Hacker News Reader

Comment by jjordan | Hacker News Reader

I'd like to get the perspective and opinion of an employee in the open salary system, rather than just a recount from the top.

View on HN

Hi, I can give it to you since I work for Lunar Logic. How it looked: everyone felt a bit anxious and not 100% sure if it will be the good decision, but we decided to go for open salaries anyway (it was a collective decision after a series of long discussions of a whole company, not a decision at the top). When the salaries list was released, everyone took a look and there was no disaster. Most of the salaries felt just fine and we fixed ones that were bit too low soon after the list was released. We all treat it as a normal part of our job now and I think no one regrets that we went for it. Being transparent about it makes everything easier to be honest and we treat it as one of the coolest things we did last year.

>but we decided to go for open salaries anyway

What happened to the people who didn't want to reveal their compensation. Was is it revealed anyways?

There are three companion articles to this one which answer questions like this. The answer to your question from the "how" article: "Not joining would mean that others won’t know about that person’s salary and that person wouldn’t have access to the salary list."

There was a choice and these people would just not see the salaries list and participate in salary raise process. But we went all in, everyone was ok with revealing their salaries.

So there was the implicit threat that if you didn't join, you wouldn't be eligible for raises? Also, how could you enforce them not seeing the list? It's illegal for an employer to deter the discussion of compensation amongst employees.

They would get raises in an old way, from CEO. We are based in Poland, and as far as I know there is nothing illigal about it. Someone mentioned shoulder surfing - I believe people who would not join, would be decent enough to play by the rules and not do this.

These people may not have access to the document, but surely in a small company they would figure out some of the salaries either through the grapevine or shoulder surfing?

That suggests either a very like-minded company (with 25 people very likely, with larger sizes less so) or tremendous amount of peer pressure. After all, if out of 25 people 24 decide to share, and 25th wants to work in this company, they don't really have a choice, do they? That person has to work with all these people after it.

By being transparent, you force yourself to be less irrational.

Irrationality is the square root of all evil.

I see what you did there

I work at a public university in Michigan as a Java developer. All of our salaries are open to the public. It has actually caused more friction that what I expected. Maybe it is just the people I work with, but once raises were announced people got very upset. It was mostly why is person A paid THAT much, they don't do anything.

I work for a consultant company with transparent salaries. Everyone know what everyone's making on each level. I for one have leveled twice now in a year and my salary have been raised 32%. It feels very natural, and actually it would have it feels weird not knowing the other ppls salaries.

I too work at an open salary company. One great thing that happened was that other people noticed I was being underpaid compared to my actual duties before I did and spoke up for me (I just didn't bother to look at it much) Minorities can keep tabs and see that all is well... Or that adjustments need to be made before it becomes a bigger issue. We have a superstar or two, and everybody knows who they are, and they make more. People are fine with that. One thing that really makes all this work is that we hire not only for technical skill, but especially for low jealousy and defensiveness. This helps from client meetings to code reviews, and of course, to honest discussions about open salaries.

I work for a state government with open salaries to the public. It causes lots of friction due to a couple of factors: 1) De-facto lifetime employment 2) No raises without a new position 3) Vastly differing levels of compensation

I make something like 50% more than the guy sitting next to me, but I manage an interdepartmental project and have a different employment category. It's hard for people to honestly evaluate themselves so it becomes a pride issue.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com