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Show HN: Honest Salary – Help make salaries fair and honest by sharing yours

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Re: Show HN: Honest Salary – Help make salaries fair and honest by sharing yours

#141

Post by jeremyt »

BinaryIdiot wrote: post #131
nhumrich wrote: post #69

Am I the only one that feels shaky sharing my salary? I work at a start up and if I share my position and company it won't really be anonymous, as I am the only person at the company with that position. I do agree its nice for people to post their salaries so i know if I'm underpaid. But what if I'm overpaid, or at least played more than most at my company? What will that do to people I work with who find or how much…

Ultimately salary transparency is actually a net positive. You can easily know if you're over or under paid and all groups (gender, ethnicity, etc) can see how their pay compares to the other groups. Yes there is a pain point that you mention when transitioning to such transparency. If the company hasn't been typically fair with salaries or not properly explaining why person X isn't getting Y then it's not going to b…

I disagree.

The problem here is that every company has above average performers, average performers, and below average performers. However, almost everyone thinks they are an above average performer.

Therefore, if salaries are shared, at least two thirds of your workers are liable to be pissed off at what they are making, even though the amount is completely fair based on their actual worth to the company.

Re: Show HN: Honest Salary – Help make salaries fair and honest by sharing yours

#142

Post by throwaway933 »

transman wrote: post #17

As a transgender person, I won't fill it out unless I have the option to opt out of gender identification or select "other" for gender. I'm not alone. http://www.apa.org/topics/lgbt/transgender.aspx http://associationdatabase.com/aws/NCDA/pt/sd/news_article/1... http://www.autostraddle.com/facebook-wants-you-to-do-you-add...

When you fill out gender as party of identifying yourself publicly (e.g. Facebook profile), of course it totally makes sense to have "long-tail" options so that people can fully express themselves, simply because the purpose is to be a public act of self-expression and self-identification. (So kudos to Facebook for including so many options.)

However, for surveys, especially smaller ones like this (i.e. not the US Census), I wonder if adding a third gender option adds to, or diminishes from, the final result. Clearly, the objective here is to compare male and female salaries. Reporting "other" salaries would almost certainly be statistically insignificant (and therefore simply "throwing away" the data), given traffic to the site (not in the millions) and the slim proportion of the population that self-identifies as "other".

Whenever there are two populations, there will usually be elements which don't fit perfectly into either -- male/female, straight/gay, introvert/extrovert. Even with quantitative measurements, your height, weight, and income can all vary from hour to hour, day to day, or month to month, and easily fall on one side of a threshold or another at different times.

But when you fill out any kind of survey, you just have to pick one or the other. Many surveys ask for income categories, and a freelancer just has to decide if they think they're over $60K or under, even though the answer isn't clear at all. In a health survey, whether your BMI reports you as normal weight or overweight might depend on how much water you drank today. But you've just got to pick one.

So when filling out gender on a survey, a survey that is primarily about other things (not about smaller shades of gender distinction), is it really that offensive to simply choose between whether you're closer to self-identifying to male or to female in your current workplace? And if you really feel like a 50/50 split, to pick one at random?

Or, for the purposes of estimating pay disparity, do you really feel that there is no use at all in choosing male or female? That when you were hired, you were not viewed by your hiring manager as more towards male or female, but clearly and primarily as transgender, and so your salary information is useless in estimating any male/female wage difference?

Re: Show HN: Honest Salary – Help make salaries fair and honest by sharing yours

#143

Post by fapjacks »

BinaryIdiot wrote: post #129
GigabyteCoin wrote: post #121

How do they ensure that their submitters are being honest?

Just like with Glassdoor you're not going to be able to verify. Ideally most people will be truthful and the fakes will be minimal but all it takes is a single 4chan "raid" on a new site to populate it with tons of bullshit making it useless. Now the site could at least verify email addresses before showing them to ensure it's not a bot and make people less likely to make up random crap. But that's still not verifyin…

Actually did you see the link on HN the other day? From somewhere like the Atlantic or something, which had the story about the attack on the UCSD team's effort to crowdsource-solve a DARPA challenge? Like the whole time they thought it was a sprawling 4chan raid, but it turned out to just be this one dude and his other friend that happened to be around that day. Proof positive that it only takes one determined attacker to undermine an enormous crowdsourced effort.

Re: Show HN: Honest Salary – Help make salaries fair and honest by sharing yours

#144

Post by toolz »

jeremyt wrote: post #141
BinaryIdiot wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ultimately salary transparency is actually a net positive. You can easily know if you're over or under paid and all groups (gender, ethnicity, etc) can see how their pay compares to the other groups. Yes there is a pain point that you mention when transitioning to such transparency. If the company hasn't been typically fair with salaries or not properly explaining why person X isn't getting Y then it's not going to b…

I disagree. The problem here is that every company has above average performers, average performers, and below average performers. However, almost everyone thinks they are an above average performer. Therefore, if salaries are shared, at least two thirds of your workers are liable to be pissed off at what they are making, even though the amount is completely fair based on their actual worth to the company.

Transparency solves that problem. If below average workers moved from business to business getting paid less than their peers, how long do you think they would consider themselves better than average?

Re: Show HN: Honest Salary – Help make salaries fair and honest by sharing yours

#145

Post by jeremyt »

toolz wrote: post #144
jeremyt wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. The problem here is that every company has above average performers, average performers, and below average performers. However, almost everyone thinks they are an above average performer. Therefore, if salaries are shared, at least two thirds of your workers are liable to be pissed off at what they are making, even though the amount is completely fair based on their actual worth to the company.

Transparency solves that problem. If below average workers moved from business to business getting paid less than their peers, how long do you think they would consider themselves better than average?

Possibly forever, and I think it's very likely they develop a chip on their shoulder because the world is not properly valuing their skills.

Never underestimate the ability of people to come up with all kinds of reasons why they are being treated unfairly.

Re: Show HN: Honest Salary – Help make salaries fair and honest by sharing yours

#146

Post by guroot »

toolz wrote: post #144
jeremyt wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. The problem here is that every company has above average performers, average performers, and below average performers. However, almost everyone thinks they are an above average performer. Therefore, if salaries are shared, at least two thirds of your workers are liable to be pissed off at what they are making, even though the amount is completely fair based on their actual worth to the company.

Transparency solves that problem. If below average workers moved from business to business getting paid less than their peers, how long do you think they would consider themselves better than average?

That's a nice thought. But I think too much of our culture has been focused on assigning blame for these sort of things to the the "system".

I'm sure some would come to the conclusion you suggest, but I fear many would fall into a victim role and point fingers.

Re: Show HN: Honest Salary – Help make salaries fair and honest by sharing yours

#147

Post by llamataboot »

vitd wrote: post #92
marssaxman wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, sure, but really, so what? I understand that we historically have a culture in which salary figures are secret, but that all seems to come from a bunch of social-hierarchy stuff about keeping up appearances and saving face. If someone doesn't care about that then what harm could even potentially come about as a result of sharing useful information with peers?

It could be a problem at companies where salaries are under an NDA. If the companies find out you broke the NDA you could get fired. I'm pretty sure my company has such a clause.

That's illegal in many countries, including the United States, not sure about yours

Re: Show HN: Honest Salary – Help make salaries fair and honest by sharing yours

#148

Post by toolz »

jeremyt wrote: post #145
toolz wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Transparency solves that problem. If below average workers moved from business to business getting paid less than their peers, how long do you think they would consider themselves better than average?

Possibly forever, and I think it's very likely they develop a chip on their shoulder because the world is not properly valuing their skills. Never underestimate the ability of people to come up with all kinds of reasons why they are being treated unfairly.

I think that's a negative bias. The majority of people behave rationally and while they may speak negatively in public, internally they will understand the pattern.

We have a tendency to put too much value in what people say rather than how they act. I'm confident actions would reflect people understanding their value in a transparent world, even if their words did not.

Re: Show HN: Honest Salary – Help make salaries fair and honest by sharing yours

#149

Post by 300bps »

marssaxman wrote: post #94
vitd wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It could be a problem at companies where salaries are under an NDA. If the companies find out you broke the NDA you could get fired. I'm pretty sure my company has such a clause.

I think I would enjoy the experience of daring assholes like that to fire me.

If they're smart they'll just find a legal reason to fire you. Ever surf the web for personal reasons at work? Every use your personal mobile on work time? There are so many rules that people violate every day without repercussion until the company needs a reason to get rid of them.

Re: Show HN: Honest Salary – Help make salaries fair and honest by sharing yours

#150

Post by sosuke »

If I were making a good deal more than my peer what do I gain by being fair and honest. What makes it fair? Why shouldn't I make more or less by the skill of negotiation?

I've not yet read a reason for the top paid people to talk about their salary. It seems they would have more to risk than gain and it would hurt them in the next negotiation.

Not having spoken about my salary I've got no idea if I make more or less. It only matters if I am happy or not.

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