Tech Startup Buffer Publishes Every Employee's Salary, Right Up To the CEO 229
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Paul Szoldra reports at Business Insider that Joel Gascoigne, CEO of social media startup Buffer, reveals his salary along with the salary of every single employee in the company, and includes the formula the company uses to get to each one. "One of the highest values we have at Buffer is transparency," says Gascoigne. "We do quite a number of things internally and externally in line with this value. Transparency breeds trust, and that's one of the key reasons for us to place such a high importance on it." Gascoigne, who has a salary of $158,800, revealed the exact formula Buffer uses to get to each employee's number: Salary = job type X seniority X experience + location (+ $10K if salary choice). Gascoigne says his open salary system is part of Buffer's "Default to Transparency" and says Buffer is willing to update the formula as the company grows but hopes that its focus on work/life balance fosters employees that are in it for the long haul. "In Silicon Valley, there's a culture of people jumping from one place to the next," says Gascoigne. "That's why we focus on culture. Doing it this way means we can grow just as fast—if not faster—than doing it the 'normal' cutthroat way. We're putting oil into the engine to make sure everything can work smoothly so we can just shoot ahead and that's what we're starting to see.""
Norway (Score:5, Informative)
The nation of Norway does this for every citizen. [wikidot.com] It seems to work out for them.
Re:Norway (Score:5, Interesting)
No it does not work out well for us.
It is a gross violation of privacy and it is being used by criminals.
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Pretty much this.
The tax info has always been public, but you used to have to request the papers in person.
With it available online for a limited amount of time, websites like newspapers then store the information for anyone to look up, any time.
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Lots of things work for Norway, and lots of other countries, that doesn't work for us. We are abnormal when it comes to the rest of the world. Now that may not always be a bad thing...but normal we are not.
Re:Norway (Score:5, Interesting)
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I'm not Norwegian, but ...
My income is relevant to society and my interaction with the state for a very specific and narrow purpose -- taxation. So obviously, for taxation purposes, the state should know how much I make. That does not mean, however, that every person in the state should know what I make; I have a general bias toward personal privacy (and state transparency), and I question why, say, my neighbors should know how much I make. I certainly have no interest in knowing how much they make.
As fo
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No, they'd just find better ways to hide their money.
Re:Norway (Score:4, Informative)
This is incredibly stupid. Criminals use it to pick out who to rob, and the news has a feeding frenzy every year where they single out people who actually contributes.
I hope this system will be gone and buried soon along with the whole envy culture that we have in this country with the new government.
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This is incredibly stupid.
Indeed. Income was also made public when the income tax was first implemented in America. The goal was to reduce cheating, because it was assumed people would report their full income because they would be ashamed to appear poorer than they actually were. But the opposite occurred. People did NOT want their neighbors and relatives to know the extent of their wealth, because they feared both criminals and leechers requesting "loans". The publicity led to under reporting of income. Unlike the Norwegians
Re:Norway (Score:5, Interesting)
This is incredibly stupid. Criminals use it to pick out who to rob
Perhaps the Norwegians feel it's incredibly stupid to create a culture that creates criminals by promoting wealth inequality.
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Publicly posting tax information has nothing to do with wealth inequality.
That is the excuse, not the reason. The only ones that need to know your income is the computer systems that is used to calculate taxes.
Fighting wealth equality should happen in policies, not publicly shaming those who work hard and actually contributes to the society.
It is hard to explain to foreigners often, but there is a deep rooted culture of envy that historically have been strong where someone standing out in a positive way is
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It is hard to explain to foreigners often, but there is a deep rooted culture of envy that historically have been strong where someone standing out in a positive way is pulled down as hard as possible.
It's shocking, shocking I tell you, that people who have had less advantage in life would be upset when others with a superior starting position exploit it to their further advantage over others.
Sure, sometimes people really do pull themselves up from nothing, with a whole lot of help from others around them of course, but hard work is the worst predictor of success.
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Someone please mod the parent up.
'Success' is far better predicted by cut-throat underhanded behaviour and initial wealth than because someone 'worked hard'. An employee's ability to negotiate better than the next guy is also a huge advantage.
Here's an anecdote that I'm sure is a deja vu moment for many here:
At a company I worked at years ago, one of our best (and hardest working) software developers, was paid far less than one of the worst.
The 'worst guy' surely would have been a sales guy if it meant he c
Re:Norway (Score:5, Interesting)
Fighting wealth equality should happen in policies, not publicly shaming those who work hard and actually contributes to the society.
It is hard to explain to foreigners often, but there is a deep rooted culture of envy that historically have been strong where someone standing out in a positive way is pulled down as hard as possible.
I live in Finland and we also have publis tax information. I think the rationale for having that information public is to make hiding income harder... if you have no taxable income and your neighbour sees you buying new cars every year, that may cause him to go and talk to someone at the tax office. I'm not sure if there actually is someone you can report a suspected tax evader, but that's the general idea. The shaming is bad, but that is mostly done by the press here and AFAICT there is no shame if you have some reason for the large income. E.g. people owning companies are treated more like heroes.
But, anyway, what I really wanted to say was that the "culture of envy" is a myth. We have the same myth here too. The envy is mostly inside the head of people earning a lot of money. The people earning less generally do not care.
Personally I am very much in favor of public tax information. I usually check the income of some of my coworkers every couple of years. Usually their wages are very much what I expect, but once I noticed that my previous employer valued writing design documents over creating working software - and after learning that I decided to change to another job. I did not start raving and frothing at mouth.
Usually, what you imagine without the information is much worse then the reality.
Compared to what Google and NSA are doing, I find the public tax information to not be a problem.
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This is silly. It's not your business to now what your coworkers make, except as a way to leverage a higher salary for yourself. I would feel terrible if my salary were public to my coworkers; either because it was lower than theirs and I would be ashamed, or because it was higher than theirs and feel bad for them. It would affect peer performance reviews, rather than judge fellow workers fairly it would create a bias.
It's my business to pay attention to myself, and not my business to pry into other peop
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In any case, it seems rather ludicrous to compare the economic policies of the second least densely populated country in Europe(Norway pop. 5m) with those of a highly successful and envied nation that has a population 60 times greater.
Well, I'm sitting in that nation, envying the Norwegians.
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Us freedom loving capitalistic pigs carved out our nation of like minded individuals, here in America. We're not interested in redistribution of wealth simply because the have-nots are most vocal.
By 'carved out' you actually mean 'engaged in redistribution of wealth by forcing prior residents off of their land'. You're in favor of the redistribution of wealth so long as it benefits you.
Re:Norway (Score:4, Interesting)
This is incredibly stupid. Criminals use it to pick out who to rob, and the news has a feeding frenzy every year where they single out people who actually contributes.
I hope this system will be gone and buried soon along with the whole envy culture that we have in this country with the new government.
Fellow Norwegian here, this is actually a myth. There isn't any evidence that this ever happened. After populist politicians kept repeating this claim, the police did the research, and came up disproving it completely [p4.no] (Google Translate [google.no]). Criminals don't need tax info to seek up nice neighborhoods and look for houses to rob.
Contribution? (Score:5, Funny)
So I guess productivity and contribution to the business doesn't count. Great. Time to sit back and eat pretzels!
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Re:Contribution? (Score:4, Interesting)
The method that has stood the test of time is to hire employees who have a good work ethic and fire those who don't. If all of your employees are helpful, contributing employees, then paying a standard wage isn't a problem.
Re:Contribution? (Score:5, Insightful)
Companies that don't link your wage to your individual abilities are trying to take advantage of you. Plain and simple. I say trying, because one day it'll backfire. The most profitable companies that depend on skilled labor (not Walmart or McDonalds) pay their employees well, and do not use a uniform pay scale.
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You also forgot to mention the biggest factor of what makes a company profitabl
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A company gains profit by doing something in the market better than it's competitors.
What you're describing is revenue, not profit. A company may gain a first-mover advantage by identifying a new market segment, and gain revenue from catering to that segment, but increasing profits means exploiting that advantage to raise prices (shafting customers), lower wages (shafting employees), or reduce expenses by squeezing suppliers.
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Personally I'm of a suspicious mind and always wondering if I'm being underpaid because I'm not good enough at making my achievements visible, make demands or negotiate well enough. A visible system like this has a certain appeal, you at least know you're not being paid less than your coworkers.
There are ways you can figure that out without having to know your coworkers' salaries. For example you could interview at other places or read salary data online. If a company is afraid of losing you, they'll do what they can to keep you. If you're worth more than your current employer will acknowledge, then changing jobs would be a good idea. This tends to be why the average tech job these days is a few years instead of a lifetime like it used to be--employees started embracing the free market. If it turn
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Employee B frequently misses deadlines based on his own scoping of the task. Employee A rarely does.
Employee B's code is frequently the cause of serious production bugs. Employee A's code rarely is.
Employee A often suggests solutions in technical meetings that are superior to what was currently being discussed. Employee B rarely does.
Employee A is capable of quickly diagnosing and repairing co
What about the other stuff? (Score:5, Insightful)
Do they also list the stock ownership ,stock options and bonuses of every employee too?
No snark, genuinely interested in how far transparency goes and how far it has to go before transparency is actually achieved.
And what is the goal?
I know some people that do the work of 4 of their colleagues, would it be wrong to pay them 4x more? Afterall, the company still saves on healthcare, parking spaces, and other redundant costs. What a person is worth is not always reducable to a position.
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Happyness hero? (Score:2)
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He runs the secret canabis lab.
Meh.... (Score:2)
Seniority is not always a good reason to give someone more money. There are new guys out there that can show up at the job and be 2X as effective as the guy that has held the position for 5+ years. And this assumes that the CEO is an honest guy and gives out raises every 6 months for cost of living.
Dishonest companies do not do the Cost of living increases.
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While that's true, firms want to encourage employees (by and large) to stick around. Therefore making it attractive financially, in terms of some seniority element, is economically sensible.
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I have not seen this for over a decade. Almost every job change I make, I will come in at a salary that is equal to or higher than the guy that has been there for 10 years.
This might have been a reality in a distant past when management actually cared about employees and wanted them to stick around, but I noticed in the past 10 that most only care about the next quarter profits and to hell with anything else. I watched my company recently let a very good person walk out the door to a competitor because t
Spending investors money vs. their own (Score:3)
It will be interesting to see if they keep this up when they're spending customer's money rather than investor's. A blank business with a set amount of money to spend is easy to model this way. Once you start to find the real value in your offering and determine how revenue is actually made, things get trickier. One or two stellar salespeople or engineers can be responsible for an outsize portion of the business. They need to be compensated appropriately.
-Chris
Free Market (Score:2)
...and everyone is above-average (Score:3)
Personally, I'd rather not work for a firm where the quality of my work doesn't equate in the least with the pay calculations. Do I look like some unionist drone (at least in Europe, they are usually paid along the same sort of gridded scale).
Yes, of course, anyone rationalizing it will simply say "well, we only keep exceptional people" - to which, after 30 years in the workplace, I call "bullshit".
In every group there are going to be achievers and slackers. Frankly, I want my compensation*/pay to be the highest I can compel the company to pay me, otherwise yeah, I will go somewhere else.
*note, compensation isn't pay - there are a host of other ways a company can compensate an employee that can be hugely beneficial that aren't cold, hard, taxable cash.
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Personally, I'd rather not work for a firm where the quality of my work doesn't equate in the least with the pay calculations.
Wow, that was like a triple-negative sentence ... absolutely no idea if you are for or against being a slacker and fair pay for laziness ... and don't think you didn't break my brain with that ... er, in the least.
Happiness Hero? (Score:2)
It's more like a stunt to me (Score:5, Insightful)
Sounds like something they'd do to placate "dumb money" angel investors
I do invest in startups and most of the angel investors that I know are not dumb.
That guy is running a publicity stunt.
Transparency can only work up to a point before jealousy creeps in.
There is no way to run an organization with 100% transparency - people will start comparing each others' workload (and/or contribution) with the salary figure.
The art of managing is an ART and it's a very delicate task.
Re:It's more like a stunt to me (Score:5, Informative)
Most US states make available public employee salaries, and have been for quite some time. For example: http://seethroughny.net/ [seethroughny.net]
The government may not be run like a business, but when you're talking in micro terms of coworkers knowing the salaries of the people they work with, it's very similar.
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Agreed. Don't public employees get pay raises based on objective criteria such as education, tenure, competency test scores, etc.? If so, that might reduce the jealousy factor, but it also excludes consideration of how much one produces, which is inherently subjective. I don't know if this startup is contemplating that sort of thing, but if so, it doesn't sound like a good idea for a startup. Imagine a bunch of startup employees just putting in their time until they get tenure. Doesn't compute.
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it also excludes consideration of how much one produces, which is inherently subjective.
I disagree. If you've got a competent manager, he will be able to objectively measure your output. His superior should be able to measure the output of your manager's team, and so on.
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Public Employees get paid based on the political influence of their union. There is almost no correlation between their skills or output and their compensation.
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Now they can do this with armed with evidence. Or not. People aren't machines created to adjudicate based on evidence. For those who are interested in doing so however, it's there to support or refute their arguments. This is a good thing since *there is no other working alternative to deciding things on a rational basis*.
Re:It's more like a stunt to me (Score:5, Informative)
Disclaimer: I am a state employee whose salary is publicly posted...
That out of the way, most if not all those salaries posted are very, very misleading. It is gross salary+travel+incentives+any other state money that employee has received including payments made for health coverage and retirement. It doesn't include any deductions such as taxes, co-payments for health and retirement, garnishments, etc...
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So? Neither do any other salary figures you see anywhere. Did you think private-sector salaries you hear about were after taxes and health insurance and 401k deductions? Seriously, sometimes the paycheck amount is literally only 50% of the total salary "paid" during that pay period.
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Disclaimer: I am a state employee whose salary is publicly posted...
That out of the way, most if not all those salaries posted are very, very misleading. It is gross salary+travel+incentives+any other state money that employee has received including payments made for health coverage and retirement. It doesn't include any deductions such as taxes, co-payments for health and retirement, garnishments, etc...
Unless you're working under the table, all jobs come with those deductions. I wouldn't call the figures misleading at all. It's gross vs net, and they posted your gross compensation.
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It's not exactly comparable to private sector salaries. In the private sector, they don't tack on the company matching 401k contributions and so on to the salary figure. You normally only count the total amounts on your w2 at the end of the year as your salary which misses a lot. In the private sector, it would be more in line with the total cost of employment which companies do calculate but do not normally call a person's salary. If the government is posting numbers with those things including, they are r
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Disclaimer: I am a state employee whose salary is publicly posted...
That out of the way, most if not all those salaries posted are very, very misleading. It is gross salary+travel+incentives+any other state money that employee has received including payments made for health coverage and retirement. It doesn't include any deductions such as taxes, co-payments for health and retirement, garnishments, etc...
Huh? Neither does anybody else's salary.
Private employer salary figures don't account for all that stuff either.
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You can't make this stuff up, folks.
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Re:It's more like a stunt to me (Score:5, Insightful)
Transparency worked pretty well back in the 50's when most jobs were unionized. Everyone knew what everyone else was paid and everyone worked their fair share because the company wasn't focused solely on posting record profits.
People need leadership, not management. That's a distinction this generation has no concept of as it fell out of fashion back in the 80's. You manage boxes and machines, but you lead people.
Re:It's more like a stunt to me (Score:4, Insightful)
From what I've heard union members negotiate salaries based on seniority, and not on any sort of merit. It may bring security/assurance to a lot of people, but it does not distribute fairly according to effort/skill.
Re:It's more like a stunt to me (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, I'll take umbrage to the idea that unions have done all they can - in the last few decades management has managed to undo virtually all the gains in profit distribution that the unions' ever managed to accomplish, with virtually all productivity gains of the last 30 years going exclusively into the pockets of management while inflation-adjusted worker wages have remained stagnant.
I won't argue that many unions have become part of the problem though. It's the same with any "government" - things can start out with the best intentions, but if you don't keep your representatives firmly bound to your will then it won't be long before they start taking advantage of the power you've given them to benefit themselves at your expense.
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Probably as a consequence of people realizing that unions have done all they can for worker rights, and all they're interested in now is keeping their power/income at the expense of workers' and the companies both.
At the expense of the companies?
The decline in the fortunes of unions is reflected in the general decline of the average working (wo)man.
Here's a nice *graph showing inflation adjusted wages vs worker productivity:
http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/real_wage_productivity_gap.jpg [economicoutlook.net]
The difference is certainly not going to employees.
The graph is also slightly deceptive, since it depicts average real wages and not median wages.
If you look at median wages, the gap is even bigger, sinc
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Transparency worked pretty well back in the 50's when most jobs were unionized. Everyone knew what everyone else was paid and everyone worked their fair share because the company wasn't focused solely on posting record profits.
People need leadership, not management. That's a distinction this generation has no concept of as it fell out of fashion back in the 80's. You manage boxes and machines, but you lead people.
The 1950s were prosperous in spite of unions, not because of them.
The rest of the world's industrial capacity had been destroyed by war. No competition - nice work, if you can get it. Unions smelled blood, and it was cheaper for awhile just to pay them off, with unsustainable benefits and salary.
As soon as the rest of the world rebuilt, well, we had the 1970s ...
Re:It's more like a stunt to me (Score:5, Informative)
I work in a unionized environment. All wages are in contractual 'bands', every job is evaluated and placed in an appropriate band based on required skill, risk, shift, education, etc.
This means that, within the band, we all know each other's pay if we bother to look up a job classification and leaf through to the most recent contract's appendix.
We all seem to continue working without being at each other's throats.
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I work in a unionized environment. All wages are in contractual 'bands'...we all know each other's pay if we bother to look up a job classification and leaf through to the most recent contract's appendix.
We all seem to continue working without being at each other's throats.
I'm sure that's true. But do any of the unionized employees produce or create at a much higher level of quality or quantity than others? Most businesses desire that, and humans tend to desire recognition of some sort. A shout-out is good enough for some, but if any employee realizes that they could be earning twice as much and/or receiving much more tangible recognition continuing to do what they love only for a different company, many will do so.
Let's say one of your unionized coworkers came up with and le
Re:It's more like a stunt to me (Score:5, Interesting)
Let's say one of your unionized coworkers came up with and lead the implementation of an idea that would save your company $5M or increase revenues by 10% over the next year. What would their expected reward be? If a different company saw that result (or potential) in that same coworker, what might they be willing to extend in terms of a job offer to that person?
Have you ever worked? If you are at a job and had one of those ideas, do you know what your reward would be? I'll give you a hint. It isn't monetary (unless the company had a written policy before-hand, and almost none do). So unions don't make a difference in whether a single exceptional worker is paid for their exceptional work. Those types of bonuses are reserved for management only, so at best, your idea could make your department head some cash.
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Bullshit. I've worked at plenty of places where such contributions result in massive bonuses and stock grants. Or its a path to becoming management and access to those sort of bonuses in the future.
The way you think is why you are not management.
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And I am in management now. You are wrong on every account.
Re:It's more like a stunt to me (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's say one of your unionized coworkers came up with and lead the implementation of an idea that would save your company $5M or increase revenues by 10% over the next year. What would their expected reward be? If a different company saw that result (or potential) in that same coworker, what might they be willing to extend in terms of a job offer to that person?
You're kidding right? I used to work for a huge hardware/software company back in the day. My "real job" was to work on the OS, but I was also sent all over the world to "save" $50-150 million dollar sales on multiple occasions. I busted my ass and did some pretty damn good work - if I say so myself. Know what I got? $500, a plaque and a pat on the back for going above and beyond. I also got to keep my job and got a minor promotion. Which is exactly what would happen to the union guy - he'd get a few hundred bucks, and a bump to his pay grade (aka, a promotion.)
Re:It's more like a stunt to me (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:It's more like a stunt to me (Score:5, Insightful)
And that is bad because...?
And if you don't believe that, just ask a manager. His work is an ART and it's very delicate and that's why he's entitled to 500 times the salary of someone who works for a living. If you ask, he'll even write a book about his ART and the great delicacy and importance of his work and why he needs to get grandly compensated if he fails and gets fired.
Re:It's more like a stunt to me (Score:4, Interesting)
If managers were paid that well anywhere I worked, I'd be inclined to get promoted! Mostly they make my salary with a little bit of extra "bonus" %. You know that bonus all employees get for good performance that is microscopically impacted by any individual working hard, but significantly impacted by the CEO being a moron.
For 500 times my pay you're looking at some CxO. I'd take their jobs too but my father, mother, uncle, cousin, best friend('s roomate) are all poor nobodies, so short of blackmailing someone on the board there's no reasonable way to reach those heights. Plus, I'd have to start taking responsibility for investor's greed, which I could never bring myself to do.
Re:It's more like a stunt to me (Score:5, Insightful)
Middle management is not really management. They exist to give real management somebody to blame. None of the ART of management that Taco Cowboy was referring to enters into the life of a middle manager. They're just going down checklists and trying not to draw attention. They get paid as badly or worse than the bottom level workers. The 99%-1% model exists in corporations the same way it does in society generally. There are only two categories of employees.
Nobody at the C-level takes responsibility for anything. Responsibility is an outmoded concept. Just look at the 2008 banking cock-up. The few criminal investigations there were took place at a level well below the C-level. Or, the fines attached to prosecutions were a tiny fraction of the windfall.
If you neglect to put $1 in the parking meter, you face a $75 fine. If a corporation steals $10billion, the fine might approach $1million, but no more. In this way, accountability is always shifted downward.
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I'm not so sure, I think it matters which C-level position you are talking about, some are hotseats...
In small to mid-size businesses (1,000 employees or less) I think it's super common to fire your VP of sales after 2-3 bad quarters and fire your CEO after 4-5 bad quarters, regardless of what situation is to blame. The CTO is almost immune from taking any responsibility, and unless there is embezzling I'm pretty sure the CFO is a cushy job
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And that is bad because...?
And if you don't believe that, just ask a manager. His work is an ART and it's very delicate and that's why he's entitled to 500 times the salary of someone who works for a living.
It's bad for exactly the example you gave (and seem to embody). Everyone thinks they work harder and better than they really do, and doesn't really know what other people do or thinks that other people's work is easy or worth less. It happens between couples at home (e.g. housework) who are in love with each other and spend a ton of time together and know each other very well. Of course it's going to happen in the work place.
Unless a person's work is only measured in the number of non-defective widgets made
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I don't believe that. It has not been my experience that everyone in the workplace has an inflated view of their own value. If anything, it has been a hallmark of modern corporate life that the culture of management rewards those who devalue wage-earners. Remember, it's management that is creating the narrative. Always. And they benefit from the narrative you have described.
I think what you're trying to say is "Management doesn't want to pa
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I don't believe that. It has not been my experience that everyone in the workplace has an inflated view of their own value. If anything, it has been a hallmark of modern corporate life that the culture of management rewards those who devalue wage-earners. Remember, it's management that is creating the narrative. Always. And they benefit from the narrative you have described.
I think what you're trying to say is "Management doesn't want to pay people what they are worth, so it's better to keep workers guessing and fearful."
Illusory superiority is the cognitive bias that causes people to overestimate their positive qualities and underestimate their negative abilities. The research behind this bias is pretty solid. People overestimate their own IQ, popularity, academic ability, job performance, etc. Just look up the term and you will find a large number of studies. 93% of US drivers think they are above average, 87% of Stanford MBA students rated their academic performance as above the median at their school, and the results go
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And that is bad because...?
Jealousy is an ugly and yet ever-present human emotion. It breeds animosity towards people who do one no harm. In fact, it often breeds animosity towards those who benefit one the most because they appear to reap the most benefit.
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Back at a company I worked for in So Cal (2009)
We switched to publically maing available everyone's salary.
It basically quickly turned the tide on everyone there.
Those where were hard workers but paid less got raises,
And those making more but were obviously (to other developers) not pulling their weight, were either given a hefty salary cut, or let go.
The net effect, was everyone was happier, and wage equalization among the general seniority levels.
I personally thing this information should be made publical
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Re:It's more like a stunt to me (Score:5, Informative)
In the military, everyone knows down to the penny how much everyone else makes, or at least can figure it out easily enough. You look at their rank, their time in service, and various other factors such as their current assignment, whether they live on or off base, are married or single, etc., and the number is right there. And the reward for productivity is promotion, which leads to a higher salary. This never led to any problems that I saw; and while there are plenty of aspects of civilian life I like better than being in uniform, this isn't one of them.
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Sounds like something they'd do to placate "dumb money" angel investors
I do invest in startups and most of the angel investors that I know are not dumb.
That guy is running a publicity stunt.
Transparency can only work up to a point before jealousy creeps in.
There is no way to run an organization with 100% transparency - people will start comparing each others' workload (and/or contribution) with the salary figure.
The art of managing is an ART and it's a very delicate task.
I don't agree. What it does is keep companies from getting over on it's employees. I've found that I was getting paid less then other workers, while having more experience and doing more work. What happened when I complained? I got my pay raised up to what the others were.
I don't know what world you live in, but companies/corporations are about profits only, and they will not only fuck over their employees for profits, but anyone they can.
You sound like you want to fuck over employees so you can get m
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Pay levels are like a school with students split into groups based on their intelligence and performance. There's no hiding possible. The students know who is in which group. The whole class is ranked. Upon graduation, someone is anointed the valedictorian. In the work place, job titles are usually tied to specific pay levels.
Conceding to jealousy by keeping everything hidden is a poor solution. Especially when hiding is not possible. It's a fiction. Perhaps it's better that people learn to deal w
Jealousy not always a factor (Score:3)
Transparency can only work up to a point before jealousy creeps in.
Jealousy is only a major factor when the salary determination is kept secret. If there is a set formula, like for public workers or other unions, the jealousy is not a big deal. Everyone knows that their coworker who has been there two years longer is paid a little more. Or someone with a Masters degree is paid a little bit more than someone with a Bachelors. And these calculations don't have to be as simplistic and questionable as most current unions as even complicated formulas that include performance me
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Especially with this on their front page:
There are currently NaN people using Buffer who have shared 115,681,392 updates through Buffer.
Sounds like some top-notch talent working there!
Re:Hmm... (Score:5, Funny)
When asked for clarification, employee number six said:"I am not a number. I am a free man!"
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The last time this article was posted, I felt the salaries were awful low compared even to Texas, and it was a job in California. Now perhaps we see that you get what you pay for ;)
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Sure, but first you have to invent the Star Trek replicator and holodeck. At a price that everybody can afford.
Re:Star Trek replicator (Score:2)
The Replicator is partially here, for Digital Entertainment. And look at the fight to the death for it!
We can forgive T.O.S. for a lot of things being the first, and "being far enough back" they had a lot of ground to break and computers were 3rd generation ENIACS with better hardware. But it's interesting that Next Generation takes place in an updated time (including the early 90's) when enough of the early future of computing was clear enough ... ... and they still missed the Digital Rights theme. (Or els
Re:Here's my proposed algorithm. (Score:4, Funny)
OK, if you're the first to agree to clean out the sewage backup after the regular crew all left to be bartenders at Hooters.
Re:No respect for employee privacy (Score:5, Insightful)
Is it respect for employee privacy or respect for being able to pay drastically different wages for the same job? A lot of times, company rules (official or unofficial) against discussing salaries protect the employer much more than the employees.
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A lot of times, company rules (official or unofficial) against discussing salaries protect the employer much more than the employees.
Like my employer, for example (sub-sub-sub-subdivision of UTC). IMHO this rule is the same as the used-car salesman saying "OK, I can cut you this deal but you have to promise not to tell anyone about it." They hope to make each employee think he/she's got a better salary than the folks in the next cube.
One other thought: seniority should be a factor up to a point. Statistics show certain timeframes (e.g. 5 years' employment) at which people are more likely to switch jobs, so offering a seniority-based
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If the job is shit to begin with, no amount of incentive will keep employees very long. Burn-out is one of the biggest problems in employment with the most "productive" individuals getting abused to the point where they either leave or have health issues related to burn-out like heart attacks.
So salary is a very little part of the equation to keeping employees. Treating them like people instead of expensive commodities to be disposed of is another.
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Is it respect for employee privacy or respect for being able to pay drastically different wages for the same job?
It's recognition that you can have very different expectations and get wildly different results from two people (with different experience, intelligence, work ethics, and ambition) doing the "same job."
Re:No respect for employee privacy (Score:4, Insightful)
So you're perfectly happy to go into negotiations at a disadvantage, knowing that the employer has relevant information that you don't have?
You sound like a shitty negotiator.
Re:No respect for employee privacy (Score:4)
So you're perfectly happy to go into negotiations at a disadvantage, knowing that the employer has relevant information that you don't have?
You can get information your employer doesn't have, such as what other companies are willing to offer you to jump ship and work for them. You can also do research online to see what salary surveys have to say. And finally, if you're willing to, you can also pay for the knowledge of payroll information by geo, title, responsibilities, etc.
Comparing yourself to your coworkers can be difficult, for the very reason that you're not as likely to know what they're doing or how well they're doing their jobs as well as your employer (i.e. managers) knows.
Of course, you can also talk to your coworkers to share information. Such as what reasons were given for such and such during salary reviews. Without getting into hard numbers.
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The idea is to get the information for the negotiations, and offers from other companies suffer from the same problem. I.e. if you don't know what you are worth, how do you get good offers from other companies? Also .. getting an offer from another company seems to take some days in my experience: maybe two interviews and some kind of pair coding thing. How many of those am I supposed to go through to get a general feel?
I don't know what you do for a living, but I sure as hell know how good the other member
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So you're perfectly happy to go into negotiations at a disadvantage, knowing that the employer has relevant information that you don't have?
You sound like a shitty negotiator.
What your coworkers make has no bearing on what salary you are willing to work for.
When you go into negotiation there are only two relevant pieces of information. What your employer is willing to pay to keep you and what you need to be paid to not leave. These are complex pieces of information that are often very hard to determine, but they shouldn't have anything to do with your coworkers' salaries. The only thing that knowing your coworkers' salaries can do is make you resentful if you realize someone els
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I fear that in the EU, this would fall foul of Data Protection laws the second a piece of personal information is linkable to a person (so as soon as you know how much *I* earn, or could tell from the data, you have to have my personal permission in order to make that information public).
I think this is a quite reasonable, however - salary information is not something you want published down to the individual. Though I'm not one of those annoying people who dare not even tell their friends how much they ea
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The problem with not publishing salary data is this: employers have asymmetric knowledge of salaries which puts them at a huge negotiating advantage, driving down the average salary. Which is far and away the #1 reason that companies discourage discussion of compensation. This basic economic fact is true in any market with asymmetric knowledge and there's absolutely not reason that you as an employee should want such a thing in the job market -- you'd be much better off in your negotiations (and they'd be s
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We should all stop being coy about what we used to make, so that employers lose their knowledge advantage in salary negotiations. Your salary is currently being depressed because you *don't* know what other people are making.
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It's mostly to avoid ugly scenes like this
Jim (to his manager): "Hey, I need to talk to you. There's no way Bob should be making $10,000 more than me."
Manager: "Calm down, Jim, what are you so upset about?"
Jim: "Look, I have a full breakdown here. <waves papers in manager's face> I write more code than Bob, fix more bugs, I cause fewer regressions, and I even take fewer si