Comment by xvector
3 years ago
Every company I've talked to with "transparent" comp has offered absolutely terrible comp, even for their highest possible offer.
In reality "transparent comp" becomes an excuse for companies to not negotiate.
3 years ago
Every company I've talked to with "transparent" comp has offered absolutely terrible comp, even for their highest possible offer.
In reality "transparent comp" becomes an excuse for companies to not negotiate.
If it is legislated that everyone has to do it, then people looking to sell their labor can do so with perfect knowledge of where the market is at, reducing the negotiating strength of these shitty companies.
This is how it already works in Norway. https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-40669239
And how is tech compensation in Norway compared to the US? That's what I thought...
The raw numbers are different, I’m guessing (I haven’t looked). A tech worker in Norway also pays less for healthcare and housing, is healthier, spends less time in traffic and lives in a society where everyone lives safer and more equally, and has more power to walk away from a shit job than someone in the US. It’s a system that values autonomy for the most people over the power of a tiny sector of the economy to rake in maximum dollars, and wage transparency is just a small feature of that system.
But yeah if it doesn’t bring you personally more money I guess it’s not even worth thinking about
4 replies →
Go ahead and prove causation on that, please.
You're not going to be able to, because it's impossible.
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People in general don't like to have the hard conversations where they tell Bob that Sue is better than him and she makes more money. It's easier to just normalize transparent salaries lower. If everyone is transparent it will change over time though.
If it's real stuff, it can easily be explained:
> Look, Bob. Sue has made X super valuable contributions in the last quarter, and she has done A and B, and she's the expert on that special topic. That's why she's paid 3% more than you, I hope you understand. If you want to get closer to her pay salary, look into improving yourself on XY, doing more AB work, etc.
Giving concrete reasons and targets to achieve is actually beneficial, and it can help motivate people. If there are no concrete reasons, well, then it's just pay discrimination for nothing more than gut feeling which is shitty, and Bob is right to feel bad about it.
Even with real stuff, people don't like having hard conversations. It's how toxic people stay in organizations, and poor performers are never let go.
I worked for several hedge funds with transparent comp that have been some of the most lucrative of my career. If we are just throwing around anecdotes.