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?

Why is it wrong? Unless a protected characteristic is the reason for the difference, it's perfectly ok.

Some humans have a greater value to a company than others.

This isn't a communist country.

Why do some clothes cost more than other clothes? Do you go into Selfridges and complain that they sell more expensive stuff than Primark?

Wow, I'm incredibly glad I've always been in the public sector. I'd be fuming knowing there's a possibility a colleague is on a higher salary than me just because they have more confidence than I do.

I don’t understand the lack of transparency.

Some people wouldn’t ask negotiate a pay rise. Those that can talk themselves up get the pay rise- that’s not fair.

Base it on performance if you want but be transparent about it. Eg what are the indicators, how is it measured

When I worked in the private sector somebody (accidentally?) Posted the salary spreadsheet onto the shared drive. One of my colleagues saw it and let me know that he earned more as a senior (with less responsibility, ability to claim overtime etc) than I did as a principal. I knew I was underpaid, but until then I hadn't realized by how much!

@Hepwo having just produced my organisation’s gender (and ethnicity) pay gap, and being part of a multi organisation working group, you are mistaken. There is still a pay gap, and what’s worse is it appears to be widening.

Don’t take my word for it though - The ONS has just published this year’s stats.

@Hepwo I should have read further on as I see now you’ve quoted the ONS. You’ve literally written in your post that the ONS shows a pay gap though! 3.2% is still a gap! It doesn’t matter that this is seen as ‘low’, it shouldn’t be there - not when there are some government bodies who have no pay gap at all (and some running at over 18%).

Years ago my employer gave us a pay rise and we were forbidden from telling anyone what they paid us. So I didn't, however I did tell people what I was paid, ( I know it is essentially the same thing)as IMHO that is my business if I chose to share it.

A lack of transparency hurts employees only.

I have team members doing the same job earning almost 80% more/less.

I’ve always been happy to discuss my salary, in the context of helping women understand what they are worth and how to negotiate.

Why would I take your word for it when I actually posted a link to the ONS data in this thread. The trend is downwards. The latest data has been estimated because of the impact of furlough.

So if you want to tell me I'm mistaken despite not reading my post on the ONS, cool.

You still aren't reading my posts

There's no pay gap for women aged 40 and under and there hasn't been for some time.

The pay gap for older women is due to detrimental treatment in education and career access at the beginning of our working lives, not unequal pay now.

But don't worry. Women don't want to believe this. They have been absolutely convinced that they are cheated from the moment they get their first payday and no amount of data is going to permit them to even listen never mind read anything to the contrary. I experience this every day from women who should know better. Women at school and leaving university believe they are going to be offered lower pay.

Women ring me and demand back dated pay rises because the media has told them they are being cheated and I'm a liar if I say that's not that case.

It such a shame that women have been fed this.
Especially when the actual evidence is so clear. I just cringe at all the arts grad women telling people that can actually understand statistics a load of nonsense.

We have exactly the same at my firm. There are 14 secretaries (I'm one of them) and I'd bet we're not all on the same money.

I miss the days of "salary dependent on age and experience" as I'm 59 and have been doing this job for 40 years 😂

Ok, ask yourself this, why are lower grades predominantly women and higher grades men? That is half the issue🤦‍♀️
many companies employ more women at lower or the nary grades, even NHS, but as those people rise through ranks with experience it becomes male dominated. That is one of the key points about the gender pay gap
it is human nature to promote people who are like yourself ..and that is the unconscious bias. If the people do g the promoting are all middle aged white males, then that’s who will be promote . Add to that it there is also yet another bunch of research to say that men get promoted INTO jobs whilst women and some ethnic groups have to do the job first before they get promoted to recognise it

"Ghastly" lack of nous.

My "are you very old" comment was an arch response to the poster I quoted, who wrote unhelpfully wrote "is this your first job?". Hope that's clearer now. If it wasn't already clear.

Wrt my spelling:

From the OED:
"Continuously since the mid 16th century renumeration / renumerate have been used with the same meaning as remuneration / remunerate."

In your defence, perhaps if you think my use of 16th century language is incorrect you are in fact very, very old!

YANBU. This clause is exactly why women end up earning less than men. Salary bands should be available to staff, and pay review % bands should also be published. Therefore this can be challenged by staff who feel they are not being paid fairly. Companies using this clause are likely to have some unfair practices in place.

An alternate view:

The only people who consider concealing their pay to be a privacy issue are those who want to hide how overpaid they are.

When employers do it, or try to make employees do it, they are being cheap and very possibly discriminatory.

It’s also to do with the fact that there are far fewer women engineers entering the business as graduates to get promoted up the ranks!

I don’t dispute that. But I’m talking about where the qualifications of entry level are same. For instance we know overwhelmingly that there are more women nurses at entry level and always have been, but when you look at senior nursing roles they become more male dominated. In my company we employed overhelmingly female science graduates ( pharmacists and biologists, microbio etc) but we ven at next grade up there were already seeing the ratio shifts, and by 2 grades up men were in majority, and at senior level tiny proportions of women.

I take it this is private sector. In the NHS, most people are open about what band they are and once you know how long they’ve been in that band you’ve got a ballpark figure. No big secrets.

It's because they are worried if you tell people you had a pay rise then everyone else will want one.