What about people with very large paychecks?
I don't want to make my friends uncomfortable when they realize I make literally an extra zero at the end of what they make.
Should I keep my mouth shut or disclose... for their sake?
My Struggle with the Last Great Taboo: Admitting My Salary
51–60 of 86 posts
Re: My Struggle with the Last Great Taboo: Admitting My Salary
#52One of the reasons I like sites like glassdoor is that it separates the judgment from the data. I don't need to know that Alice makes 22% less than Bob, and Bob makes 18% less than Claire, and therefore make personal judgments about each of my coworkers (like Alice is a pushover; Bob is mediocre; Claire is bossy.) I just need to know what the distribution is, in my company or in my industry, in order to negotiate for…
Wouldn't it be better if A, B, C, and you joined together and hired some professional lawyers and negotiators to work on your behalf (ie organized labor, union)?
From the employer side, if one or the other is a more valuable employee, I need to be able to compensate them more so that I can ensure they stay with our team and don't go to a competitor.
From the employee side, if I go out and learn new skills and abilities, I want to be able to negotiate compensation that reflects the value I bring.
Particularly in creative fields like tech / IT, unionization fails both of those needs, and promotes stagnation over innovation.
So, no.
Re: My Struggle with the Last Great Taboo: Admitting My Salary
#53I find it interesting to read about this "taboo" because, as a scientist at a public university, the issue is...nonexistent! If you are a scientist writing grant applications with other people (the norm), then you need to know their exact salaries in order to fill out the application. This includes the salaries of people above and below you in the food chain. There is no mystery or taboo in it whatsoever. Working at…
Here are the salaries for all University of California employees.
https://ucannualwage.ucop.edu/wage/
Re: My Struggle with the Last Great Taboo: Admitting My Salary
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think what she's referring to is a situation of information asymmetry, which puts the employee in a position of less power in the negotiation. Of course it's up to you to negotiate for yourself. That's pretty obvious. But if the other party holds more power, you're negotiating at a disadvantage. And the way I understood the article, that is what she meant by being "suckered". Being put at a disadvantage when negoti…
What information assymmetry. Surely you can find out from your network what a typical salary for the position is. With sites like glassdoor you also can get a good indication of what you typically can expect. And by being savvy in the interview, you can find out of what value the position might be to the company and you can negotiate on those grounds. Sometimes the employer is in a better position, sometimes the empl…
Unless many, many of the members of your professional network are quite homogenous to your skill set, location and market sector, and unless a large number of those actually give you accurate information, you really can't rely on them to find out what a typical salary is.
And the value of a position at two companies depends more on internal factors than on a job title. Senior Developer at X simply won't be worth the same as Senior Developer at Q.
If you know internal numbers, you can maneuver the upper-hand as an employee. But the best you're generally going to do is a ballpark, and have to leave it up to the company to determine how much they want you vs. the other candidates they have.
Re: My Struggle with the Last Great Taboo: Admitting My Salary
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think what she's referring to is a situation of information asymmetry, which puts the employee in a position of less power in the negotiation. Of course it's up to you to negotiate for yourself. That's pretty obvious. But if the other party holds more power, you're negotiating at a disadvantage. And the way I understood the article, that is what she meant by being "suckered". Being put at a disadvantage when negoti…
What information assymmetry. Surely you can find out from your network what a typical salary for the position is. With sites like glassdoor you also can get a good indication of what you typically can expect. And by being savvy in the interview, you can find out of what value the position might be to the company and you can negotiate on those grounds. Sometimes the employer is in a better position, sometimes the empl…
If you have a network. If people in your network talk to you. If people post to glassdoor about the company.
Don't make the mistake of assuming that this is true for everyone. Also remember that even if you have a network, if it is influenced by your gender (women with women friends) , or race( black people with black friends) you might not have an accurate picture.
Re: My Struggle with the Last Great Taboo: Admitting My Salary
#56If salaries were transparent wouldn't that create an incredible amount of animosity between co-workers? When HR has to negotiate and pay someone more to join the company everyone else is going to be extremely jealous. You think people are going to understand? They are not going to. People are not rational. It's more common sense than fear. Disclosing salaries is going to create way more social problems than it solves…
> When HR has to negotiate and pay someone more to join the company everyone else is going to be extremely jealous. You're assuming that this model, where pay is determined by how well you banter when you sign up, is the only possible one. This model is entirely manufactured by employers to let them fleece employees, and they make rules to forbid discussing your salary precisely to keep employees from realizing how b…
In a transparent salary environment, the management is incentivized to pay everyone based on their socially perceived value, to avoid the "OMG Susie gets paid 40% more than I do for the same job," even if Susie is actually 40% more valuable than you are.
Which means management is incentivized to probably pay mediocre employees a little more, and stand-out employees less than they could have otherwise earned.
Re: My Struggle with the Last Great Taboo: Admitting My Salary
#57I've come to realize lately that I have absolutely no idea what I should be making. I know what I make and I know what I have made in the past, but I have no idea whether it's above or below average. The only way I can think of to determine my value is to go interview in a bunch of places and see what they offer. However, I have no interest in leaving my job right now, and I feel like it's dishonest to go through the…
How I deal with it is - I'm definitely qualified to be in the role I am currently in. I make enough to cover my bills right now but I should be earning more. I'm going to ask for more, I'll move on if my current position can't pay more within 6 months and there's no sign of that changing (e.g. through promotion)
If my bills were covered and a bit extra for savings, fun, rainy day fund, etc? That's how much I should be making. Anything more is a bonus
Don't try comparing your salary to someone elses. Maybe they're a better negotiator than you, maybe they have a skillset you don't know about the boss is going to utilize in a year's time in a project being chalked up now. Maybe they have nudie pictures of the hiring manager? Not your concern, you look after you.
Re: My Struggle with the Last Great Taboo: Admitting My Salary
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can already see how 100% salary transparency works in Finland or Sweden. Anyone can look up a co-worker's salary from data made available by the tax office. (Of course the information is about a year out of date because it's based on tax returns.) Are employees "reduced to numbers" in Sweden and Finland? Certainly not. On the contrary, these societies are considered some of the most open and equal in the world. M…
Actually, I believe employees are reduced to numbers in Sweden and Finland. You don't see star employees or developers making what they make in the US. Everyone is in something of an equilibrium—decent pay, but not much incentive to strive for more.
I don't believe in rock stars.
Re: My Struggle with the Last Great Taboo: Admitting My Salary
#59What about people with very large paychecks? I don't want to make my friends uncomfortable when they realize I make literally an extra zero at the end of what they make. Should I keep my mouth shut or disclose... for their sake?
I think that's the point of the article. It's only fair to talk about it.
Re: My Struggle with the Last Great Taboo: Admitting My Salary
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
> When HR has to negotiate and pay someone more to join the company everyone else is going to be extremely jealous. You're assuming that this model, where pay is determined by how well you banter when you sign up, is the only possible one. This model is entirely manufactured by employers to let them fleece employees, and they make rules to forbid discussing your salary precisely to keep employees from realizing how b…
In a transparent salary environment, the management is incentivized to pay everyone based on their socially perceived value, to avoid the "OMG Susie gets paid 40% more than I do for the same job," even if Susie is actually 40% more valuable than you are. Which means management is incentivized to probably pay mediocre employees a little more, and stand-out employees less than they could have otherwise earned.
Ok, but wouldn't catering to that OMG crowd be a little self-defeating? Why not just hire adults?