With that said, could somebody compile some info on that? Alexander claims to have known plenty of companies that do it, so how is it working for them and what stumbling blocks have they encountered?

Now, you may say I am hiring the wrong person then, and you might be correct. However, I am dealing with unemployment rates of 4% in my area, which means I do not have a lot of “Happy, emotionally stable” people applying, so you have to work with what you get and try to help them be better.

I do agree with Mike Hoffman when he talks about if someone is happy at work then they don’t care what the person next to them is making. So my question and reason for not revealing it is, “If I have a bunch of unhappy people who want to know everyone’s salary, how does revealing that information make them happier?” I feel that it wouldn’t and would just create those jealous feelings that would make the workplace more miserable for the unhappy and happy workers. Really, I think you need to solve the happiness problem first, and then people won’t care what their coworkers make.

PS – Last week I attended an employment law conference conducted by Lane Powell PC. Here in my state, if I disclose personal information (including salary information) to people in the organization who are not on a need-to-know basis, I am open to a discrimination suit (even though I have told them the facts why they make less than the person next to them, they still belive it is due to their sex, race or religion) and it enters the realm of me being sued privately due to the information violating privacy statutes. Perhaps there are ways around this through better polcies and signed disclosure agreements, but all I want to do is pay you to do a job. Can’t this be simple?

I think this is such a controversial issue because it is only a symptom of a poor work environment.

If you’re in a good work environment, people are focused on the work that makes them happy. Happy people know how much money they need in order to live the way they want and will not likely accept a job that provides otherwise. If you love your work, why would you be worried about what the person next to you is making?

If salaries are public, it encourages open dialog as to justification and/or correction of pay. Otherwise, who is benefiting from secret wages?
Only those exploiting others.

But as a salaried employee, in most companies, instead of picking and choosing which work I should do, they’d just pile on more and more work. This of course is an issue of corporate culture. But if I were a highly paid salaried employee, I’d be afraid that if everyone knew how much I made, they’d want me to put in more and more hours, in order to “earn my salary.” If I chose to accept these demands, they’d make me unhappy. Alternatively, if I chose to set limits on how much work I do, I’d be afraid of being fired or otherwise punished.

-TimK

A better solution would be to make a way for people to know exactly how much they are worth in the workplace. Sites like Salary.com try to do this, but their “pay for information” model is a barrier to essential information. If everyone knows what the fair price for their skills is, it’s easier to measure where you are salary-wise.

I think every business tells its employees that talking about salary is grounds for termination, but that’s just to supress all of the negativity that can come from exposing everyone’s salary. I think it’s not so much because employers are evil, secretive and manipulative as it is that as human beings we are generally greedy, focused too much on money, and unable to properly deal with perceived inequality.