Open Salaries: Outcomes • Hacker News Board

Re: Open Salaries: Outcomes

#121

Post by pcsanwald » Thu, Oct 27, 2016, 8:54 PM UTC

scarmig wrote: post #75

Hmm. My experience tells me that a lot of this depends on the details of the team, and that there isn't a right-for-everyone policy. My story: I worked for a company that paid a bit below market salaries, for the SF Bay Area. I was on a team with two more junior engineers. At one point one disclosed to me that they felt underpaid. That led to a salary discussion where I explained that the company habitually underpaid…

As a manager, I've always felt that I have zero incentive to pay anyone under a fair market rate. I also have always managed salaries in such a way so that if we had open salaries, there wouldn't be any surprises and no one would feel they weren't being paid fairly.

Most people I know in similar roles to mine act in a similar way. So I'm not so sure that most companies are really out there trying to underpay their employees. In terms of running the business, I want to pay people fairly for a good day's work.

Re: Open Salaries: Outcomes

#122

Post by morgante » Thu, Oct 27, 2016, 8:55 PM UTC

marme wrote: post #86

scarmig wrote: post #75

Hmm. My experience tells me that a lot of this depends on the details of the team, and that there isn't a right-for-everyone policy. My story: I worked for a company that paid a bit below market salaries, for the SF Bay Area. I was on a team with two more junior engineers. At one point one disclosed to me that they felt underpaid. That led to a salary discussion where I explained that the company habitually underpaid…

no two employees with the exact same job title should have more than 10% difference in pay. If someone is making 40% more than others with same title then they should be promoted to higher title and if they dont deserve that title then why is the company paying them so much. It is one thing to want to minimize salary costs but another to disrespect employees with absurdly low salary.

That only works if you come up with lots of different job titles, which is probably a good idea. It's just pretty hard to implement for many companies: most non-tech companies don't have 10 different levels of software engineers.

I've had plenty of experiences where people in equivalent job titles had vastly different productivity (and, justifiably, vastly different titles).

Re: Open Salaries: Outcomes

#123

Post by rlpb » Thu, Oct 27, 2016, 8:58 PM UTC

scarmig wrote: post #75

Hmm. My experience tells me that a lot of this depends on the details of the team, and that there isn't a right-for-everyone policy. My story: I worked for a company that paid a bit below market salaries, for the SF Bay Area. I was on a team with two more junior engineers. At one point one disclosed to me that they felt underpaid. That led to a salary discussion where I explained that the company habitually underpaid…

> You could say the takeaway is don't work for companies out to screw their workers, but that's most of them.

By definition, if most companies are underpaying their workers, they're actually paying market rate.

Re: Open Salaries: Outcomes

#124

Post by brightball » Thu, Oct 27, 2016, 9:09 PM UTC

I wonder how many of these open salary companies are just doing LLC payments to people for additional compensation so they can still say they disclose all of the "salary" information?

Re: Open Salaries: Outcomes

#125

Post by rustynails » Thu, Oct 27, 2016, 9:10 PM UTC

lumberjack wrote: post #70

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)

>What happens to the guy in open salary co who is legit 50% better than everyone else? The GP is right in that, that person doesn't have much choice but to move on. I don't have experience with open salaries but I do have experience with collective agreements and seniority. They aren't meant to take into consideration the "super stars". That's not what they are meant to do. Seniority and collective agreements do suck…

It depends on how you define winner. Does it really matter how much someone else earns as long as you're happy with your pay?

I have taken a lower paying job because of my preference for that job and workplace. Money is not my principal driver (nor is it most people's).

I also agree that an open pay system could encourage super stars to leave. I once hired a woman who earned almost 50% more than her peers because she was amazing (it's the one time I recall paying a premium for anyone). If her peers knew, it would have been a shit storm, especially her male boss (who earned well less than she did).

We are too obsessed about comparing ourselves to others. I would most probably pick a culture where there wasn't transparency because I don't think someone else's income is anyone else's business and the emphasis on money is unhealthy.

Re: Open Salaries: Outcomes

#126

Post by notahacker » Thu, Oct 27, 2016, 9:11 PM UTC

nickez wrote: post #83

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)

Why should the guy that is the best negotiator get the highest salary? Does that actually have any correlation to performance?

Generally if you're not a good performer you don't have any ability to negotiate irrespective of negotiation skill, and if you are a top performer, you don't need any negotiation acumen to get a raise if people actually think you might not stay.

Re: Open Salaries: Outcomes

#127

Post by obstacle1 » Thu, Oct 27, 2016, 9:11 PM UTC

marme wrote: post #86

scarmig wrote: post #75

Hmm. My experience tells me that a lot of this depends on the details of the team, and that there isn't a right-for-everyone policy. My story: I worked for a company that paid a bit below market salaries, for the SF Bay Area. I was on a team with two more junior engineers. At one point one disclosed to me that they felt underpaid. That led to a salary discussion where I explained that the company habitually underpaid…

no two employees with the exact same job title should have more than 10% difference in pay. If someone is making 40% more than others with same title then they should be promoted to higher title and if they dont deserve that title then why is the company paying them so much. It is one thing to want to minimize salary costs but another to disrespect employees with absurdly low salary.

A job title is not an accurate reflection of an individual employee's value to the company. It would be insane to require that a 10x developer gets paid the same as colleagues just because they shared a job title.

Re: Open Salaries: Outcomes

#128

Post by morgante » Thu, Oct 27, 2016, 9:12 PM UTC

aantix wrote: post #32

If you're any good at your job, you should avoid these open companies like the plague. Don't piss away your leverage..

Seriously. Every time I see an open salary list, their most senior developers make less than I do.

In my view, these are mostly the latest technique to try to sell employees on subpar compensation through "culture." Except they're even more dangerous than ping pong tables.

Re: Open Salaries: Outcomes

#129

Post by morgante » Thu, Oct 27, 2016, 9:14 PM UTC

ryandrake wrote: post #43

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)

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…

Perhaps the people you think are dopes are actually high performers?

I certainly don't want my salary dictated by the personal prejudices of my coworkers, especially when so many of them have no real idea of how much market value they're creating. I'm sure many of them think I'm a "dope" but my results manage to convince employers that my demands are worth paying.

Re: Open Salaries: Outcomes

#130

Post by morgante » Thu, Oct 27, 2016, 9:18 PM UTC

sheepmullet wrote: post #118

brianwawok wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why would having more transparency reduce your leverage? Because of jealousy. There have to be a good 10-20 software companies with this Open Salary thing. From them, find one where for two people with the same # of years of experience, person A makes 2x what person B makes. From what I see, they all more or less settle on a (base pay) + (# of years * multiplier) + (maybe a location bonus) = Salary. I don't see var…

> For a counter example, I can point you to wallstreet or finance in Chicago, and show you 100s of people where people at the same level make as much as a 2x pay difference. If you think people in finance don't know what their peers are getting paid you are fooling yourself. They are overall much more mature and transparent about pay than we are.

I agree with the maturity part, but not the transparency part.

If you told a trader their salary was going to be posted publicly, decided by the rest of the employees (including junior employees), and that they couldn't negotiate it then they'd laugh in your face.

Giving up the ability to negotiate your salary is giving up your whole leverage. It's a ruse played by smart entrepreneurs to sucker engineers into taking lower salaries and feeling good about it.