6 ms·

I don't have it ready at the moment but I do believe there is a study from London School of Economics (around 2006?) showing that unhappiness about salaries ari

by kmonad 11y ago

I don't have it ready at the moment but I do believe there is a study from London School of Economics (around 2006?) showing that unhappiness about salaries arises through comparison and not through absolute values. Just playing devil's advocate, could the strict secrecy you experienced not perhaps be an academically informed attempt to maintain happiness despite differential pay instead of an exploitation plot (exaggerating here)?

Udo_Schmitz 11y ago
So, are people in Sweden, Norway and Finland–where you have access to your fellow citizens salary–more unhappy?
- quonn 11y ago
  No, but they are, as far as I know, societies with much smaller income differences than other countries. So that might make up for the fact that the information is public.
  - danellis 11y ago
    In keeping with the topic, I don't think developers are unionized in those countries either.
    - e12e 11y ago
      Some are, some are not -- at least in Norway. Unions are particularly strong in the government sector, and generally even developers will be unionised there -- in the private sector there's a general feel that a software engineer is in such a strong position that they don't need a union. Like for most types of work -- that's probably wrong. But people only ever figure it out when it's too late. At my previous workplace (a research institute) I believe pretty much 100% were organized, both researchers, developers, sys.admins and other staff.
  - kybernetikos 11y ago
    It's probably not unconnected. I heard an interview recently with a company that shares salary data with all employees, and he said it provided a downward pressure on the salaries for top jobs as the people making those decisions knew that any employee could ask them to justify themselves.
- lumberjack 11y ago
  Someone correct me if I'm wrong but I would think salaries in such union dominated work places are much less arbitrary in the first place.
woah 11y ago
Ahh... What kind beneficence... Just helping to keep people happy.
danieldk 11y ago
Maybe, but I assume only when the differences in pay are large? E.g. in German universities, your pay is just a table lookup. The position has a certain pay scale (as advertised with the position) and within that scale the number of years of experience at pay scale level is counted. Such a system may have its downsides (when trying to acquire people). But it is inherently fair: you earn the same regardless of gender, position on the intro/extrovertness scale, etc.
- hueving 11y ago
  > But it is inherently fair: That's bunk. Number of years of experience being a major factor is one of the quickest ways to kill any kind of meritocracy. It's true you earn the same regardless of gender, extrovertedness, etc. But it means you also earn the same regardless of competence, creativity, or general usefulness as an employee. Talented people go where they can be rewarded for being exceptional. Mediocre people dig in and count the days until their next automatic raise for continuing to breathe in and out.
  - kuschku 11y ago
    And still, a lot of exceptional people are working at these universities. If you, as professor, for example, start a research project that is interesting, you also often get funding from the industry – part of which goes directly to your salary, too. So, exceptional people still have chances to get exceptional pay, but only if scientific organizations like the Fraunhofer Institute or industry corporations are interested in it.
    - davidf18 11y ago
      And of course, there is a brain drain of the very best that come to the USA from any place that doesn't fairly compensate. I'm all for these unfair compensation schemes because I want the best and brightest to come to the USA.
      - kuschku 11y ago
dpweb 11y ago
Both are reasons to keep salaries secret. The information advantage helps in negotiations with employees. Also, the secrecy prevents anger over comparisons. It seems unneccessary to me. Why not just pay people the same for each position, with merit bonuses for those who exceed/excel.
- riffraff 11y ago
  I'd like to agree with 'Why not just pay people the same for each position' but to play devil's advocate, off the top of my head: * not all people in the same position are equally qualified * reducing the difference to bonuses might mean a lot more overhead * salary might cover for things other than just competence, i.e. Alice and Bob are equally qualified, but you hire Alice out of college while Bob already had a well paying job I wish there was enforce transparency about salaries but I'm not sure all of them can be just leveled to position+bonus. Joel Spolsky had an interesting approach to this, a more complex formula but still public and consistent for all employees: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000038.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000038.html
  - dpweb 11y ago
    True, you may want to adjust for say, years of experience. Although if that was transparent. For instance, Dev level 2 makes 100k with 10k additional per every 3 years professional experience - you have differences amongst the staff but less room for people to complain about the variances. The point is, salaries are not arbitrary, which is the basis of the anger when staff compares against their peers.
- mgkimsal 11y ago
  "with merit bonuses for those who exceed/excel" How do you measure that? In most teams I've been involved in, the entirety of the team suffered with the weakest link. My 'merit' was tied to the efficiency of poor team members. A colleague of mine (different company) was on a team with about 15 others in his dept - 60+ folks in all. The daily incompetence he described was rather high, but not surprising when you have non-tech folks making tech decisions. I said "hrm... perhaps people would be motivated to care/do more and improve if they got some sort of profit sharing bonus". He said "WE DO! My bonus continually gets eroded because we've got incompetent do-nothings who continually shoot down progress" (paraphrasing). I don't particularly want a large/variable portion of my income to be that tied to situations that I have that little control over.
walshemj 11y ago
"School of economics" so do you not think they would be biased towards providing results that suited their clients agendas?

by kmonad 11y ago

Udo_Schmitz 11y ago

So, are people in Sweden, Norway and Finland–where you have access to your fellow citizens salary–more unhappy?

quonn 11y ago
No, but they are, as far as I know, societies with much smaller income differences than other countries. So that might make up for the fact that the information is public.
- danellis 11y ago
  In keeping with the topic, I don't think developers are unionized in those countries either.
  - e12e 11y ago
    Some are, some are not -- at least in Norway. Unions are particularly strong in the government sector, and generally even developers will be unionised there -- in the private sector there's a general feel that a software engineer is in such a strong position that they don't need a union. Like for most types of work -- that's probably wrong. But people only ever figure it out when it's too late. At my previous workplace (a research institute) I believe pretty much 100% were organized, both researchers, developers, sys.admins and other staff.
- kybernetikos 11y ago
  It's probably not unconnected. I heard an interview recently with a company that shares salary data with all employees, and he said it provided a downward pressure on the salaries for top jobs as the people making those decisions knew that any employee could ask them to justify themselves.
lumberjack 11y ago
Someone correct me if I'm wrong but I would think salaries in such union dominated work places are much less arbitrary in the first place.

woah 11y ago

Ahh... What kind beneficence... Just helping to keep people happy.

danieldk 11y ago

Maybe, but I assume only when the differences in pay are large? E.g. in German universities, your pay is just a table lookup. The position has a certain pay scale (as advertised with the position) and within that scale the number of years of experience at pay scale level is counted. Such a system may have its downsides (when trying to acquire people). But it is inherently fair: you earn the same regardless of gender, position on the intro/extrovertness scale, etc.

hueving 11y ago
> But it is inherently fair: That's bunk. Number of years of experience being a major factor is one of the quickest ways to kill any kind of meritocracy. It's true you earn the same regardless of gender, extrovertedness, etc. But it means you also earn the same regardless of competence, creativity, or general usefulness as an employee. Talented people go where they can be rewarded for being exceptional. Mediocre people dig in and count the days until their next automatic raise for continuing to breathe in and out.
- kuschku 11y ago
  And still, a lot of exceptional people are working at these universities. If you, as professor, for example, start a research project that is interesting, you also often get funding from the industry – part of which goes directly to your salary, too. So, exceptional people still have chances to get exceptional pay, but only if scientific organizations like the Fraunhofer Institute or industry corporations are interested in it.
  - davidf18 11y ago
    And of course, there is a brain drain of the very best that come to the USA from any place that doesn't fairly compensate. I'm all for these unfair compensation schemes because I want the best and brightest to come to the USA.
    - kuschku 11y ago

dpweb 11y ago

Both are reasons to keep salaries secret. The information advantage helps in negotiations with employees. Also, the secrecy prevents anger over comparisons. It seems unneccessary to me. Why not just pay people the same for each position, with merit bonuses for those who exceed/excel.

riffraff 11y ago
I'd like to agree with 'Why not just pay people the same for each position' but to play devil's advocate, off the top of my head: * not all people in the same position are equally qualified * reducing the difference to bonuses might mean a lot more overhead * salary might cover for things other than just competence, i.e. Alice and Bob are equally qualified, but you hire Alice out of college while Bob already had a well paying job I wish there was enforce transparency about salaries but I'm not sure all of them can be just leveled to position+bonus. Joel Spolsky had an interesting approach to this, a more complex formula but still public and consistent for all employees: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000038.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000038.html
- dpweb 11y ago
  True, you may want to adjust for say, years of experience. Although if that was transparent. For instance, Dev level 2 makes 100k with 10k additional per every 3 years professional experience - you have differences amongst the staff but less room for people to complain about the variances. The point is, salaries are not arbitrary, which is the basis of the anger when staff compares against their peers.
mgkimsal 11y ago
"with merit bonuses for those who exceed/excel" How do you measure that? In most teams I've been involved in, the entirety of the team suffered with the weakest link. My 'merit' was tied to the efficiency of poor team members. A colleague of mine (different company) was on a team with about 15 others in his dept - 60+ folks in all. The daily incompetence he described was rather high, but not surprising when you have non-tech folks making tech decisions. I said "hrm... perhaps people would be motivated to care/do more and improve if they got some sort of profit sharing bonus". He said "WE DO! My bonus continually gets eroded because we've got incompetent do-nothings who continually shoot down progress" (paraphrasing). I don't particularly want a large/variable portion of my income to be that tied to situations that I have that little control over.

walshemj 11y ago

"School of economics" so do you not think they would be biased towards providing results that suited their clients agendas?