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?

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

There'd only be resentment if pay was obviously unfair. Which would be the employer at fault.

Knowing the payband is only helpful if you have small bands or know where you are (or will be) within it - my current band has start and end points about £20K apart. It's obviously going to make a massive difference which end of that you're at.

I'm in favour of this. I think anything that makes it easier for people, particularly women and other disadvantaged groups, to negotiate for higher pay is a good thing.

Knowing the payband is only helpful if you have small bands or know where you are (or will be) within it - my current band has start and end points about £20K apart

Our pay is graded by band (number) then point (number). You move through the band on yearly increments. You move between bands by promotion.

Anyone with the same job as me for the same length of time will be paid the same amount of money.

I would love to know how it works in my company. The only colleague I feel comfortable being frank about our salaries has never been promoted, so I don't know if you move up a standard amount or if they decide based on individual merits.

I'm the only person in my company with my job title or anything close to it, so I wouldn't really be able to compare my pay to other colleagues anyway. I would be interested to see how similar people's salaries are on the same grade and title.

Ted Do you have a HR person/dept that you could request details of promotion track/salary scales/remuneration?

I think if salaries are all transparent from day one, these issues aren't so likely to happen.

This.

I've also noticed these days that fewer and fewer job adverts disclose the salary.

LinkedIn never says the salary for vacancies.

It really, really annoys me. Means you can't even gauge where you sit by looking externally.

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!

This is simultaneously the most ridiculous thing I have ever read and yet not surprising at all. Madness.

I worked in the City and they were very tough on the whole, 'do not discuss your salary'`thing. Why? Because the women were bein paid far less than the men.

IMO if there are salary differences, that you, as an employer, can justify, you should not be afraid of your staff discussing them and asking you about them. Appraisals etc, should be sufficient to defend a salary.

Aye - yes, looking for job ads is one good way of figuring out pay bands, so frustrating if they don't list salary. I have found in IT that it's often pretty easy to track down the same job advertised by an agency, who do tend to list salary (who knows why, maybe they get more applicants eh? ). Most recruiters are going to cut and paste any spec into the ad, so searching for unusual key words or phrases often turns it up.

Was pleased to see most of the jobs on the MN jobs site have salaries listed.

Re: the calltaker > PA, apparently when she got the job (sold to her as a big opportunity) the salary was less. So she very very nervously asked for more. They said "what do you think sounds right then?" She added 25% thinking she'd get negotiated down, and they said yes! So they'd happily have underpaid her by that much at least.

In the example above that is typical for many women. it is very hard to get right however. All men leaving an MBA got higher pay than women in their first job after. They were all asked the reasons. Every man thought he was God's gift to employers and asked for more pay than offered. Every woman thought anyone was doing her a favour to accept her and took the pay she was offered.

it is nto easy in practice. You can get rival job offers and put them to a current employer as leverage. Or you can get the HR department to do some research on comparable jobs and pay in similar industries. You can leave. I do think women stay too long in many jobs rather than taking the risks of moving. People tend to get better pay if they take risk a bit. One of my children got a £15k pay rise this year by moving jobs. In the job before she managed to double the pay over 2 years by keeping pushing and pushing for more so we've had a lot of conversations about how to do it.

Also women tend to think people will notice how hard they work. Instead you have to work on brand self and spend a lot of time telling people how wonderful you are rather than just hoping your dedicated effort will be noticed.

For me now I own and work for myself so keep all the money which is the nicest thing of all. People think I'll say working for myself is good because you set your hours. Rubbish - the nicest thing is making a lot of money and keeping it all and setting your own pay rate.

I live in Sweden and you can actually ring the tax office if you know someone's personal number and see their taxable income for the last year! It's all a matter of public record.

It doesn't stop people in private companies negotiating salaries.

Having said that, I work for a multinational and we are forbidden from discussing salary with each other!

Bang on, lotus :)

It's really not how hard you work, it's the perception of your ability by those above you that counts. Super frustrating for me - I moved jobs a few years back, took a punt on something I knew I could do but was worried I'd be seen as not having the experience for. Got the job and was promoted again quickly under a manager who was great - really supportive and fair.

My new boss clearly loathes me, and it's all ground to a halt.

So I guess I just have to move again! Her loss....

It's one reason I wrote 30 books, speak about 30 times a year and write articles - it's that aren't I brilliant here I am in the public eye push push which does actually work.

I would not favour the Swedish system though and I think Italy disclosed a lot of people's tax returns as I think that should remain private.

Difficult for people getting the balance between moving jobs too much and not enough.

When we move more out of recession we may get a bit of pay inflation although at the moment we have deflation and prices dropping and perhaps then some staff shortages and some wage rises and attempts to lure people with high figures. I know where one of my children works they cannot get people experienced in what they need so some areas do have worker shortages.

It's funny here, it is public but it's kind of bad manners to look....

I'm considering contracting later on. Not right for me at the moment, I'm about to have my first child, but once the kid/s are older it's something I'd consider. I don't know anyone who works for themselves who regrets it.

Secrecy perpetuates discrimination.

If however an employer suddenly audits things and becomes transparent they might get hit with a big equal pay claim, which is a disincentive to change.

The variety of salaries in my team is staggering.

Some are earning 10k more than others for doing the same job.

But that's now. They all started off in different departments, in different roles, at different rates and have been with the company for different periods of time - meaning big pay rises in "the good old days", much smaller ones in the last 9 years or so....

When someone comes to us internally, we'll give them a 2-3k pay rise, but we certainly wouldn't match the highest salary in the team!

If they talked about it, it'd create huge amounts of resentment and all sorts of trouble. The lower paid ones know that they are, but not by how much.

The only way it'd ever get solved is if the company introduced fixed pay bands for roles, and fixed yearly rises (Like The Army )

But to do that they'd either have to lower some peoples pay, which wouldn't happen because the unions would kick off, freeze some peoples pay - Ditto the unions or raise peoples pay - do the company no good at all!!

I don't think it'll ever get solved in my company, in my employement time there.....

It's just a fact of life in some jobs I think.....

And to be honest, if someone is happy to come to my team, get a pay rise & work for £38k, why would I pay them £45k?

Don't think that's right though skiptonlass: heard a labour market analyst on the radio the other day saying that many self employed people are on the lowest pay in insecure (eg "false self employment" and dependency on a single organisation or person, with few rights). Different of course if you are one of the relatively few with skills people will pay lots for!

A trainee in our HR department printed off a complete list of salaries for everyone in the UK office (and benefits - co. car / pension contributions / bonuses) and left it on the printer to be fair I think she had printed it twice in error and didn't realise there was a surplus copy

I had a look, a good look actually and then handed it back and told her to shred and be more careful in the future. No surprises for me personally but what if I'd seen a discrepancy with my salary? I'd have the ammunition to kick off big time.

Eeeek @ totality !!

I used to work somewhere where technically salary info was private but our dick of a manager used to blab. He also blabbed about reasons people were ill, people who were being performance managed...

Urgh, I wish we were allowed this at work. I was put on a three-month review for discussing salary grades - not specifics - just grades...........I'd been directly asked by a colleague.

Queen - the new-ish Equality Act 2010 provisions do provide some protection now for some salary discussions particularly if there are equal pay issues.

The trouble with pay bands is they are often based on seniority not ability in a role.
Also people react very badly to a pay cut, some people are on higher pay because they used to perform well, this has stopped - the company may restrict any annual increases, but it may be many years before other, no equally able, people catch up.

Thing is, if someone leaves, companies will have to recruit someone at market rate - which is often higher. I don't understand why companies insist on restrictions that mean you are best off moving on every two years, or refusing to increase people's salary when they have a radical change of role.

I agree with slightly that it can be short sighted not to give pay rises to good people you want to keep when you have to pay often 20% of gross salary to a recruiter if you hire someone new, waste 6 months training them up and pay them more than the person who left because of low pay.