10 ms·

> And finally, here is one thing NEVER to do when asking for more money. Never ask for it nor justify it because of your need. If you work for a for-profit en

by swombat 12y ago

> And finally, here is one thing NEVER to do when asking for more money. Never ask for it nor justify it because of your need. If you work for a for-profit entity, as most of us do, your need is completely irrelevant. While I can personally be hugely empathetic to your financial needs and hardships, I cannot justify increasing your compensation because of them — that is unfair to the company and to any coworker who puts in the same effort but walks away with less. Interesting note on this... At GrantTree we're (still in the early stages of) trying something different. Since all pay is open and we use something called the "advice process" to make decisions, to change their salaries people need to make an open proposal to the whole company, gather feedback, and then make a decision (note: they do not need to incorporate all or any of the feedback; we trust them to make the right decision). With this in mind, the proposal is meant to cover 5 key angles: 1) What do I deserve? 2) What do I need? 3) What is the market rate for my role? 4) What can the company afford? 5) What is good for GrantTree? We explicitly ask people to include their needs in this. They are people, they have needs - ignoring that is stupid, in my opinion. If we have someone on staff who is contributing greatly to the company but has high mortgage payments, and I pay them less because I have this other person who is contributing the same but has much lower monthly costs, and I pay the first the same as the second, I will lose the first because they can't afford to keep this job. Obviously we're still experimenting with this (about 3 months in), but I think that considering the needs of the person is essential - particularly in a decision model where they make the decision anyway, so they will obviously be considering their own needs as part of the equation! But even if someone else was making the decision, considering the person's needs is absolutely mandatory if you expect the person to also consider the company's needs. In other words, if you don't care about their needs, why should they care about yours? "Oh really, this has been a bad year so you don't want to give me a pay raise even though my market rate has increased? Fuck you, I'm off."

kelnos 12y ago
If we have someone on staff who is contributing greatly to the company but has high mortgage payments, and I pay them less because I have this other person who is contributing the same but has much lower monthly costs, and I pay the first the same as the second, I will lose the first because they can't afford to keep this job. Oof. Not sure how I feel about this rationale. If I were the other guy in this equation, I'd be pissed if I was making the same contribution as someone else, but got paid less because the other guy "needed it more". Why am I being punished because I live within my means? Maybe the response to, "I need a higher salary because I have a large mortgage payment", should be, "maybe you shouldn't have bought a larger house than you could afford". How about this: say this guy works at your company, and presents this rationale, and gets (takes?) his raise. Then the other guy, who is (for the sake of the argument) exactly equal in experience and skill, and provides the same value to your company, steps up to the plate and says, "I would like a raise as well, because I should make the same amount as someone who is my equal and peer". Would the group agree with that? I certainly hope so. If I were that guy, I'd quit on the spot if not. And this extends to other things as well: one guy has 4 kids, the other has 2. Kids can be expensive. Does the first guy's decision to have more kids make him more deserving of a higher salary than the other guy? I could extend this to just about anything. In the end, once you're above the poverty line, your "needs" aren't really based on anything rational or "fair". It's really just what you want. I'm not saying you shouldn't try to get what you want, but suggesting that one person's wants entitles them to a higher salary than someone who has more modest wants... well, that's ridiculous to me. This is actually a great example of one of the reasons why employers like to keep compensation secret. If this hypothetical high-mortgage guy is that important to the company, you want to be able to give him more money if not doing so will cause him to quit, all without pissing off the other otherwise-equal guy with the now-lower salary. So my thesis here, I guess, is that if you're going to be transparent about compensation, that compensation must be based on measures as objective as you can make them. Otherwise you have to keep compensation secret so you can make "unfair" deals with some employees as necessary, without pissing off other employees who don't get such a good deal. At any rate, I do think what you're doing is a really cool (and brave!) experiment. I hope it works out for you and your company, but I'm very much afraid that making personal needs a component of public compensation decisions will lead to others harboring resentment.
- FranOntanaya 12y ago
  I guess the part of it being a public proposal helps here. Each coworker has a mental profile of the one making the proposal, and can judge to some extent if they are the kind of person to live above their means or to work above their means. In a sense that's a knowledge value created during the day-to-day work that you just throw away if you don't apply to this HR management problem. A lot of your examples are somewhat linked to the issue of having just one person with a very limited supply of knowledge about their staff decide on salaries.
  - kelnos 12y ago
    Sure, I get that it's public, and that the coworkers should know the raise-asker well enough to understand where they're are coming from, but I still don't get how the "personal needs" thing should factor in at all. The living-within-one's-means thing was just an example. There are tons of reasons why you might want more money, but very few where you actually need it, assuming you've made reasonably good financial choices up to that point. And yeah, even with the best intentions regarding money, sometimes people still get kicked in the ass, but I still question if "having some bad luck with money" is a reasonable justification for giving someone a raise. I'm fairly convinced it isn't. I'm not sure the one-person-decides bit really applies here. I object to "personal needs" being used as evidence for or against giving someone a raise, regardless of whether it's one person making the decision or many, or whether it's made by someone who knows the person and their work deeply, or only has superficial knowledge. I just don't think that matters for this particular case.
  - judk 12y ago
    I want a $1M /yr salary because I want to give $900k to Doctors Without Borders. Surely that is a better idea than the CTO's Tesla Roadster and Palm Springs winter house, right?
untog 12y ago
I'd be concerned about creating a perverse set of motivations. Co-worker has a higher mortgage, so gets paid more? Why don't I just go and buy a huge house, given that my employer will cover the extra expense?
- judk 12y ago
  This is the sickening "Dress for the job you want" of the worst corners of the business world.
learnstats2 12y ago
>They are people, they have needs - ignoring that is stupid, in my opinion. If we have someone on staff who is contributing greatly to the company but has high mortgage payments, and I pay them less because I have this other person who is contributing the same but has much lower monthly costs, and I pay the first the same as the second, I will lose the first because they can't afford to keep this job. I see this as negative discrimination and feel it ought to be very illegal. You are paying people more on the justification that their life choices suggest they were more privileged to begin with. This is the same type of justification that people have used to pay women less, re-coded to fit modern social values.
- Osmium 12y ago
  > I see this as negative discrimination and feel it ought to be very illegal. Completely agreed. "I'm being punished [paid less] because I didn't take out that mortgage I couldn't afford?" Seems like it rewards irresponsible behaviour.
  - swombat 12y ago
    It's not discrimination if it's something that's completely open and transparent and agreed to by the concerned parties. Don't try and map our culture to your typical secretive corporate workplace - the mapping just doesn't work. It's probably not very convincing as an argument, but take my word for it: the way we do this, openly and transparently, is not discriminative - on the contrary, it is collaborative, open, respectful, etc. As I said, the "what are your needs?" side of things is fairly new and untested. It may not work out. Still, it's worth trying and seeing whether it works, I think.
    - orangecat 12y ago
      It's probably not very convincing as an argument It really isn't, sorry. Having to share what should be private personal details with my employer and coworkers in order to get fair compensation is unreasonable. Plus as others have mentioned it's a potential gold mine for lawyers.
barrkel 12y ago
Mortgages, in the absence of property bubbles and collapses, are effectively a type of enforced saving scheme. Paying someone with a high mortgage payment more is making them wealthier down the road, since their property is presumably worth more than someone with a lower mortgage.
patio11 12y ago
I would be very careful asking employees about their needs. You may solicit information which, if you act on it, would cause you legal liability. You may solicit information which will cause you liability even if you do not act on it, even from people who are not parties to the conversation. Talk to your lawyer about how things play out in your jurisdiction, but in general, asking questions in the workplace which are virtually designed to solicit the comment "I have children. Please adjust my salary accordingly." seems designed to incur legal risk.
- rmc 12y ago
  Someone can also reveal their marital status, or possibly sexuality (A male employee tells you he needs it more because his husband's mother is sick, etc.)
  - swombat 12y ago
    Our environment is very diverse and non-discriminatory (though there can always be improvements of course). Several people in our fairly small company are openly gay. It's not exactly your usual work environment! People who aren't naturally open about such things probably wouldn't be hired and wouldn't want to work there anyway. And no, the "discrimination" in this case would not have anything to do with their "secret", it would have to do with their general attitude and culture fit.
    - Osmium 12y ago
      > Several people in our fairly small company are openly gay. It's not exactly your usual work environment! People who aren't naturally open about such things probably wouldn't be hired Please correct my reading of your comment, but it sounds like you're saying that "people who aren't naturally open about such things [like being gay] probably wouldn't be hired" because that sounds like the very definition of discrimination.
      - swombat 12y ago
        Of course we discriminate - as does anyone who runs any company with any sort of cohesive culture. Don't misunderstand: the "being gay" part is completely irrelevant. What we discriminate on is the culture fit, in particular values. And we discriminate a LOT on that basis. If anyone throughout the interview process doesn't think the candidate is a culture fit, they are personally responsible for voicing that and ensuring the candidate is not hired. One of our core values is transparency. We don't hire people who aren't open.
HeyLaughingBoy 12y ago
In the end it doesn't really matter if person A "needs" the money or not. If he thinks he deserves it, financial difficulty or not, he will express it as a want and leave when he doesn't get it. Having a pressing need for the money just speeds up that process.
tsuraan 12y ago
We explicitly ask people to include their needs in this. They are people, they have needs - ignoring that is stupid, in my opinion. If we have someone on staff who is contributing greatly to the company but has high mortgage payments, and I pay them less because I have this other person who is contributing the same but has much lower monthly costs, and I pay the first the same as the second, I will lose the first because they can't afford to keep this job. The best answer here would be to pay the two equal employees the same amount. The responsible one can save, or treat him/herself, or whatever. Paying irresponsible people more is dangerous for your company and your employees. I spent years on the pointy end of that stick. It was a really shitty situation; I knew that the guy "needed" a lot more money than I did, because he had a gaggle of kids, a nice house in an exclusive neighborhood, a bunch of cars, etc, while I live in a modest house, owned my car outright, and kept my expenses low. The worst part about my resentment was that I felt bad about feeling it; I denied to myself that I even felt it, because I really didn't feel that it was fair to deny this guy the ability to feed and pamper his kids, keep his house, etc. So, I worked hard, kept my head down, made about a third of what he did, and bottled up and denied my resentment for years. I'm still trying to repair the damage. So, that was long-winded and just an anecdote, but seriously, be careful with treating people of roughly equal value differently because one of them needs more money than the other one. It can work out poorly.
MichaelGG 12y ago
I was hanging around s company when I was ten, and this stuck with me for twenty-something years: One of the employees insisted he needed more money because his new car had larger payments. The partner just said "So I should be glad then that you didn't buy a Ferrari?" I don't see how employee's "needs" are at all relevant to what you should be paying them. In my experience, when a small company tries to do this kind of thing, people may play along to not look bad, but no one actually likes it. (Well, maybe the person that's getting a raise because they spent more.)
overgard 12y ago
This is an interesting idea, but I wonder how it works among your quieter employees? I feel like I've known a lot of people that have been very valuable in their roles, but if they had to do something as public as this they would never go through with it. I tend to be more towards the outspoken and obnoxious side, and even for me I think I would be very uncomfortable asking for a raise in this way. It also seems like there would be a lot of interpersonal complications; I mean, I'm far from a political sort of person but I know my relations with my coworkers tends to hit low and high points. Usually I just do what I think is right and try not to worry about who will be pleased or offended. While I want to be well liked, if they had a direct effect on my compensation the relationships would be a lot more distant and calculated.
jacalata 12y ago
That sounds like the company is going to reward lifestyle inflation, poor financial judgment and excessive consumption with more money. I doubt that the group would judge my financial needs (frequent international travel and saving for early retirement) to be as important as some idiot who bought more house than he needed on an exploding mortgage that he didn't understand, but if someone told me I didn't get a raise because I didn't "need" it I would definitely say "fuck you, I'm off"

by swombat 12y ago

kelnos 12y ago

If we have someone on staff who is contributing greatly to the company but has high mortgage payments, and I pay them less because I have this other person who is contributing the same but has much lower monthly costs, and I pay the first the same as the second, I will lose the first because they can't afford to keep this job. Oof. Not sure how I feel about this rationale. If I were the other guy in this equation, I'd be pissed if I was making the same contribution as someone else, but got paid less because the other guy "needed it more". Why am I being punished because I live within my means? Maybe the response to, "I need a higher salary because I have a large mortgage payment", should be, "maybe you shouldn't have bought a larger house than you could afford". How about this: say this guy works at your company, and presents this rationale, and gets (takes?) his raise. Then the other guy, who is (for the sake of the argument) exactly equal in experience and skill, and provides the same value to your company, steps up to the plate and says, "I would like a raise as well, because I should make the same amount as someone who is my equal and peer". Would the group agree with that? I certainly hope so. If I were that guy, I'd quit on the spot if not. And this extends to other things as well: one guy has 4 kids, the other has 2. Kids can be expensive. Does the first guy's decision to have more kids make him more deserving of a higher salary than the other guy? I could extend this to just about anything. In the end, once you're above the poverty line, your "needs" aren't really based on anything rational or "fair". It's really just what you want. I'm not saying you shouldn't try to get what you want, but suggesting that one person's wants entitles them to a higher salary than someone who has more modest wants... well, that's ridiculous to me. This is actually a great example of one of the reasons why employers like to keep compensation secret. If this hypothetical high-mortgage guy is that important to the company, you want to be able to give him more money if not doing so will cause him to quit, all without pissing off the other otherwise-equal guy with the now-lower salary. So my thesis here, I guess, is that if you're going to be transparent about compensation, that compensation must be based on measures as objective as you can make them. Otherwise you have to keep compensation secret so you can make "unfair" deals with some employees as necessary, without pissing off other employees who don't get such a good deal. At any rate, I do think what you're doing is a really cool (and brave!) experiment. I hope it works out for you and your company, but I'm very much afraid that making personal needs a component of public compensation decisions will lead to others harboring resentment.

FranOntanaya 12y ago
I guess the part of it being a public proposal helps here. Each coworker has a mental profile of the one making the proposal, and can judge to some extent if they are the kind of person to live above their means or to work above their means. In a sense that's a knowledge value created during the day-to-day work that you just throw away if you don't apply to this HR management problem. A lot of your examples are somewhat linked to the issue of having just one person with a very limited supply of knowledge about their staff decide on salaries.
- kelnos 12y ago
  Sure, I get that it's public, and that the coworkers should know the raise-asker well enough to understand where they're are coming from, but I still don't get how the "personal needs" thing should factor in at all. The living-within-one's-means thing was just an example. There are tons of reasons why you might want more money, but very few where you actually need it, assuming you've made reasonably good financial choices up to that point. And yeah, even with the best intentions regarding money, sometimes people still get kicked in the ass, but I still question if "having some bad luck with money" is a reasonable justification for giving someone a raise. I'm fairly convinced it isn't. I'm not sure the one-person-decides bit really applies here. I object to "personal needs" being used as evidence for or against giving someone a raise, regardless of whether it's one person making the decision or many, or whether it's made by someone who knows the person and their work deeply, or only has superficial knowledge. I just don't think that matters for this particular case.
- judk 12y ago
  I want a $1M /yr salary because I want to give $900k to Doctors Without Borders. Surely that is a better idea than the CTO's Tesla Roadster and Palm Springs winter house, right?

untog 12y ago

I'd be concerned about creating a perverse set of motivations. Co-worker has a higher mortgage, so gets paid more? Why don't I just go and buy a huge house, given that my employer will cover the extra expense?

judk 12y ago
This is the sickening "Dress for the job you want" of the worst corners of the business world.

learnstats2 12y ago

>They are people, they have needs - ignoring that is stupid, in my opinion. If we have someone on staff who is contributing greatly to the company but has high mortgage payments, and I pay them less because I have this other person who is contributing the same but has much lower monthly costs, and I pay the first the same as the second, I will lose the first because they can't afford to keep this job. I see this as negative discrimination and feel it ought to be very illegal. You are paying people more on the justification that their life choices suggest they were more privileged to begin with. This is the same type of justification that people have used to pay women less, re-coded to fit modern social values.

Osmium 12y ago
> I see this as negative discrimination and feel it ought to be very illegal. Completely agreed. "I'm being punished [paid less] because I didn't take out that mortgage I couldn't afford?" Seems like it rewards irresponsible behaviour.
- swombat 12y ago
  It's not discrimination if it's something that's completely open and transparent and agreed to by the concerned parties. Don't try and map our culture to your typical secretive corporate workplace - the mapping just doesn't work. It's probably not very convincing as an argument, but take my word for it: the way we do this, openly and transparently, is not discriminative - on the contrary, it is collaborative, open, respectful, etc. As I said, the "what are your needs?" side of things is fairly new and untested. It may not work out. Still, it's worth trying and seeing whether it works, I think.
  - orangecat 12y ago
    It's probably not very convincing as an argument It really isn't, sorry. Having to share what should be private personal details with my employer and coworkers in order to get fair compensation is unreasonable. Plus as others have mentioned it's a potential gold mine for lawyers.

barrkel 12y ago

Mortgages, in the absence of property bubbles and collapses, are effectively a type of enforced saving scheme. Paying someone with a high mortgage payment more is making them wealthier down the road, since their property is presumably worth more than someone with a lower mortgage.

patio11 12y ago

I would be very careful asking employees about their needs. You may solicit information which, if you act on it, would cause you legal liability. You may solicit information which will cause you liability even if you do not act on it, even from people who are not parties to the conversation. Talk to your lawyer about how things play out in your jurisdiction, but in general, asking questions in the workplace which are virtually designed to solicit the comment "I have children. Please adjust my salary accordingly." seems designed to incur legal risk.

rmc 12y ago
Someone can also reveal their marital status, or possibly sexuality (A male employee tells you he needs it more because his husband's mother is sick, etc.)
- swombat 12y ago
  Our environment is very diverse and non-discriminatory (though there can always be improvements of course). Several people in our fairly small company are openly gay. It's not exactly your usual work environment! People who aren't naturally open about such things probably wouldn't be hired and wouldn't want to work there anyway. And no, the "discrimination" in this case would not have anything to do with their "secret", it would have to do with their general attitude and culture fit.
  - Osmium 12y ago
    > Several people in our fairly small company are openly gay. It's not exactly your usual work environment! People who aren't naturally open about such things probably wouldn't be hired Please correct my reading of your comment, but it sounds like you're saying that "people who aren't naturally open about such things [like being gay] probably wouldn't be hired" because that sounds like the very definition of discrimination.
    - swombat 12y ago
      Of course we discriminate - as does anyone who runs any company with any sort of cohesive culture. Don't misunderstand: the "being gay" part is completely irrelevant. What we discriminate on is the culture fit, in particular values. And we discriminate a LOT on that basis. If anyone throughout the interview process doesn't think the candidate is a culture fit, they are personally responsible for voicing that and ensuring the candidate is not hired. One of our core values is transparency. We don't hire people who aren't open.

HeyLaughingBoy 12y ago

In the end it doesn't really matter if person A "needs" the money or not. If he thinks he deserves it, financial difficulty or not, he will express it as a want and leave when he doesn't get it. Having a pressing need for the money just speeds up that process.

tsuraan 12y ago

We explicitly ask people to include their needs in this. They are people, they have needs - ignoring that is stupid, in my opinion. If we have someone on staff who is contributing greatly to the company but has high mortgage payments, and I pay them less because I have this other person who is contributing the same but has much lower monthly costs, and I pay the first the same as the second, I will lose the first because they can't afford to keep this job. The best answer here would be to pay the two equal employees the same amount. The responsible one can save, or treat him/herself, or whatever. Paying irresponsible people more is dangerous for your company and your employees. I spent years on the pointy end of that stick. It was a really shitty situation; I knew that the guy "needed" a lot more money than I did, because he had a gaggle of kids, a nice house in an exclusive neighborhood, a bunch of cars, etc, while I live in a modest house, owned my car outright, and kept my expenses low. The worst part about my resentment was that I felt bad about feeling it; I denied to myself that I even felt it, because I really didn't feel that it was fair to deny this guy the ability to feed and pamper his kids, keep his house, etc. So, I worked hard, kept my head down, made about a third of what he did, and bottled up and denied my resentment for years. I'm still trying to repair the damage. So, that was long-winded and just an anecdote, but seriously, be careful with treating people of roughly equal value differently because one of them needs more money than the other one. It can work out poorly.

MichaelGG 12y ago

I was hanging around s company when I was ten, and this stuck with me for twenty-something years: One of the employees insisted he needed more money because his new car had larger payments. The partner just said "So I should be glad then that you didn't buy a Ferrari?" I don't see how employee's "needs" are at all relevant to what you should be paying them. In my experience, when a small company tries to do this kind of thing, people may play along to not look bad, but no one actually likes it. (Well, maybe the person that's getting a raise because they spent more.)

overgard 12y ago

This is an interesting idea, but I wonder how it works among your quieter employees? I feel like I've known a lot of people that have been very valuable in their roles, but if they had to do something as public as this they would never go through with it. I tend to be more towards the outspoken and obnoxious side, and even for me I think I would be very uncomfortable asking for a raise in this way. It also seems like there would be a lot of interpersonal complications; I mean, I'm far from a political sort of person but I know my relations with my coworkers tends to hit low and high points. Usually I just do what I think is right and try not to worry about who will be pleased or offended. While I want to be well liked, if they had a direct effect on my compensation the relationships would be a lot more distant and calculated.

jacalata 12y ago

That sounds like the company is going to reward lifestyle inflation, poor financial judgment and excessive consumption with more money. I doubt that the group would judge my financial needs (frequent international travel and saving for early retirement) to be as important as some idiot who bought more house than he needed on an exploding mortgage that he didn't understand, but if someone told me I didn't get a raise because I didn't "need" it I would definitely say "fuck you, I'm off"