Even the lowest paid employees at the state and federal level already have their pay revealed, and it hasn't caused a problem yet. As far as I know, only orgs like the CIA (and similar) where their employees aren't public are hidden from public view.
That's because the state doesn't generate revenue, it isn't the state's money, and the people have a right to know how their taxes are being spent. I'm not saying that invalidates your broader point but it is an important distinction. It's by definition something completely different than a coffee shop with 15 part-time employees and one owner, or a budding new web agency with a half dozen full-time designers and coders.
It's probably the highest paid ones who don't want others to know... goes against equal pay for equal work and all that.
For every rockstar 10x developer who actually is worth much more because they are truly exceptional, there's probably a bunch of others that just happened to have good. career trajectory, or entered during a bubble peak, or have a better diploma, or the right connections, or are skilled negotiators or whatnot.
The hope is that salary transparency will bump their colleagues doing similar work at similar quality up to similar pay. The fear is that it can create workplace resentment, or lower everyone's wages, or invite retaliation, etc.
IMO those are short term growing pains that wouldn't last once transparency is normalized, like in government pay.
Hasn't caused a problem... among a sample group who knew that their salary would be public information before choosing that career. If you change the rule so that no one even has the choice of salary privacy, is nothing lost? I'm skeptical.
I think the legal requirements is declaring pay ranges for which the companies agree to hire (IDK if they must reveal current actual pay). A range can conceal enough for a particular employee not to feel exposed.
Grandparent poster asked what the disadvantages were. Some employees might not want their personal salary information revealed.
Even the lowest paid employees at the state and federal level already have their pay revealed, and it hasn't caused a problem yet. As far as I know, only orgs like the CIA (and similar) where their employees aren't public are hidden from public view.
That's because the state doesn't generate revenue, it isn't the state's money, and the people have a right to know how their taxes are being spent. I'm not saying that invalidates your broader point but it is an important distinction. It's by definition something completely different than a coffee shop with 15 part-time employees and one owner, or a budding new web agency with a half dozen full-time designers and coders.
It's probably the highest paid ones who don't want others to know... goes against equal pay for equal work and all that.
For every rockstar 10x developer who actually is worth much more because they are truly exceptional, there's probably a bunch of others that just happened to have good. career trajectory, or entered during a bubble peak, or have a better diploma, or the right connections, or are skilled negotiators or whatnot.
The hope is that salary transparency will bump their colleagues doing similar work at similar quality up to similar pay. The fear is that it can create workplace resentment, or lower everyone's wages, or invite retaliation, etc.
IMO those are short term growing pains that wouldn't last once transparency is normalized, like in government pay.
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Hasn't caused a problem... among a sample group who knew that their salary would be public information before choosing that career. If you change the rule so that no one even has the choice of salary privacy, is nothing lost? I'm skeptical.
I think the legal requirements is declaring pay ranges for which the companies agree to hire (IDK if they must reveal current actual pay). A range can conceal enough for a particular employee not to feel exposed.
Does everyone want their salary even more trivially scraped by Experian and packaged up into a data product?
I'm sure all sorts of entities would like to know exactly what your income is.
> I'm sure all sorts of entities would like to know exactly what your income is.
But it will be useless because they cannot play with it. Even now they ask you what your pay was.
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I mean they already do?
Publicly and to their employees?