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?

I have worked in the public sector where everyone was on the same pay scales. Interesting that in the military a manager with a lot of responsibility is paid the same as someone in the same rank with a lot less responsibility in their current job.
Now in private sector but salaries are union negotiated and published. So I'm getting paid the same as someone else doing the same job.
Overall only the companies win if you keep it to yourself.

I think it's awful for companies to allow to give massive difference salaries under the same job title. I bet this is the reason why they have this policy because people know it's wrong and will complain.

'in the UK, these pay secrecy clauses are legally unenforceable. Under the Equality Act 2010, an employer cannot enforce a pay secrecy clause if the employee was discussing their pay for the purpose of finding out whether they were being paid differently to a colleague on the grounds of discrimination.'

From a solicitor's page

And see here: www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/notes/division/3/5/3/14

Overall only the companies win if you keep it to yourself.

Win what though? What is it we want to win?

Pay is a big source of grievances which sucks up a lot of time. Suggesting that publishing everyone's pay will mean less grievances is a fantasy.

Everyone will be queuing up for a meeting about why they aren't paid more than all the people they hate. It would never end.

The FT did recently write about a tech company rowing back on transparency as they can no longer increase pay for anyone. The entire company including the poorest performer lines up for a whinge over every increase given to anyone.

Many of you aren't nice respectful people at work, you don't behave well with sensitive information. This is why you are asked to respect confidentiality, because it gets nasty, time consuming and unresolvable grievances are created otherwise.

I’m not in the UK, but here you can look up how much anyone in the country earns.

You may be be legally ENTITLED to pressure other staff to reveal their personal information to you but why don't you think respecting their privacy should take preference over what you want?

HR manager should know better than to send reminders like this. These clauses can’t be enforced under the Equality Act 2010.

I’m in HR. Not an HR manager, but I still know that.

It's not pressure to simply ask. Colleagues are free to answer or not.

In commercial/corporate settings, the asymmetry of information is a tactic used by HR departments to keep employees in the dark. The only reason for this is to make their life easier when having performance reviews, and to perpetuate situations where some people are grossly underpaid. Often those people are women.

So HR, which is a mainly female occupation, go to work everyday with the intention of keeping women in the dark in order to grossly underpay them. Really?

You are ridiculous.

Yeah of course they are free after you have told them you need to be told otherwise they are colluding in cheating you out of money. There's no pressure!

Quite dramatic, aren't you?

Very arr9w minded response. It's normal in some workplaces to discuss pay, especially those where take home is variable.

Yes, it's well known that only companies without HR managers have pay gaps, or get taken to employment tribunals for managing women out while they're on maternity leave.

Strange, I was in the armed forces and everybody in the world knew how much I earned.

Theyve gone about it in the wrong way and now created a culture of suspicion but talking salaries is crass and frankly none of your business.
People's salaries are determined by lots of things and without context it's too easy to yell discrimination

Company level "pay gap" data is nonsense as anyone with half a brain has worked out by now.

Oh boy doesn't it! I once got a job with a qualification bar. I had the qualification so was straight in at 11 of 12 on the pay scale. Somehow others on the same Grade found out, and they had started at 1, and they took it out on me. I left after a year.

Very common in the private sector. Only the company wins with this culture in my view. I’m in the public sector where pay grades and scales are published and it’s all transparent - quite right too!

How is that a reasonable question?

I've had ten jobs approx and I hated this lack of transparency in previous private sector jobs. It never serves people like me well. If you're confident at negotiating raises you might get a raise at somebody more timid's expense. 25 years ago I was told "you're worth what we are prepared to pay you" and they paid me a pittance. Outrageous abuse of secrecy. Somebody better at demanding raises in that company was overpaid so I was underpaid to make up for that.

Thank goodness for transparency in civil service in ireland. I prefer this so much. I dont have to work knowing my time is worth less than somebody else at my grade.

Op when u leave, tell everybody what you earn, not in writing though. People will either feel valued or they can decide to leave. A recruitment agency might give you some helpful feedback.

Are you very old?

It's considered old fashioned and quite frowned upon these days to conceal renumeration, as it helps enforce the pay gap and other inequalities.

In some sectors, it's illegal and employers are required to post salary bands publicly, and the exact salaries of the top staff.

It’s common, I don’t think it should be normal though. I work in an environment with publicly available pay scales and guess what, the sky doesn’t fall in because people know what I’m paid. Am I supposed to be ashamed of it? It would be better for everyone if there was a lot more openness. Secrecy maintains the environment in which unfair treatment can flourish.

The only entity that it benefits to be secret is the company

This is why women are underpaid and paid unfairly

ALWAYS discuss salary with peers

My work even have compensation discussion groups

I also work in HR 🤣

DISCUSS YOUR SALARIES to the people at the back

I've had friends discover men in the same roles paid 15 grand more !

The payscales where I work are published so it's easy to see what someone is earning to within 1-2K. I do think this is one area the public sector is better at than the private.