Open Salaries: Outcomes • Hacker News Board

Re: Open Salaries: Outcomes

#51

Post by gwbas1c » Thu, Oct 27, 2016, 5:20 PM UTC

crdoconnor wrote: post #20

lucaspiller wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you mean everyone in the same role, or everyone in the company? I guess you could argue that everyone contributes equally in their own way, but it sounds like it would be hard to deal with market rates. For example, if the market rate for a support agent is $30k and the market rate for a developer is $70k what do you do?

Pay market rate and be honest about it? I don't understand the problem here. Support agents are unlikely to demand a developer's salary.

There is no objective definition of what "market rate" is once you get into skilled labor.

This is, in part, because every job will value someone slightly differently depending on the unique situation.

Re: Open Salaries: Outcomes

#52

Post by st3v3r » Thu, Oct 27, 2016, 5:23 PM UTC

brianwawok wrote: post #47

ryandrake wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't down vote, but the comment would be better if it were expanded with some details about why he thinks people who are good at their jobs should avoid open salary workplaces. I would think nearly all employees benefit from open salaries. For most companies, the salary information asymmetry is an effective way to keep the salaries of high performers DOWN. If you don't know that the mediocre guy who sits next to…

In theory if you are a top performer, you can go walk down the street for a raise. and keep going it until you can't get more raises. Not that all top performers do this. Being good at a job has little relation to being good at getting paid a lot. But you can be both a top performer AND top paid, if you play the right cards.

If you're a top performer, you can also see that the company is not paying you at the top of people they're paying.

Re: Open Salaries: Outcomes

#53

Post by st3v3r » Thu, Oct 27, 2016, 5:24 PM UTC

eyelidlessness wrote: post #45

brianwawok wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This got downvoted, and the tone is a bit harsh.. but it does speak a bit of truth. What happens to the guy in open salary co who is legit 50% better than everyone else? Do his peers vote to give him 50% more money? Or does it settle on sort of a union style pay scale, where everyone with the same # of years of work makes the same money (which is great for the worst performances, and terrible for the best performers)

While union workers often have less salary disparity, their salaries also tend to be higher overall. The only downside to this is if the "best performers" derive value from their "worse performer" peers being paid less than them.

Sadly, this appears to be half of it. People are more interested in looking in other people's bowl to make sure they're being paid more, rather than seeing that others are making enough.

Re: Open Salaries: Outcomes

#54

Post by brianwawok » Thu, Oct 27, 2016, 5:24 PM UTC

st3v3r wrote: post #52

brianwawok wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In theory if you are a top performer, you can go walk down the street for a raise. and keep going it until you can't get more raises. Not that all top performers do this. Being good at a job has little relation to being good at getting paid a lot. But you can be both a top performer AND top paid, if you play the right cards.

If you're a top performer, you can also see that the company is not paying you at the top of people they're paying.

But I am not sure you need transparency for this? Can usually get close to ranges if you ask a few coworker friends and/or interview around.

Re: Open Salaries: Outcomes

#55

Post by dominotw » Thu, Oct 27, 2016, 5:25 PM UTC

szynszyliszys wrote: post #35

jjordan wrote: post #29

I'd like to get the perspective and opinion of an employee in the open salary system, rather than just a recount from the top.

Hi, I can give it to you since I work for Lunar Logic. How it looked: everyone felt a bit anxious and not 100% sure if it will be the good decision, but we decided to go for open salaries anyway (it was a collective decision after a series of long discussions of a whole company, not a decision at the top). When the salaries list was released, everyone took a look and there was no disaster. Most of the salaries felt j…

>but we decided to go for open salaries anyway

What happened to the people who didn't want to reveal their compensation. Was is it revealed anyways?

Re: Open Salaries: Outcomes

#56

Post by 0xmohit » Thu, Oct 27, 2016, 5:25 PM UTC

szynszyliszys wrote: post #35

jjordan wrote: post #29

I'd like to get the perspective and opinion of an employee in the open salary system, rather than just a recount from the top.

Hi, I can give it to you since I work for Lunar Logic. How it looked: everyone felt a bit anxious and not 100% sure if it will be the good decision, but we decided to go for open salaries anyway (it was a collective decision after a series of long discussions of a whole company, not a decision at the top). When the salaries list was released, everyone took a look and there was no disaster. Most of the salaries felt j…

By being transparent, you force yourself to be less irrational.

Irrationality is the square root of all evil.

Re: Open Salaries: Outcomes

#57

Post by varjag » Thu, Oct 27, 2016, 5:25 PM UTC

crdoconnor wrote: post #24

coldcode wrote: post #3

This might work for a company of 25, but what a disaster it would be for a company of 100,000+

Sweden, Finland and Norway do it: http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/world/2008-06-18-salarie... That's clearly one of the more disaster prone areas of the world.

I'm in Norway, and this is very misleading. Tax data is no longer available anonymously, but even when it was:

- you only seen tax return figures, and depending on your family situation, property ownership, tax class, benefits the spread in paid taxes can be easily 2x on same amount. Hardly usable for finding out if someone makes 20% over you.

- the data was available with 3 year delay.

Re: Open Salaries: Outcomes

#58

Post by noddingham » Thu, Oct 27, 2016, 5:26 PM UTC

dominotw wrote: post #55

szynszyliszys wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi, I can give it to you since I work for Lunar Logic. How it looked: everyone felt a bit anxious and not 100% sure if it will be the good decision, but we decided to go for open salaries anyway (it was a collective decision after a series of long discussions of a whole company, not a decision at the top). When the salaries list was released, everyone took a look and there was no disaster. Most of the salaries felt j…

>but we decided to go for open salaries anyway What happened to the people who didn't want to reveal their compensation. Was is it revealed anyways?

There are three companion articles to this one which answer questions like this. The answer to your question from the "how" article: "Not joining would mean that others won’t know about that person’s salary and that person wouldn’t have access to the salary list."

Re: Open Salaries: Outcomes

#59

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Oct 27, 2016, 5:27 PM UTC

eyelidlessness wrote: post #48

ransom1538 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First, I apologize for the reddit style. I deserve the down votes, which I will happily pay. Using a position of power to force employees to divulge personal information really pisses me off.

Does it change your mind knowing that it was not imposed from a position of power? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12806739

[deleted]

Re: Open Salaries: Outcomes

#60

Post by noddingham » Thu, Oct 27, 2016, 5:28 PM UTC

ransom1538 wrote: post #42

maxaf wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need to be an asshole.

First, I apologize for the reddit style. I deserve the down votes, which I will happily pay. Using a position of power to force employees to divulge personal information really pisses me off.

There are three companion posts to this one that you might want to read because they'll fill in some assumptions you're making. Primarily, for existing employees the program was opt-in, such that "[n]ot joining would mean that others won’t know about that person’s salary and that person wouldn’t have access to the salary list."