Breaking the Salary Sharing Taboo

(nytimes.com)

122 points | by pseudolus 1497 days ago

18 comments

  • angarg12 1496 days ago
    I used to be open about my salary, until it went wrong.

    In my first two companies I would openly share my salary, which worked in my favour since I was underpaid. In my third company, where I had one of the higher salaries, it didn't work so well.

    My colleagues refused to share theirs (it transpired they were making less), and that led to a lot of animosity and bad blood. Ever since I don't share anymore, most people have the tools they need online to make an educated guess on how well they are getting paid.

    • CalRobert 1496 days ago
      For what it's worth, I've been telling people how much I made when I leave a job (and have been told by others when they leave) which works ok.
    • yibg 1496 days ago
      From the company's / management's perspective I suspect this is an issue as well. If salaries are transparent then higher and lower salaries need to be justified beyond "they negotiated better". Similar to pay raises. Now if the delta is known, why someone got x% and I got less than x% now requires more delicate conversations.

      Netflix directors and above can see all salaries though. I wonder how that's working.

    • throwaway2245 1496 days ago
      I once discovered that my salary was 4x that of my colleague with more experience and the same job title.

      I had a good understanding of the value I was providing to the business, of what my next best offer was, and I negotiated my salary regularly. (Where my colleague was accepting a rate that was clearly below the market rate)

      It was challenging for me to share my salary in this case. On reflection, the situation was not politically in my favour to do this: perhaps I should have negotiated a different job title (but I didn't care about that at the time).

      • omilu 1495 days ago
        4x?? Holy cow. That's a life changing difference.
    • dnh44 1496 days ago
      If you don't mind telling, how did that result in animosity?
      • Aeolun 1496 days ago
        “You shouldn’t be making that much! I’m doing just as good a job as you!”

        (narrator: They didn’t)

        • iso1210 1496 days ago
          That's an interesting take

          "you shouldn't be earning more than me"

          rather than

          "I should be earning as much as you"

          I wonder why (some) people immediately think the former

          • BlargMcLarg 1496 days ago
            Agency and effort. Or rather, let's change the latter statement so it sounds less entitled: "Why am I not earning as much as you? I should be able to"

            The latter statement requires the speaker to admit they screwed up. They can get to that point, if they did research on how to get there or worked on the key things they are missing currently. The former statement puts the agency on the opposing party and basically expects some divine will of the heavens to strike them down for their sin of earning more. Most people don't want to change or admit their own mistakes. Or worse, they are indoctrinated by Calvinism.

            • aalleavitch 1496 days ago
              This is all very self-indulgent. People don't get paid what they're worth, they get paid the smallest amount someone can get them to accept.
              • rcoveson 1496 days ago
                Just what do you think the word “worth” means?
                • iso1210 1495 days ago
                  The amount of value they add

                  Company X needs to employ two people in a role. The person they employ will add $100 an hour of value to the company.

                  Person A has lots of money in the bank from a large inheritence and doesn't need the job to live

                  Person B has desparately needs a job to pat the mortgage

                  Company X offers both $40 an hour

                  Person B takes the offer, as the alternative is reposession

                  Person A says 'no'

                  Company X still wants that extra $100 an hour of value, so offer person B $50 an hour, then $60. Person B then accepts at $60.

                  Both person A and person B are worth $100, neither get paid what they are worth, but person A is paid 50% more than person B.

                  • rcoveson 1495 days ago
                    So if a crippled person needs somebody to go to the bank and withdraw $1,000 for them, and they figure they can hire somebody trustworthy for $50 to do the errand, is that person not being paid what they’re worth, because they added $1,000 dollars of value?

                    If person A in your narrative was capable of creating $100 dollars of value all by themselves, they would do that instead. But they can’t. The $100 opportunity exists because of the company.

                    The company needs a shovel strong enough to dig up the $100. If one person will sell such a shovel for $40, and that’s the best price available, they’ll take it. That was the market value of shovels. It would be wrong to say the shovel was worth $100. Even if all the shovel sellers in the area knew about the details of this opportunity and decided to set they’re prices at $99, it would quickly become apparent that shovels aren’t really worth that. Two things would happen: sellers would defect and set they’re prices lower than $99 to secure the deal; this would happen as long and there was still and profit to be made. And the company would remember what a shovel was supposed to cost, get suspicious, and look in to manufacturing a shovel of they’re own, or commissioning a rake shop to make one.

                    This game of price setting is pretty good at approximating worth, especially compared to your proposed strategy of measuring the delta between company profits in reality, and in an alternate reality where the employee didn’t exist and the company didn’t attempt to fill their position with anybody or anything. The latter is not worth talking about.

                    • aalleavitch 1491 days ago
                      If the company could not possibly get that $1,000 in any other way, then yes the employee is worth $1,000. Without the willing participation of labor, a company cannot produce. If labor is fooled or coerced into working for less than it's worth (say, because otherwise they'll starve or lack health insurance), they are not operating in a free market. They are not getting paid according to their value.
                    • EliRivers 1495 days ago
                      So if a crippled person needs somebody to go to the bank and withdraw $1,000 for them, and they figure they can hire somebody trustworthy for $50 to do the errand, is that person not being paid what they’re worth, because they added $1,000 dollars of value?

                      This is a terrible example. Moving something is not the same as creating that something. Moving $1000 could be worth nothing. It could have negative value. It could be worth millions.

                      • rcoveson 1495 days ago
                        Right, and there are many things in between. Maintaining an object, improving an object, combining objects to make complex object, etc.

                        If you’re in the business of creating useful objects out of basically nothing, you don’t even need a company. Maybe you hire somebody to sell your objects for commission, or maybe you sell them yourself.

                        If you’re looking for a closer analogy, try the shove analogy. Why is it that despite the fact that the shovel makers are creating an object, even out of nothing, that they aren’t worth what is dug up with them? Software engineers are a lot like the shovel makers. Sometimes the shovels we make are used in extraordinarily profitable ventures. But their value is still determined by how hard it was to make them, and to learn the skills to make them. Not what the company uses them for.

                        I think it becomes hard to see when all the shovels being made are bespoke. Lots of software is written to fill one role for one client. That client will often use that particular thing to make lots of money. So maybe it appears like that thing bit of software created all the value? But this is clearly false. The fact that some part of a system is essential to the whole system’s success does not imply that the worth of every piece of the system is equivalent to the worth of the whole system.

                        • justanotherc 1495 days ago
                          This is a good way of putting it. All these "run your own agency" self-help courses have been pushing "value based" pricing with the promise that you can slap together a Wordpress template and charge $40k for it because of the "value" a website brings to the company is mostly nonsense IME. Stuff is built by the lowest competent bidder, period.
                      • rcoveson 1495 days ago
                        > This is a terrible example...

                        ...and then you go on to describe the reason it's a great example.

                        I'm contending with the belief that somethings "worth" is determined by the effects it has, specifically the effects on the profits of a corporation. As you've pointed out regarding my "move $1000 example," the effects something has can vary in scale from the actions that brought them about. The cost of moving an object of a certain weight a certain distance with certain security measures is pretty stable. The secondary effects, on the other hand, could be massive.

                        Employment is the same way. One is paid to do a task in proportion to how much others who are capable of it would do it for. That amount is almost totally disconnected from the profits (or losses) the employer reaps from having that task completed for them.

                        • EliRivers 1494 days ago
                          I see. I think you worded it quite badly. This in particular; "because they added $1,000 dollars of value?"

                          This suggested that they had added a thousand dollars of value, whereas you presumably meant no such thing? Your example gave me the impression that we were in direct disagreement.

                          Continuing the discussion, now that I understand what you were saying; having recognised that what people are paid is disconnected from what value they bring to a company (and thus that someone could be worth millions to a company, but paid peanuts [0]), is it right that recompense is "almost totally disconnected from the profits (or losses) the employer reaps from having that task completed for them"? This is something of a moral judgement and we stray into different grounds; the great god Market is very popular hereabouts.

                          [0] Some argue that by defintion, what someone is paid is what they are worth. Fortunately, because that is presented as a simple definition, we can discard it as easily as it is presented.

        • badrabbit 1496 days ago
          Exactly! You don't get paid for quality or quantity of work, you get paid for demand vs supply of your skills and your ability to negotiate a salary.
      • fastball 1496 days ago
        Resentment? Pretty common human emotion.
        • lexs 1496 days ago
          But why resentment against him and not the company?
          • Moru 1496 days ago
            Human nature. Company is a thing, your collegue is a person.
            • dnh44 1496 days ago
              It may be the nature of lots of humans, but to cast such bad behaviour as human nature is a bit of a pessimistic view isn't it?
            • lexs 1496 days ago
              Your boss, HR or whoever is responsible for deciding your salary definitely is a person though.
  • choeger 1496 days ago
    There are two incentives at play here: A company obviously wants to pay as little as possible. So if there are employees that do not realize they are underpayed it benefits the company in the short term. On the other hand, employees who feel they receive a good salary or any other extraordinary benefits do not want to publicly talk about this fact to not alienate their colleagues (who they suspect earn less).

    Public salaries on the other hand reduce a company's flexibility: When negotiating a new contract, they cannot offer 10% more anymore. On the other hand, no one should apply if the salaries do not match their expectations...

    I guess it can work reasonably well, but individual cases would suffer somewhat.

    • black_puppydog 1496 days ago
      I always come at this from an "information == power" standpoint. If any one worker only knows the data points from their own (possibly non-existent) previous employments, they will be at a disadvantage against a company that has already negotiated hundreds of such contracts. So if you assume a more-or-less free market (kind of reasonable in professions far off minimum-wage regulation) then players with more information will statistically end up better off. Put like that, sharing your salary becomes a pretty basic act of solidarity, and should be reciprocated.

      By the way, there's at least one more incentive/mechanism at play here: since western society tends to confound fiscal achievement with value as a person, people hesitate (and with reason) to share their salary, in case it is too low. There's some nice discussion to be had there about Calvinism and the general relationship between religion and the attitude towards individual achievement. But I think that would just devolve into a flame-war so maybe let's not go there. :)

      • ChuckNorris89 1496 days ago
        > people hesitate (and with reason) to share their salary, in case it is too low.

        Or in the case of Europe, if it's too high. Most youths here are very left leaning and don't like high earners so if you work in tech and want to make friends outside of tech you'd better not mention salaries.

        • cosmodisk 1496 days ago
          I wouldn't want to be friends with anyone who gets upset because of my income or title. My salary is modest in terms of what I do, however compared to many other fields, it's pretty darn good. So if'd talk to someone who works in tech, they'd puzzled why I don't try to get a better paying job,while people in other fields would tell me how lucky I am compared to them.
          • belval 1496 days ago
            From experience, it's not that they get upset as much as they will come back to it in random conversation about how they should earn a similar salary because "Do X and it's much harder!".
            • ChuckNorris89 1496 days ago
              Or if you ever mention how stressed and overworked you are they'll chime in with how you shouldn't complain since you're well paid.
        • undreren 1496 days ago
          Oh really? I often mention my salary when relevant, and I have never experienced any negativity.
          • blarghaswell 1496 days ago
            How much is it? If you don't want to say that (I wouldn't), how many multiples is it of the salaries of the people you're mentioning it to?
            • undreren 1495 days ago
              Two, but sometimes closer to three.
        • BlargMcLarg 1496 days ago
          >Most youths here are very left leaning and don't like high earners

          Its not just youth or politics. Its mostly culture and unwillingness to deviate from it, coupled with some strong expectations. People "expect" managers to be paid well, doctors to be paid well, etc, so they don't get angry at these people for getting paid well. On a smaller scale, only if you start deviating from the norm do people make mention or get angry, because a large part of Europe still solemnly believes in Calvinism (especially the Netherlands).

          You end up with a risk-averse, middle-of-the-road populace where everything different from the status quo is quickly snuffed out and most stars only get to shine if they are lucky or working for an American megacorp, where excellence is valued more (with its own set of problems). I'd figure that has to do with our lack of a Silicon Valley equivalent as well.

          • blarghaswell 1496 days ago
            Comments like this from ambitious Europeans appear so often that I can't help but feel the US is still in a relatively strong position despite the mess of a clusterfuck it feels like from the inside.
          • nicoburns 1496 days ago
            For what it's worth, I'm a software developer (in europe), and I think I definitely get paid too much, relative to the value I contribute to society. I could get paid even more if I will willing to go and work for EvilCorp.

            I don't think this jas anything to do with cultural norms (trust me, I don't conform to many of them). It has to do with fairness, and our broken economic system rewarding the wrong things.

            • flyinglizard 1496 days ago
              Doesn’t society put its own value on your work by sustaining the mechanism which keeps paying you? If anything, most likely than not you are paid too little as people rarely maximize their negotiating leverage.
              • nicoburns 1495 days ago
                > Doesn’t society put its own value on your work by sustaining the mechanism which keeps paying you?

                Well sure, but the power that sustains that mechanism is very unevenly distributed, and skewed towards the people it benefits. Most people have little choice but to go along with it in their day to day lives.

                > If anything, most likely than not you are paid too little as people rarely maximize their negotiating leverage.

                You mean, most likely I could be paid more. This is probably true. But it is not at all the same as deserving that pay.

                If you take supply and demand as your moral system, then you can justify all sorts of immoralities, after all I have no doubt that there would be plenty of demand for assassins. As a society we choose to disincentivise assassination because we believe that we know better than the market. We can, do and should do the same for economic activity. And just because the status quo incentivises things in a certain way doesn't make it right.

          • e12e 1496 days ago
            I'm sad that Norway stopped publishing all tax return lists (ie, taxable income).

            The information is still available, but rate limited, and the person you look up will get a notification. So you can still look up last year's tax return of the person offering you a job - but that person might take offense.

            That said, there are a couple of good reasons for the change; digital publication is qualitatively different from having to go down to the city administration to look up the numbers on paper - among other things it makes collecting/checking date of birth trivial (it's part of the dataset - which is municipality of residence, full name and dob).

      • phd514 1496 days ago
        > There's some nice discussion to be had there about Calvinism and the general relationship between religion and the attitude towards individual achievement.

        I don't know where the idea that Calvinism links individual achievement to individual value comes from, but it's found nowhere in Calvinist theology. If anything, it teaches the opposite in that it asserts that every person is implicitly valuable, regardless of race, gender, status, or occupation, by simple virtue of being made in God's image, an inseparable quality of being human.

    • Gustomaximus 1496 days ago
      A third factor is: do you want to know?

      I worked some years in Norway where tax information is public making it fairly easy to estimate what people earn. I chose not to view this information given I was happy with my salary and work.

      I felt if I saw similar level people earnt more and I raised this but didn't get equalised it could hurt my sense of justice and how content I felt in the workplace. Given I enjoyed my work and company I didn't want to risk this as something that might bug me.

      • IkmoIkmo 1496 days ago
        > felt if I saw similar level people earnt more and I raised this but didn't get equalised it could hurt my sense of justice and how content I felt in the workplace.

        Shouldn't it, though? It's like saying your partner is cheating on you, but you don't want to know because it could 'hurt your sense of justice and how content I feel in the relationship'.

        I mean, I'll grant you that if you're happy in your job, and honestly don't care about pay, it's different. Just like if you're in an open relationship, and genuinely don't care if your partner sleeps with other people. That's fine. But by saying it could hurt you, you're implying it does matter. And if it matters, the first step to righting any wrong is to know about it and to be able to take adequate steps.

        Put differently, suppose other people knew they were worth more, took that information and asked more, got more, and you didn't, even though you could've. That doesn't sound right to me.

        What I think could be a useful tool is to take that raw Norwegian tax data, run a basic condition on it, and then spit out only results you find 'relevant', which can protect you from knowing things you don't want to know.

        e.g. input 10 names of your peers (who should be earning the same), and only show those salaries that are say 20% above your own. That prevents you from knowing Bob earns 5% more for reasons that may never be resolved, which could still annoy you. But if say Bob earns 20% more, that's something I'd want to know to see if I could take action.

        Or, perhaps even more conservative, to only get a sense of where you stand versus company average (for your function) and versus market average. That takes out a lot of the personal but tells you whether you should be happy where you are, or asking for a raise or another employer.

      • bostik 1496 days ago
        Disclosure: I am an outlier, and work for a company where salaries are public.[ß]

        I have never read through the full list of what anyone makes. I honestly don't care. I have checked whether a particular engineer has got a raise I have advocated for or what I believe they are worth, but that's different.

        The biggest benefit from this is that even relatively junior people are willing to recommend offers for candidates that actually match market rates based on their skills. To be able and confident to quote offers that are higher than what you make is an incredible leveler.

        ß: our market maker unit deviates from this - they found out that hiring from banking or hedge fund backgrounds, new people were not comfortable knowing/disclosing the exact numbers but are okay with salary band granularity. Sure. Fine. Whatever works.

      • aesyondu 1496 days ago
        I understand how you feel, and while I agree with you to a certain extent, I'm reminded of a particular behavior children make, which I will embody into a quote: "Just because you closed your eyes doesn't mean the monster is gone."

        Also "Ignorance is bliss." Which could be interpreted either way.

        • Gustomaximus 1496 days ago
          I guess it's a combination of current position and what you value.

          I was already paid reasonably well which likely helps take this position. Once that threshold is met I value happiness over a bit more money.

          If I was frustrated with my income I'd likely be viewing the tax info and looking for negotation points, or knowing a company is a poor payer in general.

          No 'right' answer, only what is right for you.

        • codingmess 1496 days ago
          Somebody else earning more than you is not a monster that will eat you, though.
    • netcan 1496 days ago
      There is an emotional day one, but at some point dust settles.

      I think the prevailing incentive for most employees would be to have that information, and break the information asymmetry.

      That said I don't think clear economic incentives are the only thing at play. Public salaries is, in old leftist terms, a material cultural change. Material meaning that salary dynamics will change as a results of it.

    • dang 1496 days ago
      > A company obviously wants to pay as little as possible.

      I suppose I'm naive, but it seems obvious to me that a company should want to pay its employees as much as possible—that is, as much as is consistent with the value the employees deliver. When I say "should", I don't mean morally. It just seems obviously in the company's interest.

      • paloaltokid 1496 days ago
        You're reminding me of the "Spanish Theory of Value" as explained in the book Peopleware (DeMarco & Lister). I highly recommend this book.

        From Chapter 3 of the book: "The Spanish Theory...held that only a fixed amount of value existed on earth, and therefore the path to the accumulation of wealth was to learn to extract it more efficiently from the soil or from people's back."

        I think that most folks, once they're a few years into their careers, have seen and understood that this theory of management and value extraction is alive and well in corporate America today.

        From the same chapter: "Productivity ought to mean achieving more in an hour of work, but all too often it has come to mean extracting more for an hour of pay. There is a large difference."

        So I agree with you. It seems obvious to me as well that companies should pay as much as possible. But they don't think that way, because they're coming from a different value set.

        • dang 1496 days ago
          Even the value set of greed should nudge them in that direction—though perhaps not short-term greed.
          • paloaltokid 1496 days ago
            Again, we agree. But it's that word should that is the delta between how we would like it to work and how it currently actually works.
        • rhizome 1496 days ago
          Said another way, people who work 80hrs a week cut their salaries in half.
      • MaxBarraclough 1496 days ago
        I presume you're referring to the value of retaining employees?

        I'd be curious to see an economist take a look at what's going on here. The software-development profession continues to incentivise employees to constantly change jobs, despite that employers pay a real 'onboarding penalty' for employee churn.

        If someone knows the answer I'd be interested to hear it.

        > as much as is consistent with the value the employees deliver

        But what does that mean? If an employee delivers $100,000/year of value, how how much should you pay them? Surely the answer (regarding the employer's self-interest) should factor in the odds of them leaving at any given pay-grade. The answer presumably isn't $99,999. The employer is looking to 'capture value', after all.

      • wasyl 1496 days ago
        Feels to me it would be in company's interest only if the salaries were more transparent. Otherwise company will pay as little as they can to keep the person working for them, even if that's well below the value the employee delivers. If the employee doesn't realize that, they'll just stay. And as long as the company doesn't lose good employees, there's no incentive for them to pay people more.
      • dntbnmpls 1495 days ago
        > I suppose I'm naive, but it seems obvious to me that a company should want to pay its employees as much as possible

        "As much as possible" is everything. So no.

        > that is, as much as is consistent with the value the employees deliver.

        If companies paid for the value the employees delivered, the company would have no profit. Companies make money by taking a share of the value employees delivered.

        > It just seems obviously in the company's interest.

        Maybe in a disneyesque/"it's a wonderful life" fairy tale but not in real life. Obviously it isn't in the company's interest because no company does it your way.

        Actually, employees salaries, like rent, fuel costs, supplies, etc are viewed as costs/expenditures for a company. Something all companies want to reduce as it eats into their profits.

    • Spooky23 1496 days ago
      I’ve spent most of my career in public sector gigs where my salary is listed on a website. Those arguments are bunk.

      Even in that type of system, there are ways to make high performers get compensated better, and there is very little of any alienation. You can also see this at play with corporate officers whose salaries vary dramatically.

    • clarry 1496 days ago
      > Public salaries on the other hand reduce a company's flexibility: When negotiating a new contract, they cannot offer 10% more anymore.

      Why not?

      • ChuckNorris89 1496 days ago
        Because then every other employee already working there would want that extra 10% the new guy got so the company's salary expenses would spiral out of control(or reaching their actual market value, as it rightfully should be).

        People wouldn't be job hopping if you could get the same raise as the new guys.

        Not saying I like this but it's the current situation in Europe where the power lies with the company and the ones who loose are those that are too loyal to the company(most employees outside SW dev don't bother looking around every few years like we do).

        • black_puppydog 1496 days ago
          1. If the new hire is worth 10% more, then the employer will be able to justify that. "He's got much more experience than you" or such. Put differently: you can only offer those extra 10% if you can actually justify it in a way that others agree with you. Might actually turn out to be a rationality corrective so to say.

          2. If you don't want people to job-hop because they see what some new hire earns, then you're either overpaying the new one (and unnecessarily alienating your workers) or you're underpaying the current employees, and you should raise their salary or expect them to hop.

          • ChuckNorris89 1496 days ago
            1. Worth is relative. You can't know the performance of someone you've just interviewed for an hour to someone who's been working there for years. The new guy might just be good at whiteboarding and negotiating but could be a mediocre employee at best on your codebase. When you get a job your pay isn't dictated by your "worth", whatever that is, but by current market conditions.

            2. That's how it should be in an ideal world but the reality is different and companies know through years of experience that the current system works better for them rather than the one you'd want.

            • madeofpalk 1496 days ago
              > Worth is relative. You can't know the performance of someone you've just interviewed for an hour to someone who's been working there for years

              Supposedly you can because you're offering them 10% more than the rest of your employees...

              • ChuckNorris89 1496 days ago
                Like I said previously, you're offering them 10% more because of market conditions(you need some fresh meat on your project ASAP), not because of their (yet unknown) performance, and hedge your bets that the ones already working for you won't find out(here salaries are confidential) or are to tied down to be looking for new jobs so soon.

                I hate this approach, but for most companies in Europe it's the reality that works in their favor.

              • yibg 1496 days ago
                Lots of reasons view points could be different:

                - Worth is subjective. I'm sure we've all had conversations about someone where some view the person as great and others view the same person as meh or under performing. Value is also determined based on information, which usually people don't have the same amount of. So very possible the hiring person or committee sees different value in a person than fellow engineers or teammates.

                - Value judgement, especially for hiring is also point in time. Could very well be the person as presented during interview is a rockstar, but after landing on the team doesn't perform well for whatever reason.

          • AmericanChopper 1496 days ago
            > If the new hire is worth 10% more, then the employer will be able to justify that.

            If you have established salary bands, then you cannot justify offering somebody something outside of that range. That defeats the entire purpose of having salary bands to begin with, and not complying with them would be lying to your employees. What salary bands are, is a levelling mechanism. The answer to “why does x get paid more than me?” should be “because for some particular reason we decided x was worth more to us than you”. With the levelling mechanism, you have less options for paying people what they’re worth, instead you simply decide that everybody will get paid +/- a few % of whatever the average value of an employee in that role is, regardless of their contribution.

            • sokoloff 1496 days ago
              If those bands are more narrow than the distribution of talent/contribution at any given level, then you’re very likely to shut yourself out from the top contributors. In my experience, bands are always vastly more narrow.
        • 101404 1496 days ago
          > use then every other employee already working there would want that extra 10% the new guy got

          Not if the new guy is 10% better at what they do.

          And if he's not, then maybe the others actually deserve that 10% more.

          Good thing.

          • BeetleB 1496 days ago
            > Not if the new guy is 10% better at what they do.

            In most cases, this is not the case. In fact, it's often the case that the new person is really new and will require significant hand holding to be productive.

            They pay them 10% more because the new person has multiple offers, and most existing employees aren't seeking alternatives, so they have little leverage.

            • 101404 1496 days ago
              So, at the moment, loyalty is punished.

              Seems to be a good idea to change that.

        • clarry 1496 days ago
          > People wouldn't be job hopping if you could get the same raise as the new guys.

          This sounds like a massive win for all but the bottom of the barrel tier companies. Finding and training new people (while giving them 10% more) as the old guys who know their shit leave for a better job is super expensive.

          • ChuckNorris89 1496 days ago
            That's the thing, most "old" guys don't leave since they get too busy with their private life(building a house, having kids) or they pidgeonholed themselves into some company specific niche with few options around or they got Job Stockholm Syndrome and are less inclined to shop around for better gigs.
            • clarry 1496 days ago
              The current situation is that you get a raise if you change jobs. So anyone who wants a better salary is currently very much encouraged to hop jobs.

              If companies had pressure to give raises internally, this would give less reason to hop jobs. I think that's a good thing for mostly everyone (including their employers). Everyone except dirt cheap shops where nobody wants to work anyway if they have choices.

              • ChuckNorris89 1496 days ago
                >So anyone who wants a better salary is currently very much encouraged to hop jobs

                But who is encouraging you? Since in Europe/Rest of the World(except US/UK) companies never mention how much they're willing to pay and even the recruiters they hire are sometimes not allowed to mention the upper range to their candidates. So nobody knows they're underpaid unless you're willing to take your free time and apply to jobs, contact recruiters and go interview at a few companies and go through some rounds of negotiations.

                And even then lots of companies will look at your application very suspiciously that you're applying to new jobs so soon and they'll expect something's wrong with your relationship with your current employer or with you so some might not even make you an offer.

                For most senior employees with families that's a lot of trouble to go through so they don't even bother unless a recruiter knocks on their door with the offer of a lifetime.

              • ByzantineO6 1496 days ago
                The increase in how valuable a talented young employee is as a function of experience gives HR the vapors, so they "boil off" the fast movers, leaving mediocrity behind. Burroughs Corp once had an OS facility in Mission Viejo CA, known as "the finishing school" to hiring managers in a 30 mile radius.
        • Spooky23 1496 days ago
          People want all sorts of things, it doesn’t mean they get them. The US doesn’t have organized labor anymore for the most part, and companies don’t give a shit about people’s feelings.
        • watwut 1496 days ago
          The question is whether it is overall good system to punish people for staying asuming same quality of work.
          • ChuckNorris89 1496 days ago
            The current system of punishing people who stay long at a company is still in place because it works, and it works very well.

            Lots of employees here have bought into this company spread propaganda that job hopping like in the US will make you unemployable in the future.

            As the employees get older and get tied down with families and homes and also Job Stockholm Syndrome they're less likely to shop around for new jobs so the savings on salaries on seniors being paid below market are huge.

            • watwut 1496 days ago
              Is it working well? Average software projects, codebases and their management are messy almost disasters. For many reasons. But half a team being either new or right before leaving is definitely not helping. The fact that people leave before they can find the right match position in company or team, learn it well and spend some time there is not helping.

              And afaik, large companies and large successful projects tend to have more stable core team behind them.

            • oAlbe 1496 days ago
              > Lots of employees here have bought into this company spread propaganda that job hopping like in the US will make you unemployable in the future.

              But is that ultimately true? It feels to me that the companies hold the power to make that true, regardless of the propaganda. So even if you try to job hop, after a certain age they have all the power to make you unemployable. Am I wrong? (I hope I am)

              • jb775 1496 days ago
                I think it depends if the job is a "lifelong-learning" type of job or not. I don't think anyone would say a doctor is unemployable because they moved to a new hospital every 2 years. I think software development is a lifelong-learning type industry where job hopping can actually be beneficial - you get to re-hone your existing skillset from a new perspective and are forced to constantly learn new tools.

                I think constant job hopping is bad in 3 situations: 1) If you work a non lifelong-learning job. 2) If you work a job that is mostly industry-specific relationship based. 3) If you are jumping around to different job roles entirely, where you never really become exceptionally talented at any single role.

                My general rule of thumb for deciding when to job hop is when I feel as if I've stopped learning new things.

        • mcphage 1496 days ago
          > People wouldn't be job hopping if you could get the same raise as the new guys.

          That sounds like a huge win for companies.

  • alpinemeadow 1496 days ago
    If our starting point is to agree that people are individual in their experiences, competence, what they can bring to a team, then it follows that salaries are a subjective value attached to each individual.

    With this approach it is our task to come to the negotiating table:

    - informed on floor and ceiling for the position's compensation (there are websites and unions and many ways to get this info besides asking)

    - ready to show what I can bring of value that it's worth paying more than a mere floor compensation, or above the ceiling.

    In the past I've only shared information with people I know will be discreet in how they use it, and it has helped them, and it has helped me. The interesting thing is that most of these cases are internal moves. You can't just ring people in the company you are interviewing for and ask...

  • trixie_ 1496 days ago
    I’d be frustrated with my colleagues to know how much they make and they’d be frustrated with me. Job titles jr, 1, 2, sr are frustrating enough. I’m always surprised when I learn a great engineer is only a 1. Management uses grades like a carrot and stick. I’m all for giving people with the same job the same title.

    Public grades/salary on the other hand makes it hard to work with people. You can’t look at another person without thinking of their worth and compare it to yours. It creates unnecessary drama, makes people think they’re more important than they are, and distracts from the actual work. Glassdoor and recruiters already should give you a good idea of what you’re worth. Knowing other people’s compensation will only lead to jealousy of others and others of you. It’s one of those human nature things that can’t be turned off so best not to exacerbate it.

    • mrweasel 1496 days ago
      Personally I don't consider my salary a secret. Even though my colleagues newer shared their salary with my, they've always gotten an honest answer if they asked my.

      Apparently those of my colleagues who now know what I make believes that I'm under paid by around $1000 per month. At the same time I feel that my pay is excellent and that my co-workers deserve every cent they make.

      Drama around people salaries could arise, but only if your company rewards people randomly. Knowing that a colleagues makes more than you should prompt you to ask your boss what it is that you're doing or not doing that keeps you at a lower pay, and your boss should be able to tell you exactly why you're paid less.

      In my experience recruiters and public salary databases isn't that useful. Most large organisations have their own, or buy access to salary statistics and will use those. In my case recruiters have been off by as much as $15000 per year, not including existing bonuses and overtime.

      Salaries should in my mind should be public. I believe it will result in more equal pay, but also lower salaries to a large group of people who currently enjoy a salary that isn't reflective of they responsibility or the importance of their job.

      • trixie_ 1496 days ago
        "your boss should be able to tell you exactly why you're paid less."

        'Why' is a qualitative measurement. You will never agree. The debate will never end. It will always be well be, "he did X, I did Y, I think Y is more important, so I think I should be paid more" times a thousands of employees.

        Believe me grades are a public salary microcosm. I worked at a company for 4 years that added grades to titles in the middle of my stay. It was a disaster. People were never happy, always jealous, constantly asking their boss 'what they need to do' to achieve a subjective thing.

        I think you're right it would lead to more equal pay because that would be the only way to avoid the drama. It does put the company at a competitive disadvantage now because -

          Your competitors know how much all your positions make, while they don't have to make theirs public
          Hiring a dev at a discount is impossible because they will complain
          Hiring a dev at a premium is impossible because current employees will complain
          Holding on to talent is harder because if they leave for a better offer - you cant match their pay because everyone else will complain
        
        Really the only way this isn't a problem is if you're underpaid - like you are. And like I said there are many services out there that will give you a good idea of range you should be paid.
      • greedo 1496 days ago
        "Knowing that a colleagues makes more than you should prompt you to ask your boss what it is that you're doing or not doing that keeps you at a lower pay, and your boss should be able to tell you exactly why you're paid less."

        This assumes that your boss is rewarded for keeping you happy. In my org, we use a form of stack ranking; so my boss just gives whoever he likes the highest rank. Everyone else gets a COL raise. My boss is rewarded for being a tough negotiator with vendors and staff; that makes his boss happy. And my boss, despite his lack of self-awareness, isn't technical in any way. So he has no ability to either direct my work, or to judge it in a technical manner. This limits his ability to tell me exactly why I'm paid less. He's a typical middle manager who's more of a negotiator than a technical manager. Yet he holds my career in his hands.

    • Shivetya 1496 days ago
      I agree, there are only so many titles to go around and we have to be honest, some people with the same title are much more important and valuable.

      Pretty much end up with grades like those seen in government [0] and then that might not be sufficient. Do you apply grades company wide, department wide, or even down to the team level? Do you get points for additional skills, how do you adjust for these intangibles? How much does seniority count for?

      Seniority might help for some issues but I know many of us can bring up stories of people just overpaid simply for being there too long. We can even point to many who came in are not qualified. Finally yes we can all point to those we know who should make more but publishing salaries is not the solution, audit and HR solutions can cover obvious cases of discrimination.

      Salary guidance and ranges could be published without issue but I think salaries except for compensation numbers required to be disclosed should be treated like any other personal information.

      PS: I really dislike articles that attempt to guilt people into agreement. Right off the bat they are trying to imply you are wrong for disagreeing, this is just as mickey mouse as saying "for the children". If anything I just tune it all out when they start off like that. It isn't journalism, it is pontificating

      [0] https://gogovernment.org/pay-and-the-general-schedule-gs/

    • Proziam 1496 days ago
      I gotta say that I disagree. I've never had a problem with others knowing my salary (and it's never been a low number) and I've always championed people who I knew were underpaid relative to their effort and talents. People knowing what I made never created an issue for me, but it certainly helped others to negotiate better for themselves.

      Everyone sharing information equalizes the imbalance of power in the workplace. It may not be comfortable for everyone, but it definitely helps people get what they're worth.

  • mattr47 1496 days ago
    I never understood this since I worked for the US military for 22 years. Everyone knew exactly what everyone else made, including extra duty pay, housing allowances, bonuses, etc.

    We never bitched about the pay someone else was making. It was just the way it was.

    • ozim 1496 days ago
      Software devs are totally not like military personnel. Marketing people are not like military personnel. Of course I assume there is bunch of a-holes in mil and people who try to game the system. I never been to military but I assume there are much more clear rules, ofc your superior might like you more and you get promoted, but there is no ranks or requirements written down in business so amounts of gray areas is much larger there.
    • yters 1496 days ago
      In the business world, there is no objective measure for the value of all things. I have to pay someone enough they'll do what I need them to do, but not too much that I cannot recoup expenses and keep the business running. What that value is is not exactly defined, b/c the life of the business and the market it depends on is a very dynamic thing.
  • enriquto 1496 days ago
    As a member of academia where our (low) salaries are published in a government website, I find it rather strange to know that in private companies the salaries are not public. You mean that different people doing the same job earn a different salary? How is that even possible? How do people put up with this bullshit?
    • IkmoIkmo 1496 days ago
      > How do people put up with this bullshit?

      Because the group that gets the highest salaries is also the group that wouldn't put up with lower salaries.

      And the group that gets the lowest salaries, is also the group that puts up with the lowest salaries.

      That's why nothing changes. People don't randomly get more money. They get it because they ask for it, demand it, push for it, negotiate, plan, make deals, long-term agreements etc, which results in a pay raise. Others quietly and diligently do their jobs, and don't.

      Fact is that most managers will not give you a raise by themselves, unless it's standard company policy, which is quite rare outside of government organisations. A manager giving you a raise means two things: either he has to get more budget from his manager, which means asking for a favour, making a business case, spending his political capital within the organisation, time, headaches etc. Or the manager already has budget available, and he'll be most keen to spend it on hiring extra manpower, or spending it on a raise on the other people who are asking for it (and at risk of leaving).

      That's why there's no reason for a manager to give you a raise, unless there's indications he actually has to. e.g. because you're at risk of leaving to another department or company, or staying with the company but unsatisfied which damages the manager/employee relationship. The fastest way to give your manager this indication is to start up the conversation, be vocal about your career aspirations and expectations.

      There's a group of people who aren't vocal like that, and they overlap almost entirely with the group of people that doesn't call to arms. It's the same people. That's why the system stays like this.

    • altvali 1496 days ago
      There are arguments on both sides. We want to make sure that companies don't offer lower salaries to immigrants, blacks, women etc. On the other hand, productivity varies wildly among different people doing the same job.
      • enriquto 1496 days ago
        > On the other hand, productivity varies wildly among different people doing the same job.

        But then they are not doing the same job, and it is reasonable that they earn more.

        In a grocery store, the prices are public and visible to all clients and other stores. You are reasonably sure that the seller is not reaching a "private agreement" with most other clients. This kind of public information is a basic tenet of a market economy. Otherwise the whole thing is taken over by arbiters (aka "negotiators") instead of productive people. I honestly do not understand why such an important part of the economy (the actual salaries!) is not bound by the same rule.

        • swsieber 1496 days ago
          > But then they are not doing the same job, and it is reasonable that they earn more

          The issue is wether everybody realizes they aren't doing the same job.

          > In a grocery store

          Comparing performance of people is a lot more subjective than comparing food. Your comparing apples to oranges here.

          If performance was easy to compare, it'd be a lot easier to push for transparent salary information.

          • enriquto 1496 days ago
            > If performance was easy to compare, it'd be a lot easier to push for transparent salary information.

            If performance is not easy to compare, what is the point of assigning different salaries to people?

            • sokoloff 1496 days ago
              Because people’s performance is different, even if it’s hard to reduce that to a numeric score in a totally objective way.

              When I look back over my career, I know which 20 or so engineers I’d want to hire for a startup where engineering mattered. Even if I can’t assign an exact percentage how much better they were, I sure know who they are.

        • hirako2000 1496 days ago
          It costs less capital hence increase profit (or competitiveness) to keep this private. Retailers would do the same with their price if it was practical. Actually, with b2b sales it is exactly the case, prices are most often kept confidential.

          I'm not supporting the practice, I just don't see how it could be any different,unless you start forcing key actors in this system to disclose.

          • enriquto 1496 days ago
            > I'm not supporting the practice, I just don't see how it could be any different,unless you start forcing key actors in this system to disclose.

            Lest the workers unionize and make it stop.

        • yibg 1496 days ago
          The problem is very few people do the same job in software. You're not writing the same code, in the same domain etc. Looking back to jobs I've had in the past, my job was always different even from people on the same team. We specialized in different parts of the code base, or using different technologies or just gravitated towards different focuses. e.g. I was the data guy, we had someone else that was really good at debugging hard problems and someone we'd always consult for API design.
      • jawns 1496 days ago
        My job is "software engineer." I work with many other software engineers. Some have 1-2 years of experience. Some have 10+ or 20+.

        It's possible to create strata -- junior, mid-level, senior, etc. -- and say that for a particular open role, you are hiring for only mid-level engineers. But there's always going to be some wiggle room.

        Maybe you'll get one applicant with 3 years of experience applying for a mid-level role, and you see a lot of promise in them, but you realize they'll need a higher level of training. And maybe you'll get another applicant with 10 years of experience applying for the same role, and you know they're solid and will need very little ramp-up time or hand-holding.

        So it makes perfect sense to offer the latter candidate more than the former candidate, even if you're willing to hire them both. (And chances are, the latter candidate will expect more than the former candidate.)

      • moralestapia 1496 days ago
        >We want to make sure that companies don't offer lower salaries to immigrants, blacks, women etc.

        What? If anything, that would be an argument IN FAVOR of public salaries ...

        • fastball 1496 days ago
          Right. The first part of the comment is a reason in favor, the latter portion is a reason against.

          > "There are arguments on both sides"

          • moralestapia 1496 days ago
            You're right. I kind of messed up the message.
    • scarface74 1496 days ago
      > As a member of academia where our (low) salaries are published in a government website,

      > I find it rather strange to know that in private companies the salaries are not public.

      Why does this come off as “people still watch TV. I haven’t owned a TV in 20 years”? Are you really saying that you didn’t know that the private sector doesn’t publish salaries on a website?

      > How do people put up with this bullshit?

      The same could be said about why academics put up with the “bullshit” of “low” salaries.

      Why is it so strange that people would make different trade offs than you do?

    • uk_programmer 1496 days ago
      > You mean that different people doing the same job earn a different salary? How is that even possible?

      Do you mean the same job or the same job title?

      Unless you are working in a job where it is very well defined what your responsibilities are different people even with the same job title might be doing very different work.

      I have the same job title as the guy next to me and he can't write a lick of JavaScript and spends all day writing VB / C#. All I do is JavaScript pretty much. I am sure we are paid differently as my skills are less valuable to the business (I believe).

    • BeetleB 1496 days ago
      Are you in the US? I ask because in every university I've been to:

      1. Salaries were public info.

      2. There was a large disparity in pay (even for the same tenure level and same department).

    • geocar 1496 days ago
      In the private sector, your salary comes from revenue, and your ability to negotiate your salary, that is, your leverage, comes from the impact you can have on that revenue.

      In government, your salary comes from taxes, or absent sufficient tax revenue, from inflation (i.e. the government just prints more money).

      • codingslave 1496 days ago
        This is often a lie. It's common for revenue generators to make as low as the company will pay them, and management who is producing little value to extract the wealth
        • geocar 1496 days ago
          Just because you make the donuts doesn't necessarily mean you're responsible for Dunkin' Donuts revenue: If I (management) can hire someone else to make as many donuts as you for less, then of course I will. That means you have little leverage to negotiate a higher salary.

          However if I can open and hire for ten donut shops per year, I've got their combined revenue as leverage for negotiating my salary. I'm not competing with you, but with my fellow executive who can only open and hire for six per year.

          What do you think the analogue is for government work?

  • dang 1497 days ago
    An article with a similar title from 5 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9926192
    • magicram 1496 days ago
      So this seems to be a long trending topic and still without an answer
  • Havoc 1496 days ago
    It's pretty safe in places with very strictly tiered salaries. The more performance driven it is the less safe it becomes because everyone thinks they're the best.
    • SwiftyBug 1496 days ago
      I don't think that's true. In fact, I believe most people think they are less performant than their peers.
      • Havoc 1496 days ago
        A case could be made for either - impostor syndrome on one hand, massive ego on the other. The ego side is what kicks off the problems in this debate though.

        But yes, perhaps it's less than 50%. Hard to tell

        • luckylion 1496 days ago
          My experience comes down on the ego side in general, that is, there are more people who (massively) over-value their ability and contribution than there are people who (massively) under-value theirs.

          That may depend on industry and location though. Different jobs are likely to attract different people.

  • rtkaratekid 1496 days ago
    I really like the idea of salary transparency, and I honestly don’t mind if someone is making more than me (as long as I don’t feel neglected). However, I was once hired at a company and had to move from across the country from a place I loved living to a place I wasn’t sure about. So I negotiated everything I could. I asked for more time off (didn’t get it), I asked for a higher salary to cover the cost of living in this new location (got it), and a few other things. I felt pretty good about the negotiation and I was being hired for a very specific niche skillset that would help the company a ton. Not long after I was hired, I learned I was making as much or more than people who were more experienced and probably more talented than me... and as casual as I am about pay, not everyone is, so I shut right up about it. I guess my point is that not everyone will push as hard as me or be as fortunate as me and there’s just a lot of factors to consider. I wish it wasn’t like that sometimes, but I’m this case I got a much better gig than I would’ve otherwise.
  • twodave 1496 days ago
    From the company’s point of view this seems like a very bad idea. It essentially cripples their ability to attract great talent.

    In order to avoid drama in the workplace, companies adopting this sort of policy would undoubtedly adopt a standard pay scale that excludes their top workers. Maybe the existing employees are grandfathered in? Or maybe not. In either case you end up not being able to spend extra on that one employee who could really help your business goals.

    And I say that as a person who pretty freely shares what they make (though not typically with current coworkers) and also earns well above average in my region.

    Just imagine having the sorts of discussions we have about ostensibly-overpaid NFL players, except about George in Logistics and you’ll start to see what I’m imagining.

    • arcanus 1496 days ago
      > Just imagine having the sorts of discussions we have about ostensibly-overpaid NFL players

      While bad from a companies point of view, salary transparency is one of the few free market mechanisms in sports, and it does generally result in meritocratic distribution. The very fact you can mention someone who is perceived as overpaid implies scrutiny far beyond anything possible in a major corporation.

      Frankly, I suspect this would be worse for company profits more than anything else. In sports they have a strict % of total revenue that salaries can come out of,which limits the pot. Employees would certainly have no such artificial limit, in fact such a thing would likely be illegal.

    • legulere 1496 days ago
      It’s bad from the sense that you cannot tell people that they are paid special when they actually aren’t paid specially.
    • ByzantineO6 1496 days ago
      s/attract/keep/g
  • gk1 1496 days ago
    This taboo about salaries seems only to exist in places with big salary disparities, and/or where salaries are closely tied with self-worth.

    In Russia, for example, “how much do you make” is a question as common and unusual as “What city are you from?”

    • buybackoff 1496 days ago
      Yes, in Russia many impolite people tend to ask that, but the usual response it "just enough" or something vague. Maybe factory workers share that easily, but in high salary circles it is also a taboo. Maybe because it's so much above country-wide average that one had better be silent about that. Lived in the country until last year.
  • wortelefant 1496 days ago
    To get a better sense of my salary range,I found talking to recruiters very helpful - especially those whose bonus is tied to their prospects' future salary. In my current job, that number was a really exact estimation.
  • kabes 1496 days ago
    From the article: "a business that offers feminist-minded co-working spaces".

    How should I imagine a feminist minded co-working space?

    • 101404 1496 days ago
      Remember when Google did a company-wide study to find out for how much women at Google were underpaid? And it turned out that women in the same job were actually earning much more than their male colleagues doing the same thing.

      Now imagine "open salaries" making it obvious that the "women underpaid" is just a lie. An entire industry of "feminism" would die.

      Maybe NYT should not push too hard for this "openess".

      • joshuamorton 1496 days ago
        > earning much more than their male

        less than 1% is not "much more". Please don't editorialize. Especially when the data I have (and I have more than most!) on Google's internal salaries shows that women do appear to be underpaid by some measures.

        • 101404 1495 days ago
          What are those "some measures" and where is the 1% coming from?
          • joshuamorton 1495 days ago
            "We provided $9.7 million in adjustments to a total of 10,677 Googlers." -> just under $1000 per adjustment, on average. Note that since the comment here is that the affect group (L4 men) was large and led to the majority of the changes, we can generally discount ideas like "oh there were a small number of massive adjustments and a large number of tiny ones", or we can believe that's the case, but then the L4 men adjustments would be smaller on average, not larger.

            The average L4 SWE at Google is taking home more than $200K annually, and has a salary well over 100K, so these changes amounted to less than half a percent of total comp, and less than one percent of salary.

            As for "some measures", the short answer is that when you control for performance rating and level, as Google did here, things generally look reasonable.

            The problem is that there are good reasons to believe that historically equally performing women were less likely to be promoted (for various structural reasons that I won't get into, weren't malicious, and have been at least somewhat addressed). The result then is that high performing women may still be under-leveled or under-compensated in relation to their actual performance.

            So a completely reasonable interpretation of this sequence of events is that women were as a group, somewhat under-leveled. Their managers, individually, noticed this and did (as Google leadership suggests) what they could to use manager-discretionary compensation to address this underpayment. Again, individually and stochastically. The overall analysis notices this, and because one stochastic process (promotion) previously had a bias against women, and because the recent analysis didn't control for that, I get an extra $1K.

            Which is nice, but it's not anything particularly special.

            • 101404 1495 days ago
              > equally performing women were less likely to be promoted

              So they disproved the "wage gap" lie with hard data, and, as if nothing happened, you pull out the next unfounded myth?

              Got any hard data?

              • joshuamorton 1495 days ago
                No, they showed that Google doesn't have a gender wage Gap when controlling for performance. This doesn't disprove anything in general. Nor did it address preexisting concerns that aren't myths.

                And yes, but not publicly.

      • thebean11 1496 days ago
        Extrapolating from "women at Google aren't underpaid" to "women aren't underpaid" is a huge leap. Big tech competes heavily for women engineers because they are so scarce, which is not the case in every industry.
        • 101404 1496 days ago
          I wasn't extrapolating from "women at Google aren't underpaid".

          I was extrapolating from "men at Google are underpaid while the official narrative pushed to make all believe that women were".

          What industry do you have in mind?

      • vilts 1496 days ago
        Do you have reference to that Google study? I'd really like to read it.
        • dnissley 1496 days ago
          • e12e 1496 days ago
            Thanks, if that's what was referenced above, it certainly isn't a study to see if women were underpaid - but to see if anyone was underpaid.

            And reading the brief content:

            > There are a couple of reasons that the pay equity analysis required more adjustments in 2018, compared to 2017. First, the 2018 analysis flagged one particularly large job code (Level 4 Software Engineer) for adjustments. Within this job code, men were flagged for adjustments because they received less discretionary funds than women. Secondly, this year we undertook a new hire analysis to look for any discrepancies in offers to new employees—this accounted for 49 percent of the total dollars spent on adjustments.

            I suppose a natural question would be if an overpaid se4 is an underpromoted se5, or if an underpaid se4 is an overpromoted sr3.

            I understand the try to correct for "similar roles" - but that doesn't mean the promtion/roles are accurate.

            Either way; interesting link.

      • xhkkffbf 1496 days ago
        Is Susan Dominus going to reveal how much she was paid to write the piece? I doubt it. She's probably one of the better paid people there and it would just generate animosity with the younger feminists.
    • alteria 1496 days ago
      I've been to the Riveter several times, and at a basic level, their slogan of "built by women for everyone" is a fairly good way to describe it, but it's just like any other coworking space. People come in, work, hang out, and leave.

      They do try to build community that emphasizes supporting entrepreneurs who are women, but not exclusively.

    • williamdclt 1496 days ago
      I assume it's a matter of community. It's not any more weird than a jewish community, black community or vegan community.
      • barry-cotter 1496 days ago
        Indeed, no weirder than a white community or a Christian community.
    • codingmess 1496 days ago
      Like a horrible place full of loathing and self-pity.
    • Havoc 1496 days ago
      The kind of place where you get roasted for daring to hold open a door for someone because it implies they're incapable of opening doors independently.
      • williamdclt 1496 days ago
        This is mockery and very uncalled for, this isn't said or implied anywhere.
        • codingmess 1496 days ago
          It is implied by "feminist minded".
  • xhkkffbf 1496 days ago
    So is Susan Dominus willing to disclose her salary at the NYT? I doubt it. She's probably one of the better paid and it would create quite a bit of jealousy.
  • readme 1496 days ago
    ignorance is bliss
  • Proven 1496 days ago
    When the same info becomes know in FB or Google, the NYT complains about it and calls on the government to regulate them. But when someone wants to keep this info private in general, the it's a taboo.

    Morons.

  • codingmess 1496 days ago
    It's just socialist agenda. In socialism, some indivudals benefit (who are less productive than average), and some are being exploited (who are more productive than average).

    This approach of open salaries is designed to make it difficult to pay more productive people better than average. A ka Socialism.

    The alternative is to tell people "yeah, you make less because your performance is worse, suck it up", which I doubt will really make people happy in the long run.

    What about contracting, though - will fees for contract work have to be open, too? Otherwise, it might backfire in that companies will prefer contract workers over employees. Personally, I would consider that a positive outcome.

    • BlargMcLarg 1496 days ago
      >This approach of open salaries is designed to make it difficult to pay more productive people better than average

      From my experience, that's not true at all. I thought I was earning well, until I heard my friends earning about 1.5x to 2x as much doing pretty much the same thing I was doing. At some point, if your friends make more expensive purchases, do more things, etc. while performing a similar job, you will start connecting the dots on your own. Alternatively, companies frequently have entire departments (most notably HR) to research salaries across the globe and use this to their advantage, so companies already have a significant advantage. You can't know if you are structurally paid below average unless you obtain knowledge yourself, and you can't improve your salary without feedback. Knowing what others are doing and how they got it is a form of feedback in the end.

      I wouldn't be too worried about socialism until: * You make everything tiered, so subjective and hard-to-prove arguments no longer work, and productivity per individual is easily measured (near impossible in tech). * Provide an easy place for people to see their salaries compared to others, from sources that are well-acclaimed (most sources today are iffy at best) * Those people have opportunities to punish the company by switching jobs without much trouble or something equally damaging. Unfortunately, many people do not have that luxury or the punishment is much bigger for them than the other way around.

  • AdrianB1 1496 days ago
    In my company publishing the salaries would make even more men leave the company; we already have a "diversity program" hiring and promoting only females, with competence left as a nice to have, but finding that the people that were hired to check some boxes and meet some targets have bigger salaries than the people that work they arses, that would be the straw for the camel.

    It is very hard to have a fair discussion with the employees hired to fill some spots and tell them they are incompetent and not productive, that makes it hard to explain why they have slightly lower ratings and salaries as a result. Knowing that the bimbo next to you is at least not top rated and paid less is helping you focus on the work and support and ignore as much as possible the office politics.