he's paid $110k! I can't believe it. Screw John!" Show up to work in a new Porsche sometime and while some people will think it's the coolest thing ever and give you a pat on the back, jealously may rear its ugly head with others. I just don't see how this is a positive thing in the least.
- steveklabnik 13y ago
  How can you determine market pay when salaries are private? You end up with what we have now: looking at what companies post publicly for salary offers. Some companies don't publish those numbers publicly, and that's only 'new hire' salaries. So it's inaccurate.
  - mrjatx 13y ago
    You as the employee with that skill DETERMINE the market value. If every IOS developer refuses to work for $40k and want $80k the market will start having to pay $80k. Yeah there will be outliers, maybe someone desperate for a chance to prove themselves, or someone who was unemployed will take that $40k but that is not the market value. It's not some vooodoo a company makes up, you yourself have a direct affect on the market value by turning down and taking positions. If I can't find anybody to hire at $40k I might start offering $60k and more until I get the amount and quality of applicants I desire.
    - steveklabnik 13y ago
      Right, but it'd be easier, for example, for every iOS developer to not take $40k if they knew that other developers are being paid more. Basically, keeping information private gives an advantage to the people who know the private info versus people who don't. If no information is private, that edge is lost, aka, a more level playing field.
  - judk 13y ago
    Resarch firms buy and sell salary data in bulk.
- lancewiggs 13y ago
  >If you're happy to make $88k and the guy doing the same job next to you is making $110k, I don't see any problem One problem is that the first person is often female, not white or foreign. Another is the demotivational effect when the first person eventually does find out they are underpaid versus colleagues or the market - and they generally do. And then they will leave. It gets worse when the lower paid person is clearly outperforming the higher paid person, or where the higher paid person is clearly under performing. And finally it's just not the right thing to treat people unfairly versus their peers. If the lower paid person is being underpaid then quietly fix the issue.
davemel37 13y ago
I had a boss bully his employees with fellow employee salary information. (i.e. bill took a pay cut because of the recessions, so should you...) As far as I'm concerned, salary is a completely private matter that is no one elses business, and no good could possibly come from sharing it. I see this openness at buffer essentially being a tool for management to deny raise requests, etc... with... If we do it for you, we have to do it for everybody... which is a just a BS excuse to not face the reality that every persons value and work situation is different, and should be treated differently.
- Arnor 13y ago
  Edit (add quote for clarity) > I see this openness at buffer essentially being a tool for management to deny raise requests, etc... with... If we do it for you, we have to do it for everybody... More likely, the response would be along the lines of: "You'll get a raise when you qualify based on the criteria that have been clearly explained to you and the rest of the world."
  - lhnz 13y ago
    Something which doesn't seem clear to me is whether the team is able to properly evaluate the pay of their colleagues. Surely the people that are most friendly and fit most of the in-group traits of the group will benefit most? What about the creative and non socially-correct members that don't fit in - should they move to different companies? In general, I cast doubt on the idea that employees really know what's important because of principle-agent problems and culture.
  - davemel37 13y ago
    Perhaps... but this relies on an awfully idealistic view of real life. What goes into a salary decision is much more personal than a universal formula can dictate. This is a classic excuse to put different people into the same box. I believe it to be completely inappropriate and unprofessional to be transparent with something as personal as salaries...and saying that were all in the same boat just doesnt excuse this behavior.
  - baddox 13y ago
grecy 13y ago
> It creates a significant and largely artificial information disparity, giving a major market advantage to the employer. Absolutely. Having employees not discuss salary is all about the employer having more power/control, and the employees having less. I've always thought it's a little like an adult giving candy to a child and then say "Now, don't tell anyone I gave you this!". Why doesn't the adult want anyone to know about the candy exchange? Because they benefit from keeping in concealed. EDIT: I also think this is a generational thing. Everyone I know over 40 wouldn't dare talk about their salary, or how much they paid for their house, etc. Everyone I know under 30 will happily talk about it to anyone and everyone. Give it a few more decades, and this will be the norm.
- laureny 13y ago
  > Having employees not discuss salary is all about the employer having more power/control, and the employees having less. You seem to imply that just because the employees know all the salaries, they have more control. This is not accurate. They have more knowledge but certainly not more control. If anything, the fact that the salaries are the result of a simple equation means that the employees have close to no control over the money they make. Also, a lot of factors contribute to the productivity of an employee, most of which cannot be accounted for in a simplistic equation, things such as working long hours, working on weekends, good attitude, willing to take on unpopular tasks, etc...
  - phillmv 13y ago
    >They have more knowledge but certainly not more control. Knowledge is power, as they say. Industry wide wage negotiation is basically a collective action problem; publicizing your wages lowers the barriers/cost for negotiating for higher wages. Most people are, by definition, paid less than their marginal value and thus have some leeway for a raise to begin with. Besides, it works for CEOs: http://www.newyorker.com/talk/financial/2013/10/21/131021ta_talk_surowiecki http://www.newyorker.com/talk/financial/2013/10/21/131021ta_...
  - kosei 13y ago
    Though I think that's why this is a good solution: it still provides the company with wage control while creating transparency for the employees.
manicbovine 13y ago
It also breeds malcontent and unethical behavior. My last employer gave me a very hefty raise while (unethically) telling everyone else that there was a pay freeze. Unfortunately, the payroll person was a gossip - the incident undermined my leadership and put me in an extremely awkward position. I'm happy to have left that shady startup.
VexXtreme 13y ago
At my company discussing salary is grounds for instant termination. It's specified in our contracts. People still talk though.
- steveklabnik 13y ago
  This is probably not enforceable: http://www.lexisnexis.com/legalnewsroom/labor-employment/b/labor-employment-top-blogs/archive/2013/02/21/you-have-the-right-to-discuss-salary-with-coworkers.aspx http://www.lexisnexis.com/legalnewsroom/labor-employment/b/l...
abalone 13y ago
A slight problem with that thesis is that employees are generally not forbidden from discussing their salary. Rather they choose not to. Some consider it personal info. Maybe they shouldn't, but they do. From that perspective, this could feel like the company forcing a decision on their employees that they would rather make for themselves. I would be a little concerned about injecting a culture with that.. it's a bit paternalistic.
- aestra 13y ago
  Employees are generally forbidden from discussing their salary. Most places I've worked, it has been told to me at promotion and raise time not to disclose my salary to other employees. It probably isn't enforceable however, just the goons trying to keep that info private that they want private.
- KumarAseem 13y ago
  The places where I have worked (all in India), the offer/joining letter specifically mentions that "You will not disclose your salary to any inside or outside person. If you do so then you could be/will be asked to leave the organisation."
wamatt 13y ago
>EDIT: As an interesting additional note, all salaries (beyond a token minimum) at Berkeley (and the whole UC system) are publicly available at http://ucpay.globl.org/ http://ucpay.globl.org/. Fascinating, I had no idea this was public. Looking briefly at the results, it reveals a curious data point: UC's highest paid employee is not, as one might expect, the chancellor or dean, but in fact the sports coach ($2,884,880 gross)
- GFK_of_xmaspast 13y ago
  The highest paid public employee in something like 49/50 states is a sports coach.
  - gjm11 13y ago
    See e.g. http://deadspin.com/infographic-is-your-states-highest-paid-employee-a-co-489635228 http://deadspin.com/infographic-is-your-states-highest-paid-... which shows: five college presidents, five heads of particular faculties (medicine, law), one plastic surgeon, and everyone else a football or basketball coach.
rwallace 13y ago
> Now, there are some cultural reasons to do this--preventing jealousy, hiding inequality. But it really feels like a social band-aid, a temporary solution hiding the symptoms but not the underlying problem. The underlying problem is that our brains evolved in the Stone Age, and many of our instincts - particularly those to do with status-seeking, envy, thinking of life as a zero-sum game - are destructive and maladaptive in the present day. This is a problem beyond our power to fix. We don't get to debug our DNA. All we can hope for is social band-aids, temporary solutions hiding the symptoms but not the underlying problem, so the fact that hiding salaries falls into this category is not a valid criticism thereof.

by tikhonj 13y ago

mrjatx 13y ago

I disagree completely. You should, as the potential employee, be well aware of the market pay and what you are willing to be paid to perform the job that you're applying for. Not to mention their job postings actually list a salary window ($88-110k for Backend/Frontend). What the person sitting next to you is paid should bear absolutely no impact on your life or your work ethic. If you're happy to make $88k and the guy doing the same job next to you is making $110k, I don't see any problem. Maybe he has a few more years of experience than you, maybe he's a better negotiator, maybe his suit looked nicer. The point is that you accepted it and were willing to take that salary for that position. I can't fathom what being aware of your coworkers salaries could possibly do for positive team building. Somebody is going to be upset, egos will be triggered. Yes, in day to day business we're typically aware of the fact that an engineer or programmer makes more than a customer support or cashier. But here it's thrown in the employees face. "John sits next to me, he takes 3 hour lunches and he's paid $110k! I can't believe it. Screw John!" Show up to work in a new Porsche sometime and while some people will think it's the coolest thing ever and give you a pat on the back, jealously may rear its ugly head with others. I just don't see how this is a positive thing in the least.

steveklabnik 13y ago
How can you determine market pay when salaries are private? You end up with what we have now: looking at what companies post publicly for salary offers. Some companies don't publish those numbers publicly, and that's only 'new hire' salaries. So it's inaccurate.
- mrjatx 13y ago
  You as the employee with that skill DETERMINE the market value. If every IOS developer refuses to work for $40k and want $80k the market will start having to pay $80k. Yeah there will be outliers, maybe someone desperate for a chance to prove themselves, or someone who was unemployed will take that $40k but that is not the market value. It's not some vooodoo a company makes up, you yourself have a direct affect on the market value by turning down and taking positions. If I can't find anybody to hire at $40k I might start offering $60k and more until I get the amount and quality of applicants I desire.
  - steveklabnik 13y ago
    Right, but it'd be easier, for example, for every iOS developer to not take $40k if they knew that other developers are being paid more. Basically, keeping information private gives an advantage to the people who know the private info versus people who don't. If no information is private, that edge is lost, aka, a more level playing field.
- judk 13y ago
  Resarch firms buy and sell salary data in bulk.
lancewiggs 13y ago
>If you're happy to make $88k and the guy doing the same job next to you is making $110k, I don't see any problem One problem is that the first person is often female, not white or foreign. Another is the demotivational effect when the first person eventually does find out they are underpaid versus colleagues or the market - and they generally do. And then they will leave. It gets worse when the lower paid person is clearly outperforming the higher paid person, or where the higher paid person is clearly under performing. And finally it's just not the right thing to treat people unfairly versus their peers. If the lower paid person is being underpaid then quietly fix the issue.

davemel37 13y ago

I had a boss bully his employees with fellow employee salary information. (i.e. bill took a pay cut because of the recessions, so should you...) As far as I'm concerned, salary is a completely private matter that is no one elses business, and no good could possibly come from sharing it. I see this openness at buffer essentially being a tool for management to deny raise requests, etc... with... If we do it for you, we have to do it for everybody... which is a just a BS excuse to not face the reality that every persons value and work situation is different, and should be treated differently.

Arnor 13y ago
Edit (add quote for clarity) > I see this openness at buffer essentially being a tool for management to deny raise requests, etc... with... If we do it for you, we have to do it for everybody... More likely, the response would be along the lines of: "You'll get a raise when you qualify based on the criteria that have been clearly explained to you and the rest of the world."
- lhnz 13y ago
  Something which doesn't seem clear to me is whether the team is able to properly evaluate the pay of their colleagues. Surely the people that are most friendly and fit most of the in-group traits of the group will benefit most? What about the creative and non socially-correct members that don't fit in - should they move to different companies? In general, I cast doubt on the idea that employees really know what's important because of principle-agent problems and culture.
- davemel37 13y ago
  Perhaps... but this relies on an awfully idealistic view of real life. What goes into a salary decision is much more personal than a universal formula can dictate. This is a classic excuse to put different people into the same box. I believe it to be completely inappropriate and unprofessional to be transparent with something as personal as salaries...and saying that were all in the same boat just doesnt excuse this behavior.
- baddox 13y ago

grecy 13y ago

> It creates a significant and largely artificial information disparity, giving a major market advantage to the employer. Absolutely. Having employees not discuss salary is all about the employer having more power/control, and the employees having less. I've always thought it's a little like an adult giving candy to a child and then say "Now, don't tell anyone I gave you this!". Why doesn't the adult want anyone to know about the candy exchange? Because they benefit from keeping in concealed. EDIT: I also think this is a generational thing. Everyone I know over 40 wouldn't dare talk about their salary, or how much they paid for their house, etc. Everyone I know under 30 will happily talk about it to anyone and everyone. Give it a few more decades, and this will be the norm.

laureny 13y ago
> Having employees not discuss salary is all about the employer having more power/control, and the employees having less. You seem to imply that just because the employees know all the salaries, they have more control. This is not accurate. They have more knowledge but certainly not more control. If anything, the fact that the salaries are the result of a simple equation means that the employees have close to no control over the money they make. Also, a lot of factors contribute to the productivity of an employee, most of which cannot be accounted for in a simplistic equation, things such as working long hours, working on weekends, good attitude, willing to take on unpopular tasks, etc...
- phillmv 13y ago
  >They have more knowledge but certainly not more control. Knowledge is power, as they say. Industry wide wage negotiation is basically a collective action problem; publicizing your wages lowers the barriers/cost for negotiating for higher wages. Most people are, by definition, paid less than their marginal value and thus have some leeway for a raise to begin with. Besides, it works for CEOs: http://www.newyorker.com/talk/financial/2013/10/21/131021ta_talk_surowiecki http://www.newyorker.com/talk/financial/2013/10/21/131021ta_...
- kosei 13y ago
  Though I think that's why this is a good solution: it still provides the company with wage control while creating transparency for the employees.

manicbovine 13y ago

It also breeds malcontent and unethical behavior. My last employer gave me a very hefty raise while (unethically) telling everyone else that there was a pay freeze. Unfortunately, the payroll person was a gossip - the incident undermined my leadership and put me in an extremely awkward position. I'm happy to have left that shady startup.

VexXtreme 13y ago

At my company discussing salary is grounds for instant termination. It's specified in our contracts. People still talk though.

steveklabnik 13y ago
This is probably not enforceable: http://www.lexisnexis.com/legalnewsroom/labor-employment/b/labor-employment-top-blogs/archive/2013/02/21/you-have-the-right-to-discuss-salary-with-coworkers.aspx http://www.lexisnexis.com/legalnewsroom/labor-employment/b/l...

abalone 13y ago

A slight problem with that thesis is that employees are generally not forbidden from discussing their salary. Rather they choose not to. Some consider it personal info. Maybe they shouldn't, but they do. From that perspective, this could feel like the company forcing a decision on their employees that they would rather make for themselves. I would be a little concerned about injecting a culture with that.. it's a bit paternalistic.

aestra 13y ago
Employees are generally forbidden from discussing their salary. Most places I've worked, it has been told to me at promotion and raise time not to disclose my salary to other employees. It probably isn't enforceable however, just the goons trying to keep that info private that they want private.
KumarAseem 13y ago
The places where I have worked (all in India), the offer/joining letter specifically mentions that "You will not disclose your salary to any inside or outside person. If you do so then you could be/will be asked to leave the organisation."

wamatt 13y ago

>EDIT: As an interesting additional note, all salaries (beyond a token minimum) at Berkeley (and the whole UC system) are publicly available at http://ucpay.globl.org/ http://ucpay.globl.org/. Fascinating, I had no idea this was public. Looking briefly at the results, it reveals a curious data point: UC's highest paid employee is not, as one might expect, the chancellor or dean, but in fact the sports coach ($2,884,880 gross)

GFK_of_xmaspast 13y ago
The highest paid public employee in something like 49/50 states is a sports coach.
- gjm11 13y ago
  See e.g. http://deadspin.com/infographic-is-your-states-highest-paid-employee-a-co-489635228 http://deadspin.com/infographic-is-your-states-highest-paid-... which shows: five college presidents, five heads of particular faculties (medicine, law), one plastic surgeon, and everyone else a football or basketball coach.

rwallace 13y ago

> Now, there are some cultural reasons to do this--preventing jealousy, hiding inequality. But it really feels like a social band-aid, a temporary solution hiding the symptoms but not the underlying problem. The underlying problem is that our brains evolved in the Stone Age, and many of our instincts - particularly those to do with status-seeking, envy, thinking of life as a zero-sum game - are destructive and maladaptive in the present day. This is a problem beyond our power to fix. We don't get to debug our DNA. All we can hope for is social band-aids, temporary solutions hiding the symptoms but not the underlying problem, so the fact that hiding salaries falls into this category is not a valid criticism thereof.