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Survey of workers’ views on salary transparency

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Re: Survey of workers’ views on salary transparency

#241

Post by valdiorn »

subsuxbjes wrote: post #219
valdiorn wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

well, it's true. The first people to go in every layoff operation, at every company I've worked for, were always the "rockstar programmers". The guys that came in with reputation, because they are known in the tech world. The conference speakers, bloggers, open source heroes, etc. They come in, command a huge salary, and give a big PR/awareness boost to the company. But then turns out they're about as productive as e…

Can you provide citation because quite frankly I don't believe your assertion

Can I identify my employers, call out specific people with a large online following by name, and declare that they were let go for budgetary reasons?

No. I can't. For really obvious reasons :)

But I've seen this happen quite a few times. And given some private conversations with my managers (i.e. the people who decide who to fire and who to retain), when discussing layoffs at the time they were happening, it was pretty clear why certain people were let go.

This is just my anecdata. Even if I could prove my experience 100%, I still can't prove this as a universal rule, obviously. So it's just an observation of a few datapoints.

Re: Survey of workers’ views on salary transparency

#242

Post by valdiorn »

endisneigh wrote: post #173
valdiorn wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Companies generally don’t pay tenured people as much as new hires across the board. It’s not about negotiating. But that IS negotiating. If you show you're willing to stick around in the same role for an extended period of time, for the same pay, you have implicitly negotiated that deal for yourself. Why TF would your employer be incentivised to pay you more if you show yourself to be happy with the status quo? Hav…

Why are you comparing drinking coffee to switching jobs? It’s not the same at all.

Except it is, to your employer. Unless you are close friends or family with the people who run the business, you are just a brand of coffee beans to them. (and if you are friends or family, these decisions will still need to happen, but they'll hurt ten times worse when they do, which is why you never do business with family).

Accept it, and you will have much better success when negotiating your salary and planning your career path.

Re: Survey of workers’ views on salary transparency

#243

Post by valdiorn »

kcplate wrote: post #234
valdiorn wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Everybody just wants wants wants and act like children when they don't get. Wow, what an immature attitude YOU have. Of course everyone "wants wants wants". You're displaying that attitude right now. You're feeling hurt about not getting more, because you want more. That's normal. That's OK. If someone offered to bump my salary to a million pounds for no reason, of course I'd take it. You should probably try asking…

I am pretty sure you missed the entire point of their comment. The commenter was not speaking about their own current comp, but the current comp vs quality vs entitlement within their direct reports. It’s hard to look at low quality employees making large salaries as a leader and not be dismayed, disappointed, and discouraged when the entitlement and whining happens. A lot of employees act like children and that is n…

If your staff is acting like spoiled bratty children, you talk to them. If they don't adjust, you fire them.

If you can't fire them because they're hard to replace, guess what; they have more value than you attributed to them, and were probably RIGHT to complain and insist on better pay.

Just like your employer tries to extract maximum value for minimum pay out of you, so should you extract maximum pay for minimum investment out of your employer. That's only fair.

Re: Survey of workers’ views on salary transparency

#244

Post by mehphp »

mancerayder wrote: post #175
roody15 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you ever ask for a raise or more money? If so did they ever say no? In my experience many who complain about salary often failed to ever try and negotiate on behalf of themselves.

It's almost impossible to negotiate anything unless you have leverage, and leverage only exists when there is a decision-point: "I'll pick this other job unless.." or in the beginning "I won't join your company unless..." Randomly asking for a raise doesn't work.

> Randomly asking for a raise doesn't work.

Randomly, no... but asking for a raise while showing reasons why you think you deserve it definitely can. I know because I literally just did that.

Keep a running document of accomplishments, especially anything that is "above and beyond", whatever that might mean in your context. It's much easier to present that then trying to remember everything you did months/years later.

Also, in my experience, it's fairly easy to tell which companies will be willing to give you raises based on how your initial salary negotiations went. When I've worked for stingy employers who wouldn't budge on salary, I rarely got anything over a basic 2-3% annual bump. When there was a lot of flexibility in the salary range (or when they've offered more than I asked) it has been quite easy to get additional bumps. I also have the same work ethic and drive at each of these companies, so I don't _think_ it was a difference in performance. I've always received glowing reviews regardless of the company.

Re: Survey of workers’ views on salary transparency

#245

Post by kjellsbells »

O__________O wrote: post #117
jermaustin1 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've only known a single officer, but she said it was a lot less prevalent amongst officers than enlisted, still happens (she was in fact having an extramarital affair at the time - I found out later), but it is probably closer to the real world average. Maybe there is less need to marry before you are ready as an officer.

My experience is that it goes all the way to the top ranks, including generals.

David Petraeus has entered the chat.

Re: Survey of workers’ views on salary transparency

#246

Post by TechnicolorByte »

ryandrake wrote: post #232
moralestapia wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Negotiation works when some company specifically wants you . If you're one of the other 99% of hires you're going to be placed at some salary which has been already budgeted and approved for your position. There's some leeway there but it's not more than a single digit percentage, although I agree with patio11 and others saying that an extra 5-10K/year just for asking politely is not a bad deal.

So, basically what you're saying is that the "Negotiate harder, bro" advice only really works for 1% of the world. So why is it always trotted out as the solution? I know HN is full of these Captains of Industry who merely glance at their bosses with an upturned eyebrow, and get $100K of RSUs thrown at them, but for the rest of the workforce, here's what negotiation looks like: [Me] Hi, I'd like a raise. [Co] Nope. […

HN, like people who browse Blind, has a massive selection bias towards the money-optimizing, Leetcode-grinding types.

Re: Survey of workers’ views on salary transparency

#247

Post by valdiorn »

lowercased wrote: post #225
valdiorn wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Everybody just wants wants wants and act like children when they don't get. Wow, what an immature attitude YOU have. Of course everyone "wants wants wants". You're displaying that attitude right now. You're feeling hurt about not getting more, because you want more. That's normal. That's OK. If someone offered to bump my salary to a million pounds for no reason, of course I'd take it. You should probably try asking…

> If your contribution to the company is deemed to be worth the money, you'll get it. I've rarely seen individual contributions able to be evaluated 'fairly' at any scale. Your skills may be top notch, but you were focused on a project that was killed after 10 months because.... budget cuts? Bad management? Your contribution to the company in that case can be seen as a net negative, but it's largely out of your contr…

> I've rarely seen individual contributions able to be evaluated 'fairly' at any scale. Your skills may be top notch, but you were focused on a project that was killed after 10 months because.... budget cuts? Bad management? Your contribution to the company in that case can be seen as a net negative, but it's largely out of your control.

this is absolutely true. But everyone needs to decide for themselves if they want to work for a Google-esque company that does shit like that, or something smaller where you can have a material impact and your absence will be noticed and missed instantly.

When you join a company, you are making an informed bet. You're betting that you can find successful projects to work on within the company, that the budget won't be slashed, that your manager isn't a sociopath who only promotes his drinking buddies, that half the company won't get fired within 6 months, that it won't go bankrupt.

You won't always get it right, sometimes you just get dealt a bad hand, in which case; try again, don't sit tight for another 5 years hoping things will change; do something about it. Move projects and try again. Or find another job.

Re: Survey of workers’ views on salary transparency

#248

Post by kcplate »

valdiorn wrote: post #243
kcplate wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am pretty sure you missed the entire point of their comment. The commenter was not speaking about their own current comp, but the current comp vs quality vs entitlement within their direct reports. It’s hard to look at low quality employees making large salaries as a leader and not be dismayed, disappointed, and discouraged when the entitlement and whining happens. A lot of employees act like children and that is n…

If your staff is acting like spoiled bratty children, you talk to them. If they don't adjust, you fire them. If you can't fire them because they're hard to replace, guess what; they have more value than you attributed to them, and were probably RIGHT to complain and insist on better pay. Just like your employer tries to extract maximum value for minimum pay out of you, so should you extract maximum pay for minimum in…

The problem isn’t firing them, firing people is actually pretty easy—-it’s having to manage them up to that point where you determine that termination is the appropriate solution.

Whether or not they have value or hard to replace doesn’t excuse them from having the responsibility of civil behavior. Where is being valuable an appropriate excuse for being an asshole acceptable anywhere in society?

Re: Survey of workers’ views on salary transparency

#249

Post by wslh »

luckylion wrote: post #237
wslh wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How would you? Are you running an intelligence agency and it's part of your job as a boss to constantly monitor your employees? No, I live in a culture where this matters arise. There are many discussions in this thread based on culture experience. I see for example privacy discussions, in some cultures/countries privacy is a must but at the same time contradictory with the private information that is flowing unreg…

So you wouldn't "know", you just assume that they'd be open about it and told you. But if they weren't (for a multitude of reasons), you'd make assumptions about their needs. It seems like it's not the needs that matter, it's your assumptions about them.

I connect with people, you don't know me so you are making assumptions about myself and my culture.

Re: Survey of workers’ views on salary transparency

#250

Post by kaashif »

Eddy_Viscosity2 wrote: post #227
kaashif wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Paying people based on need rather than performance incentivises people to "need" more and stop focusing on performance. Paying on performance and taxing high earners seems like a better system than paying directly based on need.

You need to pay people to meet their basic needs. I know that some don't think this way but it happens one way or another. If people can't get their basic needs met, they will eventually break.

I agree completely. If people cannot provide for themselves, the state should provide for them. I don't think it makes any sense for employers to be tasked with that, since all that does is provide a huge incentive for employers to discriminate against those who need more (and thus would cost more).

To incentivise performance, employers should pay based on performance. If an employee cannot perform well enough to provide for themselves or their family, the state should help.

None of this requires that employers directly decide pay based on whether you have a family. Requiring that results in the employer discriminating against parents and employees having a reduced incentive to produce.

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