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 used to be more common when I was just starting out (I'm 41) and still happens quite a bit but it is my understanding that it is considered bad practice these days, on a par with not publishing a salary range. Employers who have those "we're a good employer" type kitemarks won't do it.

It's unethical and legally unenforceable. The comments on here are nuts and just try to justify the pay gap. How anti feminist by default.

Secrecy surroundings salaries is very old fashioned.

Just because something is common or the norm doesn’t mean it’s acceptable. I think the more open people are about their pay the better.

In the sector I work in you always know the band someone’s pay is within eg £25-30k or £40-48k but not their exact pay. Which I think is a good compromise between transparency while also allowing some discretion for hiring managers to eg offer the top of the band salary to an outstanding candidate.

Wow, this thread....

Privacy about salaries is one of the reasons of pay gaps. How is an individual supposed to learn about salaries, when noone is allowed to share theirs?

In EU it will be compulsory to share ranges for job advertisements, plus some statistics.

My employer does the same. Our band 2 is 33-39k, band 3 is 39k-45k and so on.
It means everyone with the same qualifications are in the same band but a manager can reward a stand-out candidate by promoting to the top of the band or providing small rises as and when. The top of the bands increase by a certain % each year so even if you reach the top of your band one year there's room for a further pay rise the next year.

The company couldn't hold the OP responsible and if they tried to they'd be facing some legal issues of their own.

If colleagues find out someone is earning more than them and decide to ask for an equivalent pay rise it is up to the company to approve or reject the request. If they reject it they need to be able to justify why they feel one person is worth more than others and be prepared to loose that employee.

I think the secrecy and lack of transparency is there for a reason - so that HR departments does not have to justify a lack of consistency in their salaries. This is often demonstrated in a lack of wage equality between men and women, seniority, qualifications etc. This secrrecy also makes the system open to abuse. When details are accidentally let slip it can be very damaging for individuals and organisations. As an example, I had just started working for a very small organisation. Shortly before I arrived, the Executive Director and another manager had negotiated, with the board, a 10% pay rise for themselves but not for the two existing admin members of staff. This was not announced but recorded in the board meeting minutes, which of course the admin officer saw. This resulted in a huge amount of resentment and was one of the factors that led to the departure of the ED and the other manager.

Other countries make transparency around salaries a legal requirement e.g. in Finland, so even if you don't know exactly what your colleagues salary is you can see it through clear salary scales available in the public domain. There is also a far smaller gap between basic salaries and the top of the scale compared to the UK.

Found this: "under the Equality Act 2010 it is unlawful to prevent an employee from disclosing a difference in salary if the purpose of doing so is to try to understand whether an equal pay issue exists. As such, whilst salary confidentiality clauses can be very useful, employers should take care to understand the circumstances of a particular disclosure before seeking to enforce them."

It’s normal, and yes you are being unreasonable to expect to know what your peers earn, it has nothing to do with you

Organisations keep pay confidential when they are trying to reduce the remuneration people get. IMO.

I discovered by accident that my male colleague with less experience and who reported to me for some things was earning circa 30% more than me.

a company i worked for was like this, and one of the men i worked with (same level but i had more seniority in years, which was one criteria for pay) and he was so keen to let me know how much he earned in the mistaken belief it was more than me.

Such a lemon-sucking expression when i told him i wouldn't stand being paid so little (not actually that much less than me, but i made my point)

to get back on topic - i hate these rules, but i can see why companies do it. I prefer transparency.

What if the company pays women less? Or black people? Would it be her business then?

"Hey Frank, I got a 10% pay rise this year, what did you get?"
"2%. Now fuck off. Who did you sleep with to get 10?"

Or if you were the one with the lower raise, how does it help you to know that? You can't go back to the bosses and demand an increase.

I think it's common for employers to not want you to discuss it. The wording you've quoted is fair enough.

I doubt they'd legally be able to do anything if you did tell someone

I went into my appraisal recently and asked for between a 10-15k pay rise. Apparently I’m the only one who did this

whether I get it or not is another matter. But I did my research and made my case.

Yes you can. If it's unfair, you certainly can go back and negotiate.

And if it's based on something discriminatory, you can take them to a tribunal.

There is nothing in that HR statement that says you would actually be disciplined for discussing your salary.

I’ve been working for 30 plus years but if I was told not to disclose my salary to colleagues I would question that as well. All my team know I am at the top of a particular band. Pay scales are published and so all my team know exactly how much I earn. I think that’s exactly how it should be.

IANAL but to to my understanding companies can't legally forbid you from discussing your salary and you can't be reprimanded for doing so. While it's common, I don't think it's OK for HR to put out statements like that. I think it's sketchy AF. While people can choose to keep their salary private the company should not be enforcing it like this. Company must have reasons why A got a raise but B didn't. While specifics shouldn't be discussed they should be able to present what B should in order to get a raise.

It's aim is to pay women less money than men.

Why the fuck should anyone get paid more just because they have negotiating skills. So what? Most jobs don't need their employees to negotiate with anyone. I've got embroidery skills, why don't they pay me more than the others because i'm good at embroidery?

my ds has an appraisal and a yearly payrise
i work for the nhs, enough said,
top of my band.
i can only increase my pay by working more or going up a band.

I agree.

It's only in the public sector that pay is strictly banded and public, the private sector have very different approaches to pay because they can.

Lack of wage transparency is one of the many reasons women are still being paid less than men. Not to mention the fact that women who try to negotiate pay rises and higher salaries are viewed much less favourably than men who do the same thing.