Secret Pay Rise

[Legaleagleplease]

Hi All, I am hoping that one of the MN group has some experience they can share on this topic. My company is uber secretive about pay rises and bonuses.
I am suspicious why this is.

You are told that you will be disciplined if you tell anyone else what you earn. I am not sure this is legal or not, it certainly does not sound ethical.

The exact words from the HR Manager are:
You are reminded that information regarding your remuneration is strictly confidential and should not be divulged to colleagues.

AIBU to want clarity on what my peers earn?

This is normal as far as I'm aware, my employer is exactly the same. Nobody knows what anyone other than direct reports earn.

They can’t force you to not tell folks but a company always has to keep pay and pay rises confidential. You have no right to know what your peers earn unless they choose to tell you

It's normal. It's none of your business what anyone else earns.

As far as I'm aware salaries are always highly confidential and each time I've received pay rises I've been told not to talk to other employees about it.

Totally normal in my experience

Common but not acceptable.

If you have specific concerns e.g. around equal pay there is some information they do have to divulge.

How is it your business?

Common.

They may have done some gender pay gap work though or have a policy on this. Is there any reporting on external reviews of salaries etc?

Completely normal. What's not normal is to expect to be paid exactly the same as someone else in the same role whatever the circumstances as there are valid reasons why that might be the case. Firms have to manage their costs and it doesn't help if someone expects equal pay when all things aren't equal. As long as any differences aren't legally discriminatory it's fine.

I think it's normal. Dh realised from his colleagues talking about tax etc that he is earning 25% more than they are, he was pretty shocked but he went to his boss and asked for a pay rise and they didn't. It's up to you to ask for what you think you deserve to be paid really.

Take some proper legal advice but I THINK any clause that tells you you cannot discuss your salary isn’t legal - ie it has no basis in law, so they can write it in a contract all they like, but no court would uphold it.

And while you can write all sorts of things in a contract I also think (check) that this clause is frowned upon for the above reasons.

The sooner salaries are completely transparent the better obviously. I bet at least some of the PPs upholding confidentiality above are being paid less than their male colleagues because of it.

Wow - quick response! I think I was unclear in my original post.

Just for the record I do not think everyone's salary should be on the intranet. I meant more that I cannot discuss with a colleague that I have had a % pay rise.

Why would you want to?

Ah seriously.. how you hold down a job if you're querying why you can't announce your pay rise to all and sundry in the company is beyond me 🙄

The point is they are unlikely to ever do anything or even know if you tell your colleague as a friend. But if said colleague then went and told a dozen people in the same role and they all got together and demanded an equivalent rise, the company would hold you responsible.

Is this your first job op?

Normal in my business too. It creates ill will when your colleagues find out you earn more for example

I've always been pretty open with my pay with colleagues. It's only generally been positive. Who cares if it makes the company squirm a bit.

Those clauses are legally unenforceable. You have every right to discuss it.

We should be more open. Culturally my team in Manila are far more open about discussing salary and benefits than the UK team who seem to believe a punishment worse than death will be passed down if they dare mention it. Employers don't want you to of course!

Completely normal in my sector too. When I was younger, we’d discuss salary/bonuses with each other anyway, it never ended well.

I once managed a team of people who all had the same job title and role in theory, where the highest earner's salary was over 50% more than the lowest. When woman on the lowest salary got a rise she was thrilled but had she known how much others were earning she wouldn't have been quite so happy. It's not that people were being paid unfairly, but rather that their salaries matched their experience rather than the job title. I did push for levels to be introduced but wasn't backed by senior management.

It's so staff don't get disgruntled over how little they get paid compared to colleagues. At my last job, I realised one of my colleagues was getting paid double the amount I was, it was a shock and I left shortly after because when I started the role, they haggled me down by £10,000K, saying they couldn't afford anymore.

I love the role I thought, so I took the job anyway..

In my current role, recently someone left and we had a discussion about wages and pay, turns out again I am the lowest paid person in the company, it's a small start-up . I'm disgruntled once again as a pay rise doesn't seem like it will happen.

But she has every legal right? And this is how employers get away with huge wage disparities in this country.

We SHOULD discuss.

I work in a finance department and see everyones pay. There are a lot of people are on a lot more than I think they probably should be, and a fair number on less. But maybe I think that because I'm in the lower echelons of pay and wouldn't think that if I joined the higher earners - I'd think I deserved it.

I also realise - who am I to really know! But I do know, working in finance, if everyone got the same raises as those who got the biggest, we'd be bankrupt, so we do NOT want those with bigger raises telling people who will go on to demand it themselves. There's a reason they've been selected for a raise based on performance which is meant to motivate them and recognise additional responsibilities/experience. But it will demotivate those who don't get the raise if they know this, and we can't afford to give them more.

I can also say after you get over the initial 'ooo' of knowing it all, it's actually not that interesting and is never a subject of conversation internally in the group who have access to this info (except occasionally if someone takes a massive redundancy pay out we'll be like 'oh they did well!' and just quickly move on).

But it's probably the danger of starting an uprising where everyone demands the highest raise given that's behind the confidentiality clause.

I do find it odd that it's so secret. I was brought up not to discuss money publicly ( rude apparently). But my pay is common knowledge and you can Google NHS pay scales.
So yes what are they hiding if you can't talk about pay?