Ask Slashdot: Should You Tell Your Coworkers How Much You Make? 357
An anonymous reader writes: Asking someone how much money they make is often -- if not always? -- considered impolite. But over the years, there has been a movement in toward more salary transparency. Some say salary transparency can make workplaces more equitable by helping to eliminate the gender and racial pay gaps. Even in companies that haven't decided to officially make all salaries open, some employees are taking matters into their own hands and sharing their pay rate with their coworkers. What's your take on this?
Dunning-Kruger (Score:5, Insightful)
I think this is a variation of Dunning-Kruger. Lower-paid workers cannot understand what value the higher paid workers actually provide. Sometimes the higher pay is valid, sometimes not. But unless you are already an expert, you won't know. So while you help with race/gender pay inequality, you're also making a hostile work environment for managers and subordinates.
Re:Dunning-Kruger (Score:4, Informative)
Are there any examples of where this has happened? Because there are lots of counter examples, e.g. entire counties where salaries are public information.
Re: Dunning-Kruger (Score:3)
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I do not know generally, but that is true at least in Finland.
Finland is a fairly small, fairly prosperous country, with fairly small income inequality that has public tax information, so you can go look up anyone's income for the previous year.
But to see the information you have to go in person to tax office where they have computers where you can search for such, but cannot save the information. You are however allowed to make own notes of it. The idea there being to not allow automatic searches of every
Re: (Score:3)
I think this is a variation of Dunning-Kruger. Lower-paid workers cannot understand what value the higher paid workers actually provide. Sometimes the higher pay is valid, sometimes not. But unless you are already an expert, you won't know. So while you help with race/gender pay inequality, you're also making a hostile work environment for managers and subordinates.
I don't think you need even Dunning-Kruger.
Everyone overestimates their abilities. Yes there benefits to the information being public, but on average people are going to feel underpaid and a little less satisfied.
Re:Dunning-Kruger (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Dunning-Kruger (Score:5, Informative)
Duning-Kruger is about people thinking that they are better at random fields than they really are. Or as often stated "incompetents don't realize they are incompetent." However this is often misunderstood - it is not talking about someone's competence in their area of expertise, their job, etc. Instead it is about people misjudging how good they are at a different field from their normal competence. Ie, an above average engineer who thinks they're also above average at wine tasting on their first try. An engineer who is incompetent at engineering will quickly learn that they are indeed incompetent.
The original results were based on people being given some tests (humor, logic, grammar, etc). Afterwords they were asked to rate how good they thought they did on it. Those who were in the bottom of the ranking tended to rate themselves a bit above average. The hypothesis was that if they're bad enough at it that they scored low, they're also bad enough to not be able to effectively rank themselves. After some minimal tutoring they tended to become much better at estimating their own abilities.
Additionally, those who ranked near the top also assumed they were closer to average. Presumably because they thought everyone else did better because the tests didn't seem hard.
That's the background anyway. But the Dunning-Kruger effect has sort of taking on a life of its own with the general public, and is misused a lot. Such as being misused by slashdot right now. The Dunning-Kruger effect is not the same as the Peter principle. Being "incompetent" does not mean that the person is an idiot, instead it's more that they're ignorant of a particular subject.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Sure, pay is hard, particularly if you don't have a job that can be directly attributed a share of receivables.
But what makes you think the people currently deciding salaries *are* experts working with current, valid information? Why should we assume that the status quo is "correct" in most cases, as opposed to being subject to the same limitations you note as applying to open salaries? If this is something you can easily train many people to do we could just offer the same training to employees, and if it'
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
And why isn't this "hostile work environment" a problem for all the places that do have open salaries, like every government and union shop in the world
It is. The professors at the public college I went to were ALWAYS bitching about this. I also worked in the IT department of a manufacturing company and watched the shop workers cheer and applaud as they signed the dismantlement of their union, partly because of this.
The reality is that almost everyone thinks they deserve more than the next person. No one wi
Re: (Score:3)
These problems are solved by wage transparency. The company can easily justify each salary based on experience and contributions. Abby discussion can be informed. It becomes impossible for them to rip people off with secrecy or job titles.
Re:Dunning-Kruger (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, if you can do anecdotes, so can I!
Transparent salaries aren't a problem anywhere I've worked. That includes local government, public university, and state government. And private industry, although they were a fair bit less transparent there.
In none of those cases did I find a hostile work environment related to salaries. Most of the people I've worked with have been well-adjusted, down-to-earth people, and generally wouldn't raise a stink unless there were some real shenanigans going on. And in general, there weren't any, because of the transparency.
I don't know what psychopaths you've spent your life working with, but it sounds awful. Where have you worked and in what fields? I'd like to avoid those if I can.
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This has been my experience with every place I've ever worked that didn't aggressively discourage people talking about their salary. Even in the military where there was endless dick measuring on every conceivable topic on a constant basis people didn't seem to have an issue with the pay system and whether or not it was fair.
Re: (Score:3)
This may be part of it, but much more goes into salary determination than just worker value. Seniority, experience, niche skills, etc. If nothing else, some people are simply worse at negotiating (or re-negotiating) their salary.
Should someone make 20-30% less than another more or less equivalent worker just because they are significantly introverted and do not or cannot negotiate for a salary increase? Or what about a woman or minority who fears (legitimately or otherwise) that they could lose their job
Re: (Score:2)
what about (anyone) who fears (legitimately or otherwise) that they could lose their job if they "rock the boat"? Both of these are taking advantage of someone in a way that should not be allowed or encouraged.
Anyone who "fears" losing their job already feels that they are getting paid more than the market would pay for their services. That's not taking advantage of anyone. If you fear you might lose your job by asking for more compensation, then perhaps you shouldn't. If you think you could walk out the door and make what you do + the additional compensation relatively quickly somewhere else, then perhaps you should be asking.
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Worth, worth, baw ha ha, this is capitalism mate, matters not one fuck what it is worth, capitalism is supply and demand, not worth, wrong ism mate. The more that compete for the job, who can do the job, the less they are paid, full stop, end of story, do not pass go for a big fat pay check when your services are in oversupply, worth means nothing. Tis a harsh gruel capitalist world, suck it up, your life is worth less than other peoples capital.
You are paid based upon under supply of services. So female a
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I once got a raise when I found out that the slacker in a nearby office was paid more than I was, and my boss said "this is not tolerable" and he went upstairs to remedy it.
As a manager now I can see how much a lot of people make and there are some big gaps in pay, like $50K+ between peers. Sometimes someone starts out at a higher salary because they were considered a good bet at the time, even if later on they didn't measure up. Since lowering a salary is very difficult those starting salaries set the pac
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Please tell us how unfair it is that your degree in African Women's Studies in Underwater Basketweaving doesn't qualify you for a six-figure salary in the real world.
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Explain why the white male with a degree in communcations studies gets a 6 figure salary while watching kitten videos all day? Pay does not always have a strong correlation with a person's performance. There's lip service that pay is merit based but in practice it isn't.
Your starting salary is the biggest factor. So if everyone gets roughly 3-5% raises every year, the people with the higher starting salaries will tend to have the largest paychecks. Seniority counts too, but I usually found that I got th
Re: (Score:2)
6 figure salary while watching kitten videos all day? Pay does not always have a strong correlation with a person's performance.
Presumably the person who might at times or on some or many days seem to be "watching kitten videos all day" is also responsible for something very important, for example making a $10 million sale, being "on standby" waiting to respond to a critical event, or being accountable for certain people resources or management decisions --- and they may night be failing to perform a
Re: Dunning-Kruger (Score:5, Insightful)
It doesn't matter how many people are "working their asses off", when most of those positions are mindless and can be accomplished by anyone. That's exactly why they have to work their ass off, because they don't have an in demand skill.
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Actually, there is 1 simple reason why I get paid more compared to colleagues with similar jobs. I happen to be responsible for infrastructure that is absolutely critical to the plant. And if the plant were to shut down, we're talking hundreds of thousands of dollars per hour in damages. It's not that I am crucially important on a daily basis, but when they need me, they NEED me because there is noone else who can do the required troubleshooting. Or more correctly: there is not enough work for multiple peop
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Don't forget the hordes of people who do less work than you but who get paid lots more. Merit pay is mostly something companies like to preach but rarely practice.
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Please correct me if I'm mistaken, but you and the parent seem to be implying at all work should have equal value. While hard work should have merit, working hard shouldn't necessarily get you more pay than someone who's work brings more value to the table. This is one of the reasons I've changed career paths a couple times in my 41 years of adult worklife. I was a computer technician back in the 70 - early 80s, and as hardware became cheaper, and more throw away/swap out, I saw the handwriting on the wa
Re:Dunning-Kruger (Score:5, Insightful)
Spoken like a true "Lower-paid worker" </snark>
All kidding aside, I think what the GP is saying is that regardless of whether or not the lower paid worker *ACTUALLY* has a valid grievance, they will in every case *PERCEIVE* that they have one. Personally I don't think I would engage in that kind of talk with any of my co-workers because while it is easy to understand the equal pay part, I think it's nearly impossible to objectively assess the equal work part. It might be easy in a factory setting where you each pump out 100 widgets a day, but no two people on my team have the exact same skill set... that's kind of the point: different skills make for a well rounded team.
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a valid point, however two people with same job title responsibility and workload should be paid the same. from my experience this almost never happens, been on both sides of this one.
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a valid point, however two people with same job title responsibility and workload should be paid the same. from my experience this almost never happens, been on both sides of this one.
Even if they started months or years apart?
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Yes, even so. If you are a newcomer and enter level X with responsabilites Y, which match mine with my ten years on board, maybe you won't have the small extra percentage (in my case, ~7% after 13 years) for "longevity with us". But we do the same job, we are worth the same.
Re:Dunning-Kruger (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Very few will paid "thinking" jobs will ever have two people doing exactly the same work. But that is largely irrelevant anyway. Say one finishes faster, but does late nights and weekends... It's burn out something you would encourage with more money? What if the slower one was helping some other project stay on track for a couple of days, or mentoring?
If you want to create a shitty work environment where your employees are climbing over each other and incentivized to prioritize themselves over the team and
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That all depends Ami. I'm all for people working their standard day, but occasionally there are critical things that pop up, and the people are willing to step up, and do those nights and weekends, to win a contract, or meet a critical deadline, are the ones who will always do better than the rest who have to go home. Flexibility is one of the things we rate people on during our annual reviews. But, we also make sure that our people take their PTO, and some of us managers actually give a shit about our p
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This.
I work at a public university, as (mostly) technical staff (plus a bit of teaching). I consider it a very good point of our work that the income of each of my colleagues is basically public knowledge - Not to the exact sum, but to a general ballpark (as there are too many small variations, but they don't alter the result by >20%).
Each person negotiating their work terms seems to me like a terrible use of time. I know which category I fit in when I was hired; I might have stayed equal or improved (it
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Possibly. Yet, this system is what fuels research in the highest ranked universities in all geographies. Maybe it's a different mindset - Maybe what differentiates university people from industry people is that cash is not our main motivation.
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Possibly. Yet, this system is what fuels research in the highest ranked universities in all geographies. Maybe it's a different mindset - Maybe what differentiates university people from industry people is that cash is not our main motivation.
Then why does it matter that you know each others compensation?
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It's not that important that we know it - It's important that it's set according to a criteria set organization-wide, applied equally to all of us.
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It's not that important that we know it - It's important that it's set according to a criteria set organization-wide, applied equally to all of us.
OK, let me rephrase it.
If your motivation for the work is the work itself, why do you care if your peers are compensated exactly the same as you are?
What if one of you chooses to work harder or is more productive?
It is telling that "it's _very_ hard to be demoted". It's basically a union job, you just need to show up. I've known union techs who didn't even bother to show up, they knew it was impossible to fire them. I was offered such roles and rejected them.
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however two people with same job title responsibility and workload should be paid the same
You are ignoring experience, excellence, and versatility of an employee. Paying them all like the lowest common denominator is a good way to watch your knowledge walk out the door.
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All kidding aside, I think what the GP is saying is that regardless of whether or not the lower paid worker *ACTUALLY* has a valid grievance, they will in every case *PERCEIVE* that they have one. Personally I don't think I would engage in that kind of talk with any of my co-workers because while it is easy to understand the equal pay part, I think it's nearly impossible to objectively assess the equal work part. It might be easy in a factory setting where you each pump out 100 widgets a day, but no two people on my team have the exact same skill set... that's kind of the point: different skills make for a well rounded team.
Salaries are like tax cuts and tax rises: you put them under a microscopic and it is very easy to find a reason to declare them unfair, no matter what form they take. For most competent employees, there are always some outliers such that you could make a case that they are overpaid compared to you. And if you get a good raise because of it, probably there is someone out there who can point to you and make a valid seeming case that they now need a raise.
From management's POV, there is little reason to beli
No (Score:2, Insightful)
Three possible outcomes:
1- You feel undervalued
2- They feel undervalued
3- You're surprisingly in alignment on the value of the work both of you do, your initial negotiating position, and other possible impacts that may have led to your compensation.
I'd guess most people are not going to fit into the third category.
Re: (Score:2)
4. You both feel undervalued.
The coworker because you make more.
You, because the coworker makes a _positive_ number of dollars, which doesn't reflect their productivity.
No choice (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:No choice (Score:5, Insightful)
The province where I work has mandated that all university employees paid over a certain amount must have their salaries publicly disclosed because they are, at least partly, publicly funded. While I don't have a problem with this per se I think it is unfair to single out those of us working at universities. This rule should also apply to all companies who accept government contracts too since, by extension, their salaries are also being paid for, at least in part, by government money.
In the case of contracts, the amount of the contract should be made public, but how the contractor pays its employees is really their own business. All the public needs to know is the amount of the contract, and possibly, competing bids to ensure the public is getting a good value for its money. The employees of the contractor are not government employees.
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In the case of contracts, the amount of the contract should be made public, but how the contractor pays its employees is really their own business.
The employees of the University are not government employees either so by the same token the only information that should be public is the amount the government gives the university to provide educational services to ensure that the public is getting good value for money....at least that's if we are being fair.
Re:No choice (Score:4, Insightful)
The employees of the University are not government employees either
That depends on whether or not we are talking about a public or private university. They are indeed government employees if they are teaching at a public university (which isn't the same thing as a publicly-funded university) such as a state college. Their employer might be the "University of Statesota" but they are working for the government. On the other hand, I don't think salaries of professors at private universities (even if they receive government funding) are required to publicly disclose their salaries.
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This is fairly common in the US for public sector workers as well. We're paid according to a published scale, so an IT Professional, level 4, in the position 6 years, makes whatever the scale says, period. Everyone's classification, grade and step is published in the state employee directory (in the interests of open government). Hell, there's even a site that publishes our W-2 earnings information every year.
Comes in handy, though. Whenever I hear someone talking about how overpaid government workers are,
Re:No choice (Score:4, Interesting)
Are you aware that the current head of OPM has not released the data for 2017, claiming it is exempt from FOIA? They've been releasing it for 11 years, but all of a sudden it is private information.
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California has all public employee salaries posted on the transparentcalifornia.com website.
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And the state institution I work for *all* employees have their names and salaries available as public records on request. Of course, there is a bunch of exceptions (cops, related to cops, lawyers, etc)
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The province where I work has mandated that all university employees paid over a certain amount must have their salaries publicly disclosed because they are, at least partly, publicly funded. While I don't have a problem with this per se I think it is unfair to single out those of us working at universities. This rule should also apply to all companies who accept government contracts too since, by extension, their salaries are also being paid for, at least in part, by government money.
So, you think it's a disadvantage to have to disclose salaries, but instead of taking away the requirement to disclose you want to extend it to other places?
IOW, instead of remedying the problem so that everyone is equal you want to extend the problem so that everyone is equal?
Are you a supporter of affirmative action, by any chance? A hillary supporter? A self-described SJW?
Re: No choice (Score:2)
Maybe they should do the opposite: disclose the salaries of those who are paid under certain amount
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So, your saying: If your young and good avoid government work in your country. Sounds like good advice.
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No.
Sure, you first (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually I think it should be done in a way that protects privacy, but the privacy-protecting entity must NOT be under the control of the employers. That's what's wrong with such websites as GlassDoor.
Let me try to reframe the question from a higher perspective: You can't know if you are being paid fairly without valid data on what other people are being paid for similar work. However you cannot know the truth when the underlying objective is to lower your pay (and all the other employees' pay) as much as possible.
Or in philosophic terms, there needs to be a balance between the needs of the customers, the employees, the managers, and the corporations themselves. As things are evolving, the cancerous corporations are running roughshod over ALL the human participants.
$125/hr - was my last billing rate (Score:5, Interesting)
$125/hr - was my last billing rate before I retired at age 42. I was a consultant, paid hourly and was taking about 8 weeks off a year.
I always billed for every hour, period. The client sent me to a conference and I billed 8 hrs a day. The flights back home, the client's policies prevented me taking a 1st class seat which cost less than a coach seat and had better connections. I billed 16 hrs that day when I could have been home in 6 hrs had the 1st class seat been approved ... on a commuter jet.
I got a new boss, who tried to suggest that I should only bill 40 hrs a week but work more to be a "team player." I pointed out that he was asking me to violate US labor laws. Seems he'd asked all the other contractors in the group the same thing. I was limited to 40 hours, which suited me fine.
My first "real" job paid $3.35/hr ... washing dishes at Big Boy. I got fired.
My first salaried job paid just under $30K/yr - about $14/hr - but it was common to work 60+ hrs/week, which dropped the hourly average pay drastically. I ran the numbers and promised I'd try to minimize "exempt employee abuse" the rest of my career.
Worked at a 100 person company in the late 1990s. Found a spreadsheet with all the salaries, bonuses and stock option grants for everyone in the company. I copied the file off and took it home - studied it. It was very fair. I wasn't "highly compensated" at the time, but managed a small team of software developers. The option grants made perfect sense based on who not only worked the hardest, but who provided real results for the company. A few of my team had 3x more options than I did. They deserved it. I was paid more - not too much more, but more. The company hired a new President who was given options - like 40x more than I had. His prior track record was impressive, but he failed completely at our company. He left after about 11 months, 13 months before any options vested. The sales team had terrible salaries, but huge bonuses and some added options when they made a sizeable sale. About half the sales team made huge money yearly. The other half earned below the poverty line. Marketing guys would ruin my team's schedules, holidays, vacations constantly. The sales guys were always fairly demanding when at a client location, with good reason.
Oh ... and I've never lived in NYC or anywhere in California.
Re: $125/hr - was my last billing rate (Score:3)
What?? For Dual Income No Kids, this is totally foable unless you live in a big city. 125 an hour full time for 10+ years is a good chunk of money. Any you can live comfortably on 25k a year on many places.
Office Space (Score:2)
Yes. Absolutely. (Score:5, Insightful)
The idea of keeping wages secret exists mainly because employers don't want everyone knowing what others make. If they did, they might all want to be "more equal" (deservedly or otherwise). For the most, the secrecy is still a tool employers use to maintain low wages.
Transparency puts the onus on employers to explain wage inequality.
Re: (Score:2)
If I ever got a mod point I'd give you an insightful for that, though you didn't go into how the divide and conquer strategy works. (Nor did I in my longer comment. Whoops.)
As the salary system works now, the highest salaries tend to go to the biggest con artists and most skilled BS artists. The confidence game is to persuade the con artist's peers to tell him their salaries so he can negotiate from a position of knowledge, but of course without revealing the con artist's own salary. The BS artist wins by b
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Spoken like a true con artist. You've clearly never been involved in management. If you were, you'd know that managers don't care about your BS, unless it's directly applicable to the job...such as a used car dealer. They care about making deadlines, and sales, and widgets, and customers. If you're not making your targets, I as a manager would give you an applicable rating, and you'd be lucky to get a cost of living increase, but more likely none at all. I've personally been rating employees for over a
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If they did, they might all want to be "more equal" (deservedly or otherwise).
The ones fighting for equality are those people who are not equal with the top. i.e. people always talk about the work they do right now in the role they currently have and conveniently ignore experience and value that people bring.
Work like a robot doing the assigned task, get paid like a robot doing the assigned task. But people are not robots and they offer different value. Fundamentally the problem is that low-paid workers do not acknowledge this, and that some HR systems don't reflect this.
YMMV (Score:5, Interesting)
YMMV:
In my experience, Fortune 25 companies don't have fixed salaries for positions or roles, but rather pay the least amount possible within a range. For example, the salary range of a lead professional at my company is $70,000 - $121,000. That's a pretty big swing.
I took a paycut to get into this company, and a few years into it, I gathered salary data from my peers (within my professional grouping only), then assembled a short presentation for my manager - our performance is metric driven, with quite clear revenue, margin, scope, and customer satisfaction expectations - showing that my professional output was near the very top, and my pay was near the very bottom. He didn't even realize - and I think most managers aren't intimately familiar with what their employees make.
But the data helped me negotiate for a higher salary, which I wouldn't have been able to do if I didn't have a federally protected right to discuss it with my peers.
Be careful (Score:4, Informative)
My company told me when I was hired (buried in some document) that salaries were considered trade secrets, and we weren't allowed to discuss them. I don't know if they have any legal footing there, especially when discussing them within the company. Also, we've been acquired by another company since then, so I don't know the current policy. But in any case, you may risk some retribution from your employer if they find out you're sharing salary information (potentially forcing them to pay more when the underpaid workers find out).
Re: Be careful (Score:5, Informative)
If you are in the US your employer is in violation of federal law specifically section 7 of the national labor relations act, where discussion of salary is a protected act.
https://www.nlrb.gov/resources/national-labor-relations-act
RIGHTS OF EMPLOYEES
Sec. 7. [Â 157.] Employees shall have the right to self-organization, to form, join, or assist labor organizations, to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing, and to engage in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection, and shall also have the right to refrain from any or all of such activities except to the extent that such right may be affected by an agreement requiring membership in a labor organization as a condition of employment as authorized in section 8(a)(3) [section 158(a)(3) of this title].
https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/tools-and-samples/hr-qa/pages/prohibitdiscussingsalaries.aspx
Re: (Score:2)
Generally, this would be illegal: https://www.govdocs.com/can-em... [govdocs.com]
In California (and some other places), it's definitely illegal: https://www.dir.ca.gov/dlse/Ca... [ca.gov]
Re:Be careful (Score:4, Insightful)
NLRB indicates that employers cannot prohibit employees from discussing wages with other employees.
https://www.lexisnexis.com/leg... [lexisnexis.com]
Make It Open (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:Make It Open (Score:4, Interesting)
Your position is a key piece of information when negotiating, a piece that Americans almost never have because of this custom. The only reason you should WANT your salary to be a secret is that you think you make the most compared to your peers. That or tax evasion.
Your salary is never "secret". It is likely your boss and all the superiors up to the CEO and all the people in HR and payroll know your salary and besides it is reported to the IRS.
The question is simply if you want your salary generally known to your colleagues so it can be used for their advantage in negotiating their salary. This is a question that can be partly answered with game theory.
Unfortunately, game theory tells us that lying is dominate strategy. If others are honest, it makes sense to lie since you get the same benefit without any risk. And if others lie, you have nothing to gain and honesty comes with a risk. Therefore, everyone lies.
So rather than put every in the position of wanting to directly lie, out of politeness we offer everyone the opportunity for a passive lie of omission.
Re: Make It Open (Score:2)
Unfortunately, game theory tells us that lying is dominate strategy. If others are honest, it makes sense to lie since you get the same benefit without any risk. And if others lie, you have nothing to gain and honesty comes with a risk. Therefore, everyone lies.
Therefore no one votes, because it costs relatively significant time with negligible personal impact.
Therefore everyone conveniently litters when no one is around to report it.
Therefore everyone walks out on the tab at restaurants where they are unknown.
Therefore no one plays the lottery.
I think you are mistaken in the assumption that people are unwilling to invest in some greater notion if they see a way to marginally improve their optimized position.
If you tell me your salary in the premise of helping me
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I think you may be confusing iterated game theory with single instance.
Behaviors like cooperation is likely only an emergent property of iterated or repeated game theory. (e.g., like that tit-for-tat iterated prisoner's dilemma). If players think it a single instance, (e.g, staying at a company for an average of 2 year w/ only annual raises), I suspect behavior for perceived on-offs reverts to the single instance case.
Lots of people don't vote because they simply don't care or can't be bothered, or fear the
Yes (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, but you should lie. (Score:5, Funny)
Double your income when speaking with 'workers' you'd love to see quit and women you want to fuck.
Halve it, when speaking with competitors, in hope that they will think raises are impossible and move on.
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Funny, yes, but it does have some insightability.
It is in your own self-interest. (Score:4)
Either you make a lot (relative), and you get to brag.
Or you are getting underpaid and you need to know that when you negotiate your next salary.
The business owner doesn't want you to tell your salary, but remember they already KNOW all the salaries. They have all the knowledge and are trying to keep you ignorant and underpaid.
Fuck that (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Agreed!
Those who want "transparency" should go work in a government organization where pay scales are public. Open pay scales work well in the military and other orgs that are team-focused, where the value of the individual is lesser than the value of the team. Individuals are a commodity in this context. You really need to "believe in the cause" (which is great for young adults) to believe open pay scales are a good idea.
As we get older in life, especially in America, most come to realize the secret to
I don't need to know what my coworkers make (Score:2)
No - Don't do it (Score:4, Insightful)
Nope. No one is ever happy. If you make less, you're pissed. If you make more, it's not enough more, and you're pissed.
Game theory says... (Score:4, Insightful)
Your employer benefits from the information asymmetry of not sharing your pay data with your peers. You do not.
Unfortunately no-one wants to be the one that speaks first.
Re: (Score:3)
Your employer benefits
So do I.
This isn't zero sum game theory. My employer stands to benefit by rewarding productivity with greater pay so long as she doesn't have to pay the cost of poor morale and dissension caused by the lower paid employees. I talk and, in order to maintain peace, everyone gets paid the same*. So I leave for better pay and my employer is stuck with the losers. If I shut up, I get more. Some of the low performers might catch on and start complaining. But thy can be fired for causing trouble. My boss is left
Pose this question to ... (Score:2)
... management when you sign the hire package.
You're in IT .. (Score:5, Funny)
... and you have the keys.
Just sayin'.
The discovery... (Score:2)
Sometimes the pay corresponds to the quality of work, and sometimes it does not. Popularity contests did not end in high school.
But the solid fact, the primary beneficiary of silence on salaries is neither the better paid or worse paid employee, it is the corporation who benefits.
Tell a designated person (Score:2)
You should get together, choose one (or a group) of you to be your representative and tell that person your salaries.
If you live in any sane country, then the employer would be obliged to negotiate with your representative about minimum pay for different positions and equal pay between genders, as well as about other issues such as work climate, stress levels etc.
Yes, I'm talking about a trade union. It is not uncalled for for higher-paid white-collar occupations either, where people could be just as stress
Re:Tell a designated person (Score:5, Insightful)
That's great and all, until Trade Unions, just like any other person or group of people given representative power, inevitably transition out of acting on behalf of those who empowered them, and start acting on behalf of only themselves.
Don't to protect your coworkers (Score:3)
I, along with a number of people in my class, did six co-op terms at IBM and was hired by the company. One of my classmates asked me what I was making and I told her - it turned out to be $25/month more than she was.
She complained to her manager and almost ended up getting fired.
Re: (Score:2)
Complained. She felt that she should get the same because she did six work terms at IBM like I did.
I see both sides (Score:2)
I love honesty and openness
I also realize that some use this as a weapon against me
My employer disclosed why (Score:2)
While it is frowned upon, my employer knows my peers and I talk about what we make. Hell, a third of our income is black and white performance pay that everyone knows across the board. So my director and I sat down and he discussed my merit raise, which I earned the maximum, and he said “Now, when your peers ask why you got the maximum, because a few of them didn’t, and they want to know why... here’s why: ...” and he went down a list of objective performance criteria. There is a sim
After living overseas, I prefer public disclosure (Score:2)
When I first got to Europe, I was *shocked* to see a spreadsheet on a network share that everyone could access, that listed everyone and their salary, vacation, the works. I mean, ZOMGWTFROFLBBQ!!1!
After I settled down and removed my underwear from my head, it started to not be such a total freak-out.
By the time I returned to the US, I thought it was really shady and lame for folks to be kept in the dark, never knowing for sure if they were getting what they were worth.
In the end I actually preferred being
Yes (Score:2)
A touchy subject (Score:2)
Companies don't want their employees discussing salary / wages with other employees because it tends to generate a sh*t ton of hostility.
Once this information becomes public knowledge, it can shine a negative light on the business as to why they are paying X $$$$ to do a job while paying Y only $$ to do the same work assuming both are of similar competence in their roles. If no one ever asks, they get to save money by paying you less :|
than you're worth
Besides, since the company isn't going to be forthcomi
Google salary spreadsheet (Score:2)
Google has a sort of a tradition, going back four or five years, of employees volunteering their salary information via a Google Docs spreadsheet (actually a Google Docs Form, with results summarized on a read-only spreadsheet). Not a lot of them, but enough to be interesting. In 2017 3.64% of them (us; I participated) did it. Sharing your name is optional. About 15% of those who share their salary info provide their name. I did. The system also obviously knows exactly who participated so if management want
Re: (Score:3)
Google also has no leadership and has devolved into a high tech Lord of The Flies society.
Surely you mean Lord of the Files.
No, because I'm not motivated by envy. (Score:2)
I know it's inconceivable in 2018 but I don't measure my worth by external validation.
I don't care if that guy is driving a nicer car, if I'm happy with mine.
I don't care if that woman lives in a bigger house, if I'm happy with what I have.
I don't need people to ooh and aah over how much money I make, if I'm happy.
So why say anything?
Re: (Score:2)
In every company... (Score:3)
In every company there's someone that makes more than you, but works less.
Conversely, there's always someone that makes much less than you and works much harder than you.
From someone else's perspective, you are one of those two people.
I worked for a company that published salaries (Score:2)
I worked for a company that published salaries. There were a number of issues. These aren't necessarily inevitable, but often go together. The first was that rapid promotion, even for those who obviously deserved it, just did not happen. I think the feeling was "she got promoted last year, what will everyone think if she is promoted again before Bill, who's been there for three years?". One of the two typical career patterns was to join, get one promotion and move on to a higher position elsewhere.
The seco
Varies by Geography (Score:2)
I have been told by my local, in-country HR Team that discussing my salary or performance bonus with colleagues is listed as "gross misconduct" and therefore could result in my immediate termination, with cause.
I'm not aware of this ever being used in anger, but I suspect that it is a useful mechanism to either enforce silence by coercion or to "get rid" of a troublesome employee should the need arise.
I'm guessing that this
Re: (Score:2)
7 figure salary
Counting the decimal places?