There’s like this weird culture around it where some may even consider it rude or too personal like it’s equivalent to asking someone their social security number or something
I’ve heard a rumor it’s because companies/bosses don’t want people to talk about their pay between employees because they may find discrepancies compared to their coworkers, but I’m not 100% sure that’s actually why since even their employees consider it taboo.
In: Economics
I used to be all for discussing salary openly until I went up in the pay scale and was making 50-100% more than a lot of my coworkers who had been at the company way longer. I was younger than most of them but came from a big tech company to a company of a few hundred people.
When I shared my salary with someone, he shared with others and I began to be treated differently. The guy I shared it with actually quit shortly after (good for him, he got the salary he deserved when he changed jobs). I got stuck with most of his work, I guess it was time to earn that salary.
I definitely still support salary discussions but I’d recommend people to tread carefully if you expect the differences are significantly higher or lower. Something like a 10% difference is good because that lets people know they can push management to get to that level. No one believes they can get a 50% raise as an internal promotion, that typically only happens with company changes. People will think that you don’t deserve that salary and they will treat you differently. They will leave the company at it will affect the morale and workload that you and your remaining team have to deal with 8 hours a day.
I’ve started handling these conversations like this: “I’m a little uncomfortable sharing that information, but if you throw out a number I will tell you if it’s higher or lower.” If they’re trying to use that information for their own salary discussion, they can still get a valid data point while minimizing potential blowback to me.
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