to think that 'Don't discuss your salary' just ends up causing more resentment?

[workingdilemma]

Inspired by my other question thread about part-time work and feeling I'm not getting treated the same.

Lot's of us are told in our jobs that we shouldn't discuss our salaries with co-workers, with the justification that it will just cause resentment. Many people I know who aren't in managerial positions agree. As far as I can tell though, the only person this really ends up benefiting is our employer.

I couldn't care less if someone at my place is genuinely deserving of more money than I am - good luck to them and they deserve it. But, when you have justifiable suspicion that you're being treated differently for doing a better job - indeed, helping less senior people who are probablyon more than you, it's really disheartening. The only evidence is on the external market, but it would be so much easier (and help staff retention) if we were more honest.

AIBU to think that openness (like in Norway, where you can find out about anyone's) would actually be a lot more refreshing and cause a lot less problems?

NoName I would not argue with the principle that better qualified people with more experience get paid more. Your original example didn't allude to that scenario, instead suggesting that two engineers could be paid vastly differently based on their personal negotiation skills (i.e. cheekiness at interview).

I think that cheekiness at interview can affect it. But I'm in sales and I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing, obviously this may not be a desirable trait for other professions.

You could look at it as the person getting more is being rewarded not the person getting less being penalised (after all their not getting less than the job was advertised at)

Within the nhs agenda for change , most people know at least roughly what colleagues earn as the pay spines are published. For the most part if you know someone's length of service you know their pay.

Maid - absolutely. It's the 'personal negotiation' skills, rather than ability thing which ends up being the differentiator.

I work in an industry where people are notoriously passive about being assertive, and appear to have an innate trust that they aren't being screwed over by management, and that, when they finally do say 'please sir can I have some more, I've achieved x, y, z and more', the only answer is 'we don't have the budget this year'.

When the next day three people turn up in brand new sports cars, that probably wasn't true. It was a lie. Especially when I constantly help one of those people do their job when they aren't able to do it.

Yes, I'm a doormat. Hence I would prefer transparency to prove I'm not paranoid!

If you think you are paid less than colleagues, there should be a process to investigate equal pay, but you have to be compared with your comparators, who are people with similar skills and experience in the same role; in my case, my technical skill set isn't quite the same as anyone else's (arguably, I should be on more because of that, if you look at market rates), so they could argue there are no equal comparators.

At may place, we have some clear lists of technical and leadership competencies, and what you should be able to achieve at what grade and role. If it were used as designed, it would be a really good tool. It appears to be irrelevant, though (I went through it all in detail, making a case for promotion.) However, if you do have such things available in your workplace, it's a good starting place, and I think it makes comparisons fairer, because it breaks things down in a way that if a whole team is compared, it should mark out differentials in performance more clearly, and you'd be able to show where people's strengths are and so on. And if your place doesn't have something like that, then maybe it's worth asking HR if it's something they could develop (ours has come in over a few years, with different divisions developing their own technical skills, and then there are some overall general leadership skills.) Most of our jobs are technical, and you can break it down to work for engineers and the range of skills and experience within that.

At a former company, they went round every department doing pay audits - I got a 26% pay rise. A couple of years earlier, when I'd suggested my pay might be lower than I deserved, I'd just got the response that discussing pay was a sackable offence (this was about 10 years before the Equality Act.) That was then I realised we'd never get equal pay while there was still so much secrecy round it.

Negotiating in your interview is all about whether you can persuade the interviewer that you deserve more than the basic and if you can then it's kind of fair enough, as long as the reason the interviewer gives you more money is because you've convinced them you are worth more then they haven't done anything wrong. If they give you more just because they like your personality, think you are funny, pretty etc then that is obviously very wrong but I don't think that its just happening to one gender.

That would be great - but pay scales are completely opaque too alongside the secrecy 'requirement' at my place. I have absolutely no idea what the ranges are, and my employer would never tell me.

I would be more than happy to be compared against anyone else on skills or what I bring to the company. More than happy, because I think if you asked any of my colleagues what they think I'm worth, it would be a damn sight more than I'm on :-) I don't think they have the foggiest that I'm paid less than them to the magnitude I think I am. But none of them would ever tell me their's, so I'm stuffed.

working it seems your options are to try to negotiate more (threaten to look around) or actually leave or stay where you are knowing you aren't being paid what you deserve

NoNameDame - no, I don't think it's a female only thing either. If my previous post alluded to that, I'm sorry (though I think that could and does happen).

Many men in my industry are quite passive too. I could easily say that there's a bloke in my office who runs rings around his senior colleagues, but is way too meek to have asked for anything more. I honestly think people would be an embarrassment in a lot of cases to other people to see what some of their more able, but socially milder colleagues make in comparison to them. Hence, openness would lead to a much fairer environment.

Yeah, my own situation is one thing NoNameDame - I'm going to deal with that now for sure :-) This is a more general question around why a lot of people are willing to tow the line on this rule, when it is explicitly to their detriment.

I think what would happen then is people get dragged down/ held back on pay rather than other people getting increases.

Sadly, I think openness would be good but I can appreciate why some people think it's not anyone else's business.

Imo there should be total pay transparency.

It's the only way to tackle the gender pay gap for a start.

Yes.

I live in Norway. I work as a vet. There is a clear wage scale set out based on experience. My bosses don't have to adhere strictly to the exact amounts, however when they differ from this, they explain why. My colleagues are all very open about what they earn. It is based on experience and skill, not who can negotiate the best deal.

In many of my previous jobs (all in the UK) I was discriminated against because of my gender. Men were in charge and they preferred working with other men. It was perfectly clear on occasion that being nice and good at your job was not nearly as valuable as being male. I was very resentful. Working here is so much less frustrating on so many levels.

See, I can't see that NoNameDame. When workers discuss their salaries, I can see it overall benefiting everyone. You only have to look at what a truly strong union (and I work in an industry where there are no unions) can do to pay when the workers collude, rather than the companies.

Like his tactics or not, Bob Crow was an absolute hero to get those tube drivers over 50K imho. I know it's a different beast altogether to a typical office where salaries can vary hugely, but I can see how it could work there too.

A truly top performer should be recognisable to all employees, so hell - pay them 20x as much as everyone else if possible and justifiable - and if the reason why needs to be stated (which it probably won't), justify it. If someone is genuinely deluded about their skills and thinks they should earn the same, management can just say, well, actually he/or she brings all this value, and you, well, don't. If that person can't handle that, that's then their issue.

Conversely, if the rockstar who deals with every issue under the sun isn't being paid right, and everyone then knows it, management are forced to deal with it, rather than letting simmering resentment and suspicion run rife.

I guess we just see it differently!

It's not possible to set clear criteria in every industry, e.g engineers - they may have the same qualifications, look after a job with the same budget but you can have 2 engineers that do the same thing where 1 is good and 1 is crap (I.e pisses people off, nearly causes issues, nearly doesn't spot costly mistakes etc) it's hard to put into words why those 2 people aren't worth the same but I have experience of a lot of examples of this.

A good manager should not only be able to articulate this but to include it in objectives and performance management in a fair and measurable way. In many (most?) roles, how the job gets done is important, and often as important as what actually gets done.

Pay secrecy enables managers to get away with claiming there's no money in the budget to give one person a raise, while giving one to another. It enables unfair pay progression and pay bias based on the 'people like me' effect, which perpetuates discrimination.

I think it should be transparent internally in companies at least. I understand that you are not necessarily allowed to talk about your pay externally for confidentiality reasons but internally I am hugely against those policies and think they only promote discrimination. I'm happy to be fired for breaking them and encourage others to break them. These internal secrecy policies are illegal in the US because of how they contribute to the gender pay gap.

I'm happy to be fired for breaking them and encourage others to break them.

But a lot of people wouldn't be happy to get fired, for that reason or any other. Pay secrecy may be bad for us all as a class, but being unemployed is usually a lot harder and more immediately pressing as a problem to an individual. Which is of course how the employers win, but there is worse than being on a low wage for most people who have to pay their bills.

We all get the same it's only if you do overtime that you earn more than the person you work with.

Having said that I used to work for a large supermarket that seriously frowned on anyone discussing their wages. Me and a lad who did the exact same job, to the same standard over the same hours as me compared wage slips. I was horrified to find that he earned £1 more an hour than I did just by virtue of being a man (wasn't all that long ago either). I may have put less effort into the job after that

it shocked me when I went into retail after working in many jobs where salaries differed -

everyone at customer assistance level was on min wage, key holder min wage +50p, only actual store manager was salaried. Some of those customer service folks had been there 20 years and had all that experience, yet those starting day1 got the same pay.

Haven't read the thread yet, but my DP's payslip was left on the desk in the HR office. Someone else who works there saw it and started bad mouthing him and even threatened him with violence, so aggrieved was he at the amount DP earns.

So I'd say no, salary shouldn't be public knowledge! Not everyone will take it in a positive way.

Do note my post above that we changed the law to be similar to US in 2010. Now even if your contract says you may not discuss pay you ARE entitled to in the UK if it is because of pay discrimination or to a journalist, lawyer etc.

That does not always mean women (or men) should disclose their pay. It can make colleagues jealous if you are paid more even if you are paid more because you happen to be much better at the job than they are or you work harder. People tend to be happier when others earn less. Studies show that someone would rather they got a £3k pay rise if their colleagues only got £1k than a £5k pay rise if the colleagues got a £10k rise! Weird but we seem to be jealous people.

I worked for one employer were it was a sackable offense to disclose how much they paid you.

I never disclosed but was around when others did - the few women - it was male dominated industry were all paid less. I didn't do to bad - mid range and more than a few women who had been there longer and had more experience.

I got a massive pay increase after a short time working there by moving companies. That was motivated by several things - partly having training manager block my training as I was a woman and all their women left and partly about pay.

The next few workplaces didn't have that rule and oddly pay wasn't discussed nearly as much and I had no idea what other's were earning.

I didn't know you couldn't discuss your salary. I've worked for 20 years too. Surely it is up to you?

I think the main problems with disclosure of salaries mentioned on this thread come from when they've been secret all along.

I think if salaries are all transparent from day one, these issues aren't so likely to happen. Someone disgruntled about a top performer earning more will also be able to see everyone else's salaries, and see it in perspective. Someone thinking about a job change will be.able to see what the pay structure is, and be able to decide based on full information (have been in companies where someone wanting to make a change from callcentre to PA couldn't find out the paybands of the job they wanted to move to, so was expected to take it on trust that she'd be able to pay her mortgage, FFS!)

That's in the context of having spent many years working in environments where the pay bands were published internally.