If there were a published list of everyone’s salaries, it wouldn’t be hearsay.
I agree. That’s the advantage of companies with an open salary strategy. Which means you cannot exceed the salary allowed for your grade.
In a pay for performance system you can make more than your boss. Publishing salaries would only raise irrelevant jealousies.
You have a very professional management team.
I am a public employee in a district that has a very aggressive pay-for-performance system. I HAVE made more than my boss, though I don’t right now. All of our salaries are public. We seem to do okay.
If this was in the past few decades in the US, no doubt because you were putting the company in jeopardy for violating federal labor law.
Go into my interview at a different company better informed.
No argument there. It is a good strategy for a company to use. But, there is another strategy that is being discussed here.
You are correct and, of course I could not do it, but the employees knew my attitude and did not make the salaries of others an issue.
I’m confused - what does
It was my policy that salary disclosure was a dismissal offense. HR took me to task over it. I agreed that it was not a company policy, but it was mine.
mean if it doesn’t mean that you dismissed people for disclosing their salary. It’s not a policy if it doesn’t actually happen. Or do you just mean it’s your opinion that it should be a dismissal offense and you were overruled by HR.
Yes, but just a bit stronger. The employee knew it was not legal. The employee also knew my attitude.
My point re the OP is that, except in gender or other discrimination cases, salary comparison is a frivolous argument and one that cannot benefit the employee.
I think everyone understands that - what I don’t understand is how you believe an employee can discover that there is illegal discrimination if people will not disclose their salary for fear of being fired.
Or of course it could benefit me by letting me know you value Sam more than you do me, so maybe I should look elsewhere to see if someone else values me more than you do.
I strongly disagree. Keeping salary information from being able to be shared is a method used specifically to keep management having (even) more power than labor. And, of course, enabling management to more easily lie to employees when they bring up salaries in the path of “an open discussion with the manager.”
Illegal discrimination is a different case. If you suspect it you should make a serious inquiry to HR. They will have to provide you with an answer. It may be boiler plate but it will give you the basis for a follow up inquiry.
I have a couple of questions, how could you gather enough information from employees to make your case. What would motivate males to honestly assist you? How do you know they are truthful? Will they back up your information with HR?
I have jousted with a few windmills and found I was alone on the field of battle.
I don’t think you understand - if I know my pay and only my pay , how do I even suspect discrimination? I have nothing to compare my pay to.
I might not be able to - the fact that I want to discuss pay doesn’t obligate anyone to discuss it with me. And they certainly might not be truthful. But there’s no need to back me up with HR - If John and Tony and Billy say they get paid $10K a year more than me and Candace and Muriel get for the same job HR will certainly know if that is true or not without any need for John/Tony/Billy to back me up.
And there’s a difference between them freely choosing not to talk to me about salary and refusing because they fear retaliation from you.
This was also my case for the past 20+ years working for the government. Anyone could look up how much I made annually.
Apparently I didn’t answer the question of whether I’d do it voluntarily. That would depend on how it was shared and how coworkers were likely to react. I wasn’t aware of Glassdoor, but might use that. I probably wouldn’t bring it up in conversation unless asked. And then I’d have to look it up if I wanted to be exact. I know my net, but my gross includes a maximum 457 contribution. I don’t have that on the tip of my mind.
Throughout my career I was always curious about what my coworkers were making, only to see if I was being paid fairly. I didn’t care if they made more or less because, depending on who that was, they might be fairly compensated, or over- or under-paid.
I never asked how much they made. What I would ask, however, is if they left for another company, if they would share what company that was and also what was the percentage salary increase they were getting.
Many shared, and with those data points I was able to paint a pretty accurate picture for me and my compensation.
Using that data I once asked my boss for a pay adjustment of 35%. To which she replied, That’s more than I make! (To which I thought, well, that’s not my problem!)
The company didn’t meet my number but they did adjust my salary by 18%, which was nice. I ended up staying there for another year and when I moved on, my next salary was 40% more than the amount when I asked for that raise.
In interviews I never answered the question about how much I’m currently making. I responded with the salary range I thought I was worth for their position.
You are correct, I do not understand your need to know. Do you suspect that others are better paid?
If it is an academic interest, you could play dumb and innocent. Go to HR and say your career goal is management and you want to know how the company monitors pay equality issues. I’d pick a female HR rep.
Maybe things are different when talking about hourly positions, but I’m an exempt, full-time employee (and I happen to be a manager): IMHO, salary ranges are important for companies to share but there are too many variables associated with individual salaries to make that information meaningful – and, there’s way too much room for people to jump to inaccurate conclusions.
Even if Bob and Becky work in the same department and have the same title and grade, it could be true that:
- one of them has more related experience
- one of them is a better negotiator (or was hired by a worse negotiator)
- one of them performs better
- etc.
Without knowing everything that has gone into someone else’s salary, simply knowing the number doesn’t tell you anything about how much you should be making (in my world; again, nonexempt or hourly wages might be a little more black-and-white). So while I wouldn’t go so far as to flat-out prohibit the sharing of that information, it’s usually irrelevant/not a great idea.
You’re absolutely right. For me it is merely data points. And the data was justified and validated when I got my new salaries at new companies.
ETA I was exempt F/T too.
Forgot about understanding my “need to know”- you obviously never will understand that it’s not about my need to know.
You still haven’t explained how I will discover that my employer pays all the men more than all the women doing the same job if my coworkers fear being fired or otherwise punished for discussing pay . Or maybe you think it’s just fine for a company to do that - after all, there’s some reason you don’t want me to know how my pay compares to my coworkers’.