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Introducing Open Salaries at Buffer

open.bufferapp.com

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Re: Introducing Open Salaries at Buffer

#301

Post by ckeck »

suprgeek wrote: post #55

Excellent concept - but one major Caveat. Why in the world would you publish it for all the world to see? Keep it internal to the company - you have an expectation of privacy from your employer and this post just ruined it completely. I hope they got written signed releases from every one of those folks whose private info they broadcast to the world.

Federal Government employees have their pay publicly visible, at least many of them. Some Universities do the same. I'm not sure why this is so mind-blowing for some.

Also, keep in mind that they clearly set the opposite expectation about privacy with their employees and (from what they say), cleared it with everyone first.

Re: Introducing Open Salaries at Buffer

#302

Post by abalone »

tikhonj wrote: post #134

I've always felt the culture of hiding salaries was doing a significant disservice to employees. It creates a significant and largely artificial information disparity, giving a major market advantage to the employer. In turn, this makes the entire labor market less efficient for the employee. This also makes the employer less accountable to the employees. The employer can easily pay somebody significantly more or les…

A slight problem with that thesis is that employees are generally not forbidden from discussing their salary.

Rather they choose not to. Some consider it personal info. Maybe they shouldn't, but they do.

From that perspective, this could feel like the company forcing a decision on their employees that they would rather make for themselves. I would be a little concerned about injecting a culture with that.. it's a bit paternalistic.

Re: Introducing Open Salaries at Buffer

#303

Post by simoncion »

krisgee wrote: post #265
simoncion wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems that market rate for a junior (0->2 years experience) web developer is ~$110k + benefits. You are not hilariously overcompensated. Ignore the various salary estimate sites. There's no way that they have an accurate view of the world.

Are you serious? I'd feel like a fucking idiot walking out of university with a brand new degree and demanding 100k off the bat. I guess the market is different outside SV though right?

I am absolutely serious. I know people who are pulling this salary with that experience.

I strongly suspect that salaries in the area have been depressed for a while and are now thinking about catching up to the rising cost of living.

Re: Introducing Open Salaries at Buffer

#304

Post by wamatt »

tikhonj wrote: post #134

I've always felt the culture of hiding salaries was doing a significant disservice to employees. It creates a significant and largely artificial information disparity, giving a major market advantage to the employer. In turn, this makes the entire labor market less efficient for the employee. This also makes the employer less accountable to the employees. The employer can easily pay somebody significantly more or les…

>EDIT: As an interesting additional note, all salaries (beyond a token minimum) at Berkeley (and the whole UC system) are publicly available at http://ucpay.globl.org/.

Fascinating, I had no idea this was public. Looking briefly at the results, it reveals a curious data point:

UC's highest paid employee is not, as one might expect, the chancellor or dean, but in fact the sports coach ($2,884,880 gross)

Re: Introducing Open Salaries at Buffer

#305

Post by GFK_of_xmaspast »

wamatt wrote: post #304
tikhonj wrote: post #134

I've always felt the culture of hiding salaries was doing a significant disservice to employees. It creates a significant and largely artificial information disparity, giving a major market advantage to the employer. In turn, this makes the entire labor market less efficient for the employee. This also makes the employer less accountable to the employees. The employer can easily pay somebody significantly more or les…

>EDIT: As an interesting additional note, all salaries (beyond a token minimum) at Berkeley (and the whole UC system) are publicly available at http://ucpay.globl.org/ . Fascinating, I had no idea this was public. Looking briefly at the results, it reveals a curious data point: UC's highest paid employee is not, as one might expect, the chancellor or dean, but in fact the sports coach ($2,884,880 gross)

The highest paid public employee in something like 49/50 states is a sports coach.

Re: Introducing Open Salaries at Buffer

#306

Post by joshuaellinger »

I always thought the best system would be to tell people what their boss makes, including options and other non-salary compensation.

This eliminates the problem of people comparing themselves to their nominal peers on incomplete information. It really tells you everything you need to know about compensation.

But the most valuable part of the buffer system is the formula. You have a framework for calculating what is fair.

One of the dangers at small busy startups with well-intentioned leaders is that you basically forget to give people raises and your employees don't get you to correct it until they are pissed enough to quit. That's part of why I left my original company and it cost me a good employee recently.

Re: Introducing Open Salaries at Buffer

#307

Post by swombat »

xentronium wrote: post #210
swombat wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My company, GrantTree, is also run with open salaries (internally, though I posted the salary scale in an HN comment before). There was some disgruntlement when everyone was underpaid, but there's been remarkably little disgruntlement from individuals asking for more money for just themselves. This had been so for over a year now, so not conclusive, but starting to accumulate some data.

So, for example, in case of competitor offering your valuable worker +10-15% to their salary, will you have any means to match that offer?

No, and if all they care about is the salary, they should probably go and take the larger offer.

Re: Introducing Open Salaries at Buffer

#308

Post by Dartanion7 »

mrjatx wrote: post #154
tikhonj wrote: post #134

I've always felt the culture of hiding salaries was doing a significant disservice to employees. It creates a significant and largely artificial information disparity, giving a major market advantage to the employer. In turn, this makes the entire labor market less efficient for the employee. This also makes the employer less accountable to the employees. The employer can easily pay somebody significantly more or les…

I disagree completely. You should, as the potential employee, be well aware of the market pay and what you are willing to be paid to perform the job that you're applying for. Not to mention their job postings actually list a salary window ($88-110k for Backend/Frontend). What the person sitting next to you is paid should bear absolutely no impact on your life or your work ethic. If you're happy to make $88k and the g…

Exactly. I know precisely what I'm worth because I poll the market frequently. I don't need my employer to push mandatory transparency to know what I'm worth; in fact, I feel the informational asymmetry actually benefits me, because my employer doesn't know how much it'd cost to replace me (unless they're interviewing potential replacements as often as I'm speaking with recruiters / getting inbound interest from other companies, which they're probably not, because it's expensive and time consuming) yet I know exactly how much I can fetch elsewhere. So when I negotiate for a salary increase, the employer assumes all the risk in the transaction.

Re: Introducing Open Salaries at Buffer

#309

Post by sifarat »

I am the CEO, and my salary is lesser than all the key staff in my company. Reason, self-funded. And everyone in the office knows it. I am just astonished how a CEO of company like Buffer, can afford such an expensive package for himself. Are you making enough or just billing it to your investors?
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