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Google Staffers Share Salary Info With Each Other; Management Freaks
Nerval's Lobster writes: Imagine a couple of employees at your company create a spreadsheet that lists their salaries. They place the spreadsheet on an internal network, where other employees soon add their own financial information. Within a day, the project has caught on like wildfire, with people not only listing their salaries but also their bonuses and other compensation-related info. While that might sound a little far-fetched, that's exactly the scenario that recently played out at Google, according to an employee, Erica Baker, who detailed the whole incident on Twitter. While management frowned upon employees sharing salary data, she wrote, "the world didn't end everything didn't go up in flames because salaries got shared." For years, employees and employers have debated the merits (and drawbacks) of revealing salaries. While most workplaces keep employee pay a tightly guarded secret, others have begun fiddling with varying degrees of transparency, taking inspiration from studies that have shown a higher degree of salary-related openness translates into happier workers. (Other studies (PDF) haven't suggested the same effect.) Baker claims the spreadsheet compelled more Google employees to ask and receive "equitable pay based on data in the sheet."
Baker claims the spreadsheet compelled more Google employees to ask and receive "equitable pay based on data in the sheet."
90% of drivers think they are better than the average driver, and I would bet 90%+ of workers think they are better than average, and would therefore expected to be paid above the median (note for the statistically challenged - 90% of a group cannot be above the median). This study will give them data to know where they are on the graph. How will management deal with 90% of their workers demanding to be paid more since they are being paid below what they think they should be based on their (biased) self-assessment?
The (American only?) taboo on discussing compensation simply perpetuates inequality. If it seems unfair it probably is.
The big difficulty is that salary gets really complicated, really fast. It helps many people, but building the system that is equitable would be difficult, and all the positive outliers could be harmed in the process.
SCENARIO: Money is a little tight but applicants are plentiful. We interview lots of people, and three of them look very qualified and are willing to work for a certain wage in a tight range. All hired. Three months later the group discovers a unique need, needing a developer on a specific tool with specific skills. They'll be hired at the same job title, but because the group need a specialized skill immediately, they will go through a headhunter and ultimately pay a premium for that fourth worker. Now, because all four have the same job title, the critical question: should the company go back and increase the three other workers' pay to the same pay rate of the fourth worker with the specialized skill? Should they refuse to hire the specialist at a rate above the other three?
In some fields it can make sense to standardize pay. Most skilled trades operate this way. There is a standard rate in a region for a Journeyman with specific certifications. Trade unions can help fight for specific benefits. You know that this class of tradesman has a specific skill set and can be hired for $27/hour. You need four of them. All of them are treated as interchangeable.
In other fields it can make far less sense to standardize pay, mostly because there are many variables. Unfortunately software development is one of those fields where it is complicated. It would be really convenient -- both for applicants and employers -- to have such a scale. This is a Java programmer with seven endorsements certified at grade 27, so pay is automatically $x.
But unfortunately for this field, technology is ALWAYS changing, so the scale would be difficult. You were certified in version 3.2, but the system has moved on to version 4.1. Does that individual lose the old certification? If they take the new industry trade group's course do they now have 8 certifications instead of seven? Do certifications expire over time, or transfer between technologies? With the huge number of technologies out there, does that mean we'll have thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of different certifications for the trade union? How are individual certifications weighted, and how are they equivalent? Is a master Direct3D 12 certification the same value as a master PostgreSQL 9.4 certification? Is a PostgreSQL 9.4.4 certification valued differently than a PostgreSQL 9.3.9 certification? If someone has certifications in other specializations, must those apply in the cost? With the rapid pace of an enormous number of technologies, what prevents someone from getting hundreds of certifications? Such as "I've got 47 certifications, one for each version of the software released over the past two years"? While it works good for slower-moving trades, it does not work so well in software.
Sometimes I feel it would be nice to have programming trade unions. There are many features like collective bargaining for benefits that could be nice. But for actual salary levels, union-based standardized wages would be a nightmare. It would add a convenience factor to ensure new workers have certain minimum competencies, but it unfortunately adds maximum values as well. Nobody wants to know that they could be making more due to market pressure.
By establishing fixed buckets of pay levels, it establishes both a minimum (yay) and a maximum (boo) within a region. If you've got any kind of specialization or exotic skill -- and many of us do -- those same pay buckets that help many people also hurt the top performers.
//TODO: Think of witty sig statement
it does. A worker must be legally allowed to share their benefits (salary and otherwise) to members of their Union. But the law doesn't specifically say union, it's good for anyone.
Discussing it while on "company time" can certainly be controlled. You can be fired for discussing salary while on the clock. But once you step off the premisis, they cannot restrict that. Updating a spreadsheet stored on company servers, at work, while company time, however, is enforceable for a variety of reasons. Google could have canned the lot for that, provided it didn't violate other employment laws.
I've been chastisted by my manager for discussing salary with other employees outside of work. We explained how the law was on our side, and he simply got pissy and grumbled something about "you're not supposed to do that".
The whole point of it being that discouraging disclosure of benefits directly helps the company in negotiations. THEY know how much each employee is being paid, and they really do NOT want you to have that information, because it's leverage in the negotiations. So it's not even slightly surprising that they will try to prevent it. But as long as you do it off company time, off company grounds, and off company resources, they can't do jack. They can blowhard all they want, but there's no legal basis for action. In an "at-will state", you could still get fired for some random reason or no reason at all, but if they were foolish enough to open their mouths as to the reason they fired you, you could easily net a large payout in court. (any boss that specifically tells you why you were fired in front of witnesses is an idiot and needs to be fired themselves - too much litigation risk)
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
It is always a pain when they don't list the salary range.
I have gone over to being very up front and straight forward. If they want me to interview I ask "What salary range are you looking to pay?" If they give me some BS about how it is dependent on experience or "At this time it is open." I normally reply with "Sorry, I know how business works. A salary rage was selected before the listing was made. I am only asking what that range is so I can decide if it is worth my time to pursue the position. If it is to low then I am waisting my time and yours by even accepting an interview."
I would like to say they were all consistent but they were all over the map. The one that comes to mind is one that had 150 Linux servers running an online service. They had been hacked and were looking for someone to come in and clean it up, secure the systems, and make sure they were not re-hacked. They specifically listed 10 years experience and ton of must knows. When I got them to tell me how much they were looking to pay, they wanted someone who would work for $12.00 an hr on a 1099. I about fell over and had to let them know that they put the period in the wrong place, minimum would have been $120.00 an hr on a 1099.
"Secret salaries" is a classic prisoners dilemma, but with a twist. Here the prisoners are allowed to communicate to achieve the statistically best mutual outcome, but the statistically best mutual outcome also comes with the slight penalty that the one with the best outcome currently (highest paid for position) not only receives no direct benefit, but also receives a slight penalty in that if others use the information to say, get a raise, their highest paid position will be lessened or eliminated.
Now statistically, in a company with thousands of employees, many with roughly the same "position" the logical thing to do would be to share, as odds are extremely good you aren't in that highest paid position and thus can only receive benefit. But the idea that you *MIGHT* be has probably kept employees from doing this before now.
I'd say that leverage in negotiations sort of comes into play, but consider that I may have hired a person for 100K and I was told that I can hire someone else, but I only get 80K this time because that's all that can be justified with the number of accounts we have. So, I hire someone at 80K.
If Ms. 100K and Mr. 80K start talking, there are all sorts of possible problems, but in the end, though, I was only given 80K to hire someone. If you didn't accept that, I can't hire you. Would you prefer to have not gotten the job? That will depend on if you were in demand, I suppose, but I'd usually say that if 80K was acceptable to you, then you're not losing out.
That's why you probably shouldn't talk to other people. You might well be convinced you should be making 100K, but if you'd insisted on that number, I couldn't hire you, so you'd probably not have a job. Also, Ms. 100K may have been hired while the company was doing very well and was able to be generous. Instead of dropping her salary or laying her off in a slump, we kept her on. We can't afford 100K people anymore, but we want to be fair to her and maintain our word when it comes to what she makes. Should we have instead laid her off or knocked 20K off her salary so that you could feel better about yours?
You need to find a number that works for you, and you need to insist on it. If you get it, you should be able to do everything you wanted to do with that salary. Don't worry what other people make, someone is always going to make more than you. Understand what you are happy with and get that. If you need to adjust, then it should come from your own needs and not a comparison between you and someone else except in the most basic of fashion (such as salary research for your job description) to get a basis for what is reasonable.
Yup. Same law that says you can unionize says they can't stop you from sharing pay and benefits information.
The law says they cannot; However, most employers feel the law is unfair to the employer and may very well intentionally disobey the law in a subtle manner.
If they find you shared your salary, then your company might find another reason to fire you and terminate you for that other reason. In an at-will state it's easier..... "According to the latest performance review, you're just not a good fit for our company, so we have to let you go."
Google could technically do the same for everyone on that spreadsheet. Sharing their own salary info would not be mentioned on the official papers as reason for termination, But their accessing/showing the spreadsheet could be grounds for termination upon suspicion of gaining unauthorized access to HR systems.
Companies need to make the money, and employment costs going up would be a huge negative for the shareholders and managers' bonuses.
They still have 24 packs, but the 20 packs cost what the 24 packs used to cost. And yes, there are 20 packs out there.
Wal-Mart
Amazon
Office Depot seems to only sell the 24 packs. For $12.99. 3 years ago I was stocking soda for our soda machine and the 24 pack cases were $6.99, sometimes $4.99 on sale. Wal-mart sells the 20 pack cases for $6.48, which at first makes you think the price of a case of soda has gone down, until you see that it went down in price by 8% and down in quantity by 20%.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.