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Keeping your Salary Confidential
19

Keeping your Salary Confidential

Keeping your Salary Confidential

(OP)
I was just thinking back to my previous employer.  When it came time to review salaries, my supervisor would ask us to keep our new salaries confidential from the other employees.  Personally, I didn't see an issue with this - I feel my salary is my own business.  However, I had a co-worker who felt compelled to share his salary, with the attitude that it was his salary, and he could disclose it if he so chose.  Our supervisor was not impressed, and we learned that (after all discussing salaries) there were significant discrepancies between level of experience and compensation.

I'm curious if others have encountered this, and what opinions are out there.

RE: Keeping your Salary Confidential

4
This is normal practice when working for companies which do not adhere to firm skill/experience 'grading' practices.

The company will pay an employee just enough to keep the employee 'happy' enough to continue working. The most productive employee could be paid the least if his/her bargaining skills are lacking.

cheers

RE: Keeping your Salary Confidential

"we learned that (after all discussing salaries) there were significant discrepancies between level of experience and compensation"

Which is precisely why your supervisor doesn't want you talking. I've spoke with a few people who left our company and they readily told me what they were paid here vs. what they're earning now. I was quiet astonished to find out that some rather inexperienced employees earned more than their much more experienced and technically knowledgeable peers.

-Christine

RE: Keeping your Salary Confidential

Keep it quiet for all the reasons mentioned or you might be out of a job.

Hone your negotiating skills and define what you are worth - go for it - and be happy with it.

For what it is worth - I think the Bible even has a story regarding this - something about guys starting in the morning at one level and guys starting a noon for the same amount.  My biblical studies are at best very slim - but obviously this has been a problem for a long time.

RE: Keeping your Salary Confidential

2
Mike, yes it's in the Bible.

The literal meaning is that you agree your pay/contract with your boss when you started.  If shortly after someone else gets a better deal then what right have you got to complain - you were happy with your deal when you negotiated it?

(The spiritual significance is either about Gentiles being saved or death bed confession type deals)

I haven't discussed my pay with current colleagues, partly because I was under the impression I was doing better than many of them and didn't want to rub their noses in it.  Of cours I could be wrong, maybe they're doing better than me!

KENAT,

Have you reminded yourself of FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies recently, or taken a look at posting policies: http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?

RE: Keeping your Salary Confidential

I never share my salary with anyone. A lot of speculation can be made about you by coworkers.
At another company my manager told a coworker my salary. My coworker had been there a lot longer than me and was very upset that my salary was more than his.

My suggestion, keep your personal business to yourself.

Chris
SolidWorks/PDMWorks 08 3.1
AutoCAD 08
ctopher's home (updated Aug 5, 2008)
ctopher's blog
SolidWorks Legion

RE: Keeping your Salary Confidential

It is very common in corporate America, and elsewhere.  Salaries should be kept between you and your supervisors.  The only thing that comes out of salary discussion with co-workers is either complaints or bragging- both useless.

RE: Keeping your Salary Confidential

My episode was somewhat different.  An employee from one of our US offices spent a Summer in our office to learn some of the tricks of our trade and the methods we used.  I spent a lot of time teaching him techniques to take home with him.  We got on fairly well and I casually asked him what he earned over there.  He told me and after the initial wow, I thought nothing more of it.

A year later I was offered a job over there myself.  The money was substantially less than I'd been told a year ago, by someone essentially my equal.  Plus he would have had a raise since then.

When I mentioned this to the boss making me the offer, all hell broke loose.  I got bumped up quite a bit, but from then on, all offers were made on the grounds that they were secret.

- Steve

RE: Keeping your Salary Confidential

Just goes to show that you can't go far wrong by following the principle that whatever the situation, management will shaft you whenever it can (the story of the frog and the scorpion crossing the river is apposite) and its up to you to do the best for yourself, no other blighter will.

Or, more simply, life is only as fair as you can make it.

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

RE: Keeping your Salary Confidential

Comparing salaries between colleagues (who can be trusted to keep the shared knowledge between themselves) can be very useful. That knowledge can be used to push (gently) for a better salary.

cheers

RE: Keeping your Salary Confidential

(OP)
I guess the part that I find most amusing about my story is that the company claimed to have set benchmarks for salary vs. experience, consistent with our Professional Organization salary surveys.  Obviously, after discussion, the benchmarks were not so clearly defined.

I agree with keeping salaries confidential, however, my colleagues point was that it is his salary, and the boss has no right to tell him to keep it quiet.  To some point I agree with him, albeit I do not like sharing my compensation details with anyone other than my wife.

RE: Keeping your Salary Confidential

3
Secret salaries only benefit the company, not the employee.  If everyone posted their current salary and raise percent on their door, supervisors would have a lot less opportunity to play favorites or to shaft a good worker because they think they can get away with it.  I always threatened to do this, but then chickened out--I'll always wonder if my supervisor saying "you are making a LOT more than your peers, so keep it to yourself" was even true.  I'll never know now.

David

RE: Keeping your Salary Confidential

When I was young and not very smart, I bragged to an older coworker about my raise, not realizing at the time that he got much less probably because he was considered past his prime. Of course, he went in the office and raised hell about it, and I ended up getting an ass-chewing since I disregarded my bosses advice to keep it confidential.

As time goes on maybe merit raises will disappear and the job will pay only one salary regardless of years or qualifications, but that's in someone elses lifetime.

RE: Keeping your Salary Confidential

4
Secrecy can be viewed as nothing but a deliberate attempt to control a free market by hindering the transfer of information, so bargining in a free marketplace becomes more difficult, if not impossible.  That seems a bit ironic because most companies seem to be fighting for the right to set their product prices in an unregulated free market, or controlling prices in a favorably regulated market, and pay a lot of consultants good money for information related to market pricing and predictions of future price levels.  As many of you have recognized, the practice is not viewed fairly by a society that is otherwise accustomed to free market bargining for virtually everything else of value and can be a great source of anamosity amongst employees when these "unfair" practices are discovered by the "victims".  As most of us are taught at an early age to strive to be fair to others and thus justly expect to be treated fairly by others, the concept leaves an especially bitter taste when it appears to only be working to the benefit of others and they feel that they are being taken advantage of.  In fact most government civil service HR policies recognize the concept as a very great potential source of abuse and attempt to control and rectify it by establishing pay grades with specified ranges that greatly reduce the possibility of unfairness, yet do allow at least some leeway in recognizing individual contributions.  As such, I personally see no long term advantage to the employer in maintaining secret salary practices, unless they place no value what so ever on the personnel they do have working for them.  And i think zdas' has a hell of a good idea there of posting salaries on the office door.  In fact I actually think I will adopt it too.  That's the greatest "equalizer" I've heard of in a long time.  Way to go zdas!
  

RE: Keeping your Salary Confidential

there is one company here in UK that in its advertising for emplyees states 'open published salary levels /grade. Seems like a good idea. I wouldnt know what to expect if i got 4 promotions let alone if if getting screwed now. (though ive got a massive feeling i am)

RE: Keeping your Salary Confidential

David/zdas, exactly. Who does lack of widely dispersed information favour? Those who know the whole picture.




 

Cheers

Greg Locock

SIG:Please see FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.

RE: Keeping your Salary Confidential

As Scot(1 or 2 ts?) Adams says, we live in a confusopoly and it isn't confined to the market place, it extends through our entire lives.

In the market place the confusopoly works to defeat the downward trend in prices that competition might otherwise engender but in the workplace it works toward keeping down overheads and costs i.e. salaries.

It is never as simple as comparing salaries, there is a whole package of "benefits"  which makes comparisons as difficult as choosing a phone provider, we all know we are getting shafted but can never really figure out if we are being shafted more or less than if we worked somewhere else.

The only way to gain is to keep trading employers and take advantage of all those "0% interest on money transfer when you take our credit card today" offers and even then, you know there is no such thing as a free lunch.
 

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

RE: Keeping your Salary Confidential

Even if your co-workers are tight-lipped about salaries, there are third-party salary surveys to give you a hint.  

Again, Scot Adams has it nailed:  companies select the best people they can find, and then want to pay them the industry average.  As the pointy-haired boss says, "That's the way we like 'em- bright, but clueless!"  And just like Wally, I feel sorry for people like that!

Information is power, so those who have the power like to control the information for their own benefit.

It's amazing that ordinary working people have this one figured out, but we "professionals" are the ones who get confused...

RE: Keeping your Salary Confidential

How about this for a situation. I graduated 3 years ago. Year 1 raise = 5%, year 2 raise = 5% year 3 raise = 16%. My boss said that I had come a long way and this was an adjustment to get me to what I was worth. I recently found out that our new engineer that graduated 6 months ago stated at 2% less than what I make now. After numerous people turned down the job, the company decided that they need to up the starting pay to get someone in. And that is the reason that I got the large raise (along with 3 others that have the same amount of experience). And now, the new person is very unproductive (as all are there first year) but making basically the same as I am. Now what is really interesting, we just offed a job to someone with there masters degree to start in January. What is this person going to make in comparision to everyone else...  

RE: Keeping your Salary Confidential

All the companies I've been with want their employees to keep salary information to themselves. Why wouldn't they? Revealing salaries among peers causes lots of headaches for the manager. Salaries among your peers will vary widely.

An old manager trick is to tell each employee during the review that their raise was one of the best and they get paid more than anyone else, and by the way keep that to yourself.

My opinion/strategy is to keep an eye on sources like monster.com, salary.com and Design News to determine what fair market value is. I make sure I get paid at or above what the sources say I should make and that keeps me happy. Oh, and I don't tell others what I make because that would make my supervisor's job harder and he would stop giving me good raises....
 

RE: Keeping your Salary Confidential

From what I've seen, places with highly structured published pay grades like government/civil service have a lot less freedom to reward good work/efforts, or conversely often to punish the lack thereoff.

That said, we do have grades, with a pay range for each grade, so I suppose we don't keep our salary completely secret.

So maybe I'm talking %#$##, ignore me.

If you know other peoples pay how much time is spent/lost comparing yourself to them?  I accidently found out what one of my colleagues made a couple of years ago (he left a print in the printer with it on).  If I recall correctly he was making slightly more than me.  I immediately started thinking things like 'but I'm so much more productive than him, more qualified...'.  I knocked it off pretty quick and it's not exactly my proudest moment.

I'm torn because I agree that management are typically out to screw you, and arguably rightly so since their job is to get as much as they can for as little.  However I like to think that you should try and determine your worth based primarily on how good you are/can be rather than comparing yourself to others.  Of course you need to callibrate this worth which probably means comparing to others.

Now my brain hurts, I give up.

KENAT,

Have you reminded yourself of FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies recently, or taken a look at posting policies: http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?

RE: Keeping your Salary Confidential

I would take offense to any boss who says to keep your job you have to keep your salary secret.

I think it's important to do so. I learned my lesson when at a summer job just after graduating high school. I was collecting signatures for a ballot initiative along with someone else. She asked how much I was getting paid ($6.00/hr) and she said "haha I'm getting paid more. I get $7.00 / hr." I didn't think it was very nice how she said it.

But - I don't learn my lesson right away. Shortly afterwards I started working at a car dealership washing cars. A guy got hired after me, and asked how much I was making. I told him $6.00 / hr, and he laughed and said he got $6.50 an hr for the same job.

Thereafter, I decided to not tell anyone how much I am currently making and I stand behind that. I think it causes more problems than it is worth.

However - the decision on to disclose salary is managements decision. Management should be willing to stand and defend their reasons for paying a particular employee xxx if that employee finds out that he is getting paid less than a coworker. That's part of running a business.  

RE: Keeping your Salary Confidential

I go back and forth from wanting to know what my coworkers make to not wanting.  I know they make more then me. Alot more.  As in probably 20-30k more per year.  But I am happy with my current salary.  I have not been here long, have nowhere near the xp they have with our product, and don't have the responsibility they have.  And my salary can only go up (fingers crossed!)

On the other hand I feel it is important to know what you are worth and what competitors pay.  

My last employer, for whatever reason, used to post the salary range of recently hired employees.  It must of been for some law we have about disclosing certain things about new hires.  No names were on it just the job desciption.  But when the low end of the range was more than what I was making for the same position I got upset.

I tend to get myself worked up over such things.  It's better to stay out of it.

I have even gone to online job sites to read the descriptions of new jobs at companies I was currently working at.  HR would always post a salary range.  Used to really get my blood boiling when I found out how little I was worth to them.

To sum up, know what you are worth, and don't worry about what others are making.  It will give you an ulcer ;)

RE: Keeping your Salary Confidential

cksh, I really don't understand your position. Maybe you didn't fully explain, but if its being "happy as a clam", as they say, that's one concept that has eluded me. I'd suggest that you either totally justify to yourself that the others you mention are indeed worth more because of the inherent nature of their specific work roles in relation to yours and be happy with that, which you actually may have done already, or take the bull by the horns and make the changes you need to feel right about the apparent disparities. I actually believe that if you do something about it, you will personally feel better about your place there and probably also become a more productive and valuable contributor to the group effort as well.  Did I get it wrong?

RE: Keeping your Salary Confidential

The real question isn't about what you are worth (even compared to co-workers and especially as management will never ever pay you what you are worth) but what you can screw out of management.

If a colleague earns more than you, it isn't necessarily because he is a better engineer than you but a better negotiator (or better at brown-nosing). See if you can find out how he did it.

If you know the salaries of others, then judge it in those terms but if you really want to worry about unequal pay, just ask why you, a smart and essential engineer, get paid so much less than the plug-in replaceable dime a dozen idiot who is a manager.

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

RE: Keeping your Salary Confidential

A technician here found out that the technicians at the other plant a few miles away were making more than the techs here.  Well he raised hell at a meeting and the company ended up bringing in an outside consulting firm to do a study and they reported that it was true.  This resulted in higher wages for all techs at our plant.

RE: Keeping your Salary Confidential

Giving out pay rises on their own judgement would get them in trouble with the "shareholders" but when there is bad news to give to the shareholders it is always better if it is someone else's bad news, with an "independent consultants" report to refer to it is obviously not the fault of management that they have had to increase salaries.

Of course, the shareholders might want to know why the employed a consultant in the first place.

Interesting thing about some consultants, especially I, suspect, those that conduct market research, is that in order for them to find the answers for you, you need to tell them the questions to ask (it's your business, not theirs).
This means that mostly what they tell you, you already know. That's OK, if there are any surprises then is the time to worry what else you didn't understand, but you'd be surprised how surprised management can be by this.

I had a situation like that where I'd done my homework but management don't easily part with $0.5m funding on a single market applications and obviously didn't like to trust my word for it and so they hired a respectable market research company and we worked out what questions to ask.

None of the answers they gave surprised us except one: when asked if they wanted a no-maintenance instrument most of the sample said no. The consultant went back to them and asked why not and they said they didn't believe they could have a zero maintenance instrument. We rephrased as "low maintenance" and got a strong positive response. I got the budget and that's what we gave them, zero to low maintenance.

I guess there is a simple rule about consultants reports;
the results should never surprise the below deck workers but should always surprise management. If that happens then God's in his heaven and all's right with the world.



  

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

RE: Keeping your Salary Confidential

When I was working in consulting and managing projects it was simple.  People are always happy to book time to your job and when they do, they are implicitly giving away their salary details.

- Steve

RE: Keeping your Salary Confidential

As has already been pointed out, it's in the company's interest not to publish salaries/raises, and it's generally in the employees interest (to some extent) to know what their peers are earning.  

So... what tends to happen (in my limited experience) is that the companies tell people not to discuss it, and generally people will discuss it furtively behind the boss' backs.

Generally I also agree with the statement that it comes down to your negotiating skills (and willingness to back them up with actions).  If you are valuable to your company and are prepared to leave for a better package, then you are in a strong position and a good manager will make the best offer he/she can.  If you're not irreplacable and/or they know you'll never leave by choice, then you probably won't get the best deal.

I guess most of this comes down to market forces - and as in all things, people try to distort those forces in their own favour.

RE: Keeping your Salary Confidential

As a manager I would like to make a few comments.  Sometimes  your manager or supervisor has no control over your raise and/or bonus.  Most of the time the corporate policy will set what you get unless your manager goes and raises hell about it.

When I first hired on to my current company, I never bothered to review the salary level of the guys working for me until raise time.  I was astonished how little we were paying these guys.  The 5 guys in my department had been with the company for over 6 years (from the beginning) and had missed a big upswing in the oil and gas market.

I went to my boss and HR and raised hell and the hr guy came back with all of these charts and other reems of data.  I will never forget I was lobbying for one guy to double his salary.  HR guy says he was only worth a 10% raise.  We ended up giving him a 16% raise.

Two months after his raise, the guy left for well over double his new salary.  The HR guy couldn't believe it and figured it was an isolated case.  I got the raises I wanted for my guys at the point.

Zuccus

 

RE: Keeping your Salary Confidential

I'll second that.  There was a period of time when I worked for a manager who espoused "stacking", where every employee was ranked by performance and inversely ranked by pay.  The net result was that senior engineers would get next to nothing, so that some of the younger engineers would get 10% or 15% raises.  

An absolutely wonderful demotivator for the people that were actually the most productive.  However, since their productivity was normalized against their salary, they got bupkis in raises.

So, we're now in a strict COLA regime of raises.  It's boring, but steady...

TTFN

FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies

RE: Keeping your Salary Confidential

IRStuff:  get some salary survey data and then decide if COLA alone is sufficient for a young engineer.

In straight dollar terms(ie. NOT allowing for cost of living), the salary track of an Ontario engineer is basically X dollars per year at graduation, ~2X dollars per year once you're out about 20 years from graduation, and near zero real salary growth thereafter.  The rate of salary growth is much faster in the 1st 10 years than in the 2nd.  That's on average terms across all levels/categories, and hasn't changed much over the years.  

If your young engineers aren't getting 10%/yr (including COLA), they're getting screwed.  

RE: Keeping your Salary Confidential

Quote:

If your young engineers aren't getting 10%/yr (including COLA), they're getting screwed.  

The only time I've ever gotten a 10% raise was when I changed jobs.  Sad, but true.  And since pensions are a thing of the past, I'm not very loyal.

RE: Keeping your Salary Confidential

Quote:

The rate of salary growth is much faster in the 1st 10 years than in the 2nd.
That probably just means that the more experienced you are the more stable you are and the less they feel they need to do to keep you happy. This is when the kids are going to college, and the wife will be back to full time work? That's when they think they've got you.

I'm sure we could make a case for an exponential growth in value due to years served.... so why do the "rewards" tail off in the second 10 years?
Are we less productive, less valuable?  

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

RE: Keeping your Salary Confidential

I tried your 10% per year and it is remarkably close to the actual salaries I've made. I knew I should have bargained harder when I was young. An extra grand or two back then would have compounded up nicely.

As for why the rate-of-rise of salary tails off... could it be related to the similar plateau which will be happening in an engineer's knowledge?
  

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If we learn from our mistakes I'm getting a great education!
 

RE: Keeping your Salary Confidential

Did a project back in engineering economics calculating the NPV of a Masters or PhD (neither pay off (in Canada) unless you do them really FAST!).  Reviewing and analyzing salary survey data was very informative- and helped greatly with future salary negotiations.  Early information, like early money, is most valuable!

jmw:  as we get older it's not that we're less productive or less valuable- it's just that we're considered by business to be very little more valuable or productive after 25 years of experience than after 20 years.  

Regardless whether you or I believe that to be untrue, the marketplace begs to differ with us...

RE: Keeping your Salary Confidential

Scotty, I proposed the same thing about an engineers value plateauing a little as they reach the second half of their career.

Even I notice it, I'm still learning stuff but as a % of what I know it's smaller.

Someone in their first few years might easily double the amount of usefull skills/knowledge.  Going from say 20 to 25 years though you probably wont increase your usefull skills/knowledge by 50%.

I still think experience is undervalued by many though, at least in some of the stuff I'm involved in.  The guys in their 60's really know their stuff.

KENAT,

Have you reminded yourself of FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies recently, or taken a look at posting policies: http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?

RE: Keeping your Salary Confidential

2
I'm on the early side of my career (3 years in) I grew up watching companies screw my dads generation with down sizing, firing well paid employees, going off shore and sob story after sob story. As a result my loyalty to a company is only as long as it is until my next pay check.

With guys my age (at least in my circle) we tend to talk about how much we make more that some of the older guys (not old, just older). I know pretty close to what everyone is making (with in 5K or so).

 You have to be wise with the way you use that information. Don't throw your buddy under the bus and tell you boss he told you. Use it like you would KBB or NADA when buying a car. You know what they are willing to pay for someone like you, so demand it.

Life isn't all about money, but work is. Enjoying work (I do a lot) is just a bonus. My real life is with my family and friends. When my job gets in the way of that it is time to get a new one.  

RE: Keeping your Salary Confidential

All the decent raises I ever received came when I changed jobs.

I always did much better in the class and grade system like government than I did in the real private world.  I never talked saleries and found everything out when I put in my resignation.  At that point it was too late.

If you want what you really deserve, go into business for yourself.

RE: Keeping your Salary Confidential

Dinosaur:

I understand the desire to go it alone to get what you deserve, however I think that education and open salary knowledge is much better for our Profession;  The stratification of our specialist knowledge into a multitude of suppliers is tremendously dangerous, and certainly not in our best interest.

I believe the engineering profession, but perhaps even more particularly our specialisation ie Consulting Structural Engineers, as I believe we both are, is so poorly paid compared to fifty years ago precisely because of everyone going it alone.  The market sees us a mature commodity style service, and the competitive bid process ensures that there is always a temptation to cut rates to get work.  I do not, however, see this as simply supply versus demand, it is in fact supply plus stratification vs. demand.

Every person who "goes it alone" does two things, the first of which is pull in better take home pay through profits than they had been in salary, while the second is to further reduce the overall profitability throughout their field of works by adding another bidder to the basket of tenders.

Just my personal opinion.

Regards,

YS

B.Eng (Carleton)
Working in New Zealand, thinking of my snow covered home...

RE: Keeping your Salary Confidential

Management should never reveal salaries, while indivduals should (and generally can, unless the contract spells otherwise) have every right to discuss their salaries and make comparative judgements as to their respective worth. It would be inadvisable to compare their relative worth to other employee's respective salaries during negotiations, as they might not be advised of any specific talents, familial relations, bias, individual preference, or barnyard pictures. If salary was based solely on merit, equal opportunity laws would never exist (as one example). Fair or not, pay does not always relate to value. If you're co-workers are willing to share their salaries, then that gives a better opportunity to substantiate your negotiation position. If you can make a good case, good for you. If it is still unequal (in your eyes, as it is your salary) then look for new employment.
Having been on both sides, the more ammo you have going in, the better off you are. If you base your case on a specific individual, look to get blind sighted. Having worked for a family owned energy consulting business, then seeing them nearly go bankrupt after turning in contracts after walking, dollars aren't always the bottom line, and some people will go for a pyrrhic victory.  

RE: Keeping your Salary Confidential

Before going into a negotiation you should always look for benchmarks to see where you stand or should be.  On the other hand, if your employer doesn't have an employee performance benchmark and they know the average wage, that's what you're gonna get.  Ask me how I know...

RE: Keeping your Salary Confidential

Like one professor once told me:" If you want to start a riot, go to the lounce of an airline and start asking how much the persons there paid for their tickets. You will find that non has paid the exact same amount of the other".
With salaries is the same.
AS I mentioned in other post, I never felt underpaid until I find my current job. It was then that I found that my previous job was underapid fo rhte responsibilities that I was taking. Or that my current job is largely overpaying me... shhh.... Don´t tell anybody...
Regarding discussing salaries, I only do it with my wife and a some very close friends which are not in the same industry or even country, so no direct comparison can be made.
  

RE: Keeping your Salary Confidential

salaries should be confidential.  it's VERY bad form.  

who defines what is under and what is overpaid?  oft times we have a very inflated sense of our abilities and accomplishmentts in relation to our coworkers.    

RE: Keeping your Salary Confidential

if you need the information, go to a source outside of your company.  there might be some mititgating factors that could contribute to salary differences.  worry about what you're getting paid and what you're worth.   

RE: Keeping your Salary Confidential

Mitigating factors like the HR dept want to pay you as little as they can get away with? surprise It's harder for that to happen in an open and visible salary structure.

Personally I'd be happy with a pay grade structure being made visible to employees and knowing the salary range for my position within the company. I don't particularly need to know to the last penny what colleagues are paid, but I expect to be paid at a similar rate to colleagues when I'm doing a similar role.
  

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If we learn from our mistakes I'm getting a great education!
 

RE: Keeping your Salary Confidential

that could be one.  or they might think you either a.  suck or b.  are great which could explain pay discrepancies.

RE: Keeping your Salary Confidential

Yeah, I agree which is why I think a salary range should be published rather than specifics. If you are near the bottom of the range and you've been there a while you probably suck sad and if you're near the top after a year then you are probably great. smile
  

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If we learn from our mistakes I'm getting a great education!
 

RE: Keeping your Salary Confidential

but knowing who sucks and who's great doesn't exactly help office morale.  that's between the managers and individual employees.  

RE: Keeping your Salary Confidential

I dont think scotty is saying to publish the range of individuals, but the range as it relates to the various job function so for example there might be 3 ranges with a management clasiffication. Two individuals may be classified as managers but none know what level the other is at. Knowing the range also helps in determining if a job is worth-while interviewing for. In the organisation that I work there were ranges, however this was eliminated by a recent reclassification. What this is saying is that it is either your are competent to be at that level or if you are not then you should not be there. This serves to also eliminate the subjectivity that can exist in moving within a particular classification.

RE: Keeping your Salary Confidential

I wonder how many of you have found that the better you do your job the less likely management are to move you out of it i.e. promotion. So you may feel content with your pay knowing you are at the top and you may be content with your position, but some of you may feel you wanted to move up a grade to a better salary structure.

Of course management would never keep someone in a lower grade when they ought to be pushing them up the ladder to more responsible and productive positions.

JMW
www.ViscoAnalyser.com
 

RE: Keeping your Salary Confidential

opmgr1,

Thank you, at least someone understood what I was trying and failing to say!

jmw,

Yes, seen that happen quite a bit. The decision process follows the lines of "Shall we move an experienced and talented engineer into a management position and leave a hole which is almost impossible to fill in today's recruitment market, or shall we move someone less capable into the management position and avoid weakening the engineering core by moving one of the best engineers?". I understand the logic which arrives at this decision, but am continuously surprised that the thought process doesn't continue into "What will we do when the talented and experienced guy gets so pissed off being passed over time and again that his motivation dies, he resigns and we lose the skills and experience entirely?".

In my simple non-manager view of the world - and as one of the guys who has caught the fallout when talented people left - I always thought it made more sense to keep the experience within the company in some role rather than lose it to a competitor.
  

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If we learn from our mistakes I'm getting a great education!
 

RE: Keeping your Salary Confidential

The way to make that happen would be a technical track that keeps up with the management track, but HR can never grasp that concept.

RE: Keeping your Salary Confidential

There's no benefit to management making salarys public.

My Dad always said "At the end of the day, you and your employer had better be even because they will let you go with nothing if they have to".

As an engineer and then an engineering  manager I have to admit it makes life EASIER for management if employees are in the dark.

As you get older, your value to most firms will be presumed to be less (they think they are paying you too much).  Companies do not pay for experience.  Experience is far underrated and poorly paid.

Like Dad said, "Your are marketing and selling yourself everyday . . . ."  Which means you should be looking to move up or another job all the time.

Companies love the complacent (salary wise) engineer.  

Regards

RE: Keeping your Salary Confidential

What you make when you are initially hired can affect you for the rest of your career at that company.
What you make when you are initially hired not only depends on your skills and knowledge, but also what kind of demand there is for people similar to you that are looking for jobs at the same time that you are. Obviously if the supply is low and the demand is high then the pay will be higher.
Salaries should always be confidential. There really is no benefit to knowing what somebody else makes.

RE: Keeping your Salary Confidential

"As an engineer and then an engineering  manager I have to admit it makes life EASIER for management if employees are in the dark."

And how is that in the interest of anyone but the employer? As an employee your comment is precisely why some salary data should be made public.

If today's employers ever wonder why there is no loyalty from their employees then this thread should be a useful starting point. By the admission of diarmud above it seems the loyal staff guy is a mug being taken for a ride. Faced with employers like you the only way to keep your pay competitive in a bouyant job market is to keep moving, to the long-term detriment of the company. If that's the new rules then I'll play by them, but it's not how I would like to see the game played. A bit of mutual respect goes a long way.

 
jerry,

Are you saying that you think it is reasonable for someone recruited when the job market was flat mean should make less for the rest of their career than someone recruited at another time when the job market is buoyant? That seems a little unreasonable.
 
  

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If we learn from our mistakes I'm getting a great education!
 

RE: Keeping your Salary Confidential

ScottyUK,
Unfortunately, this is the world we live in.  I've seen partners and owners mortgage their homes and cash in their IRA's to keep the firm going.  

What I am trying to say is you have to remember, no one will take care of you except yourself, they cannot afford to for long.  For the same reason you keep educating yourself through your career (to keep yourself useful to your employer and to learn) you have to recognize that this is the world you live in.

As far as long term detriment to the firm, in the USA where I am, no one looks further than the next few years.  Few can look at the long term...bills have to be paid today.

These are not NEW rules.  They are the rules the world has played for for thousand of years.

As far as mutual respect, engineering in the US has become a sort of back room operation.  The front office is full of salesmen, lawyers and accountants.  Get used to it.

Regards

 

RE: Keeping your Salary Confidential

Man, things in the US must be bad. I mean, they ain't rosy in the UK by any means but I don't think it is as bad as what you're describing. If I was over there I think my attitude toward employers would be different. I'm not blindly loyal or anything close to it, but I'm different to the contractors who change job each week for a £1/hr raise.

The massive rise in the numbers of industrial prostitutes contractors in the UK is the result of management who, as a group throughout the nation, can't see further into the future than their next bonus, and the management themselves are a symptom of companies run by accountants and shareholders who are only interested in the five-year forecast and the next dividend. Neither group has any interest in investing in the long term future of the company. No wonder our economy is f_cked.
 
  

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If we learn from our mistakes I'm getting a great education!
 

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