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Tell HN: Salary data is for sale

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Re: Tell HN: Salary data is for sale

#271

Post by otterley »

heavyset_go wrote: post #151
snambi wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If all employees share their salary information with each other, it becomes a headache for the employer. Each employee may quote the other person's salary demanding a raise. This is the reason behind the "keep your data confidential" idea.

> This is the reason behind the "keep your data confidential" idea. It's also illegal under the NLRA of 1935. Employees talking about working conditions, like compensation, is a legally protected act whether it's on employer time or not.

However, employers can forbid you from using their facilities or property to facilitate these conversations.

Re: Tell HN: Salary data is for sale

#272

Post by mobiledev2014 »

Buttons840 wrote: post #126
mobiledev2014 wrote: post #111

Having hopped jobs every 1-2 years for the last decade, I don't think I've ever been honest when asked my current salary. Never bit me. It would be quite shocking (would it be legal?) if an offer was rescinded based on this data.

There's always answers like "I think $X would be fair, it's a little more than I'm making now", or "it's close to what I was making before", etc.

Sure but my philosophy is all companies are lying to me during "negotiations" so fair is fair. I guess you could say that means it's also fair for them to further cheat and buy my info ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Re: Tell HN: Salary data is for sale

#273

Post by divbzero »

I have a distaste for the credit reporting system because of (a) the flagrant security lapses and (b) I still don’t understand why “identity theft” is somehow my problem when I am neither the fraudster nor the defrauded party.

What’s the strongest argument in favor of credit reporting agencies? If we got rid of them would borrowing money become so difficult or expensive that we’d regret what we wished for?

Re: Tell HN: Salary data is for sale

#274

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

ralph84 wrote: post #192
divbzero wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are employers obligated to provide employment and salary verification?

If they didn't their employees would be pretty pissed when they're unable to get a mortgage.

So go to HR and say "please sign this form that says I make $X" rather than preemptively broadcasting it?

Re: Tell HN: Salary data is for sale

#276

Post by ChuckMcM »

nmfisher wrote: post #244
ChuckMcM wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't disagree with this. My experience though is that a more common reason it is a headache for some managers if their reports are sharing salary information is that they don't know how to have a conversation with someone about their performance. In particular their less than great performance. So employee B comes in and says, "Hey employee A makes 15% more than I do and we have the same job! I even have more expe…

Yeah, this explains a lot of it. Lots of people think it's unfair that Jim or Pam makes more than they do, but noone ever is blunt with them that "you're making less because you're not as good as them". Even worse are where they've never been told "you're lucky you still even have a job because I was close to firing you for poor performance". To be fair, there are also the interesting niche cases where someone is equ…

And, perhaps not surprisingly, I think that last example "Not good at selling themselves" is also bad management. While everyone loves flattery, managers who aren't comfortable being objective with comparing work productivity are bad managers. I cannot count the number of times I wished there was something like codeacademy.com for learning management skills.

One thing that impressed me about IBM, during my brief tenure there after the Blekko acquisition, was that they had a very deep catalog of online self paced training material for developing manager skills. I don't know how many people availed themselves of that resource but since that time I have really wished I could have pointed people who were struggling at some of the courses they had.

Re: Tell HN: Salary data is for sale

#277

Post by heavyset_go »

otterley wrote: post #271
heavyset_go wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is the reason behind the "keep your data confidential" idea. It's also illegal under the NLRA of 1935. Employees talking about working conditions, like compensation, is a legally protected act whether it's on employer time or not.

However, employers can forbid you from using their facilities or property to facilitate these conversations.

Even if you're on company time, using company facilities and company resources, you have the legally protected right to discuss working conditions with other workers. It doesn't matter if you're using the company's Exchange or Matrix server to do so or not.

Re: Tell HN: Salary data is for sale

#278

Post by matteotom »

geoduck14 wrote: post #195
jf wrote: post #30

Learning that this website exists, and then finding detailed and accurate information in my record is what convinced me to start sharing my salary data with my peers. As I see it, this database is a breach of an implicit social contract between me and the companies that I work for. Since my employers apparently have no issues sharing my salary with their peers, I see no reason not to do the same with my peers.

So.... how much do you make?

I'd be in favor of salary sharing in this sub-thread:

$155k base $145k/year RSUs (2021); $175k RSUs (2022 est)

"Senior" SRE in SF 3.5 YEO, 3.5 years at current company

Re: Tell HN: Salary data is for sale

#279

Post by jen_h »

divbzero wrote: post #256
jen_h wrote: post #240

Wowwww. I was really reticent to give them the info to log in, and still not sure it was a good idea (although they have it anyway...), but it's interesting -- they have my current TC exact, RSUs and everything...and that little instruction line about how to garnish wages really gives you the feels... Even better, the mystery of why a mortgage lender randomly asked me about my employment history from over two decades…

> Happy to see that the payroll processor I used for awhile for our personal companies until I started doing it myself didn't share our data, but am now really worried about future control of it. Is there a way to find out which payroll processors or large companies report salary information to Equifax? Elsewhere in this thread people have mentioned that ADP, Intel, Google, and Facebook report, Qualcomm apparently do…

Me, too. But I do think, as others have mentioned, Intuit is definitely sharing data — my mother and I used the same payroll processor and my company payroll isn’t there (I don’t use QuickBooks).

Re: Tell HN: Salary data is for sale

#280

Post by dumpsterdiver »

gostsamo wrote: post #238
dumpsterdiver wrote: post #205

Honest question for people who are concerned about this - why is it troubling? If another company wants to hire you, obviously they'll need to offer stronger compensation than you currently have to convince you to ditch a comfortable position. The fact that employers want employees to stay quiet about their compensation so they don't have to start handing out raises doesn't seem like a good reason to be concerned abo…

Imagine that your new employer knows your past salary. They can offer you 10% above it and this might be sufficient in enough cases. However, if they don't know it, they will be in the fog of war and they will have to guess much more and be ready for a wider salary range. In such scenarios the new offer might not be 10% but something like 30%. Now, imagine the accumulated effect over 2-3 employers over time.

I've had pretty good success being completely honest about my salary requirements. A 10% raise just won't cut for me, because I care about my team. The only way I'm willing to leave is for a % raise, and comparable benefits.

Edit: I'm probably biased, because I've been shown a lot of love the past few years by my current employer, in the form of money.

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