AIBU to be hacked off that a colleague inadvertently shared my salary with whole team

[YorkshireTrailRunner]

A Return on Investment report regarding my role and impact, a request to every member of the Core Team by an external stakeholder colleague, has been shared throughout the whole team (22 people) as an example of good practise. However, in doing so, my salary has also been shared. Am I being unreasonable to be a bit hacked off, or am I being precious?

That’s confidential information and should you be so inclined you can file a civil suit against them! Separate to breach of data protection law which is an issue too. That’s appalling.

YANBU! It's a major GDPR breach.

It's also an incorrect measure as it excludes on costs.

A bit hacked off is a proportionate response, you know it wasn't intentional but you're a bit annoyed.

I do like a proportionate response.

Is it identifiable as you? Ie does it name you?

That's really bad. What do you think you'll do?

I wouldnt care

Why do you care? I’ve never understood the weird secrecy about salaries

@betwixtlives

Why do you care? I’ve never understood the weird secrecy about salaries

Same. Unless you are being paid significantly more than others in an equivalent role and don't want them knowing it, I can't say I'd be too bothered. It's not great but it's not awful either.

@Rosebuud yes, it absolutely is identifiable as me, not only because of the area of work, but because the round robin email said 'this is name's report'
@HollowTalk, I've been typically British and drafted a very stiff email to send to those of the 22 colleagues who are senior leaders (as am I).
Thank you all for your responses, I haven't yet sent the email as I wanted to ensure I wasn't over-reacting

I'd be pissed off.

It's personal information, and it shouldn't be shared without your consent.

It's clearly a breach of manners, let alone GDPR.

Yes, some people don't mind sharing their salary, but no one should be sharing yours without your explicit agreement.

I'd be furious.

If people don't care about sharing salary that's their business, but the default assumption should be it's not shareable information unless the individual tells you otherwise.

I'd raise this with the person who shared it, and also my manager (if possibly HR if their response wasn't good).

That is awful.

Was the role advertised? If so, they'll all have a pretty good idea of your salary anyway.

Worked in an industry where my name and annual income was not only available online but published in the newspaper annually.
What does it matter?

@betwixtlives

Why do you care? I’ve never understood the weird secrecy about salaries

I've never understood either. When my workplace still had paper payslips they were given out with our addresses in full view (despite not being posted), I would consider that much more confidential than the figures inside!

I care because the team is made up of people with very select skill sets and varying experiences, all working on a shared long-term project but with varying degrees of responsibility and remit, so personal earning is a complete unknown and revelation has the potential to cause acrimony and resentment, which would be a shame in a project delivered to support tens of thousands of people.

If earnings are kept secret, how can people know they are paid fairly?

You may find out that you have the opportunity to improve your wage or it may help motivate others.

@camdenish

If earnings are kept secret, how can people know they are paid fairly?

Indeed! Sounds like some are being shafted going by OP’s last post

@camdenish

If earnings are kept secret, how can people know they are paid fairly?

This is a reasonable argument for publishing all salaries. But it isn’t relevant to here.

in this situation OP’s salary has been published and no one else’s. So people still don’t know if they are being paid fairly, they only know if they are being paid more or less than OP and OP has no idea about anyone else’s salary at all.

Secrecy around salaries is how companies get away with shaftingpaying some people (usually women) less then their colleagues, or less than their worth.

Sounds like that is exact what your company is doing and you know it, going by your last post.

It’s personal information and it’s a GDPR breach.

It should be recorded as a data breach and relevant procedures followed.

Send your email.

Salary transparency shoulder done in an anonymised way. Not by tying it to named individuals.

@HestersSamplerofCarrots

Salary transparency shoulder done in an anonymised way. Not by tying it to named individuals.

If you could access information on salaries in similar roles to yours then it would often be outing anyway wouldn't it?