[Gmo]

My company has transparent salaries since the beginning 14 years ago.

Funnily, in the words of one of the co-founders, it's more a mere accident than a clear will from the beginning : "we did not really plan it that way, but back then, it was easier to let the document listing the salaries open for everyone than restricting its access to a few persons" and they decided to keep it that way ever since :) We always ask a new recruit which salary he/she wants publicly (by that I mean in front of a not insignificant part of the company, we are 50) and show them salaries of other people in case it does not really fit.

We are also experimenting with allowing people to choose their salary after 3 years in the company (there's a process and some caveats of course).

And we did not really see any downside so far

[r2dnb]

>We always ask a new recruit which salary he/she wants publicly (by that I mean in front of a not insignificant part of the company, we are 50) and show them salaries of other people in case it does not really fit

This smells the subtle management trick. As far as I can see you create a peer pressure. These people shouldn't come into play in the salary discussion, the salary discussion should be solely based on : what do I deserve to earn based on what I will bring to the company. Putting these people in the room - even if they don't speak - is a very sophisticated mecanism subtly repositioning the whole thing.

I would personally smell it and would filter myself out as I dislike companies using subtle management tactics very much. And I think many other people would.

Just by seeing this, I can also derive that this company is full of politics and change happens slowly there.

[Gmo]

You can smell whatever you want, but that's not at all what is happening.

Is there politics within the company ? Yes, of course, like in any assembly of human beings.

This is not a management trick at all. Not everybody does have the same salary, some are better than others at negociating. But if there is a too big difference of people with the same level, then that is what creates problem.

By the way, it happened more than one time that we told a candidate he should up his salary, because it was too low compared to what we are paying similar employees. So, it goes both ways. And that's exactly about "what someone deserved to earn based on what he brings".

People are not "put into the room". Simply, the final step of a recruitment is an oral presentation on the topic of the choice of the candidate. Anybody can join. And whoever is in the room has a right to say something while the candidate is here, and once he's gone and we decide if he's hired or not.

This is a ritual of the company, everybody had to go through this (except trainees who were later hired).

[zaroth]

Truly an interesting approach, thanks for sharing. I think the "choose your own salary" in particular is fascinating because with the right culture and the right people, in theory it works exactly as you would hope -- those that are highly driven and want to work epically hard will set their salary and their expectations accordingly. Someone who is looking for more work-life balance might set the bar somewhat lower. As long as there's a feedback cycle which takes salary level as an significant input, it might actually work for a small company. Yadda yadda, plus or minus the Dunning–Kruger effect.

[dimino]

> We are also experimenting with allowing people to choose their salary after 3 years in the company (there's a process and some caveats of course).

Why wouldn't everyone ask for the maximum amount your company is willing to give? I don't really care if Mark from billing is getting paid 1/3rd of what I'm asking for, what I care about is if you'll give it to me...

[Gmo]

Well, I can't answer this question for 2 reasons : 1. This is the first year this has been done (well, apparently, it was like that also in the past when there were only 6/7 people but that's a different dynamic I guess). 2. I will myself be part of this process only from next January on, so I was not in the room so to say.

Everyone is free to ask what they want. They are assessed by the others though. The process is the following (again, I'm not part of it yet, so it's only what I remember being told) : - You give your number in front of everybody else (here it means people in the "choose your salary category"). - People can make remarks directly or later if they choose to do so - 1 week later, people meet again, and give a possibly updated number based on the feedback they got. They can also justify this number (be it because it's too "low" or it's too "high". For instance, you have the right to say "I had a hard year last year, I prefer to take it a bit more easy this year, therefore I put a lower number").

If there is a very big mismatch, then it can be decided there is no agreement and we should probably stop working together. Anyway, with a "normal" system, an employee would not have had the salary he/she asked for and would probably have looked elsewhere for a new job. Here at least it's pretty clear. It can also be decided that the salary is granted but he/she has a year to prove he/she's worth it.

The goal is to have transparency, so all those decisions are clear from the beginning and throughout the process. Otherwise, it's useless.

[brianwawok]

Hey I know who is coming in Saturday to fix the prod bug, the guy that picked 500k salary ;)

Although maybe for some people they would want the extra work for extra money and it could be a win win.

[dimino]

Uh, hell yes I'd come in on Saturday to fix that bug if you pay me 500k.

[brianwawok]

How about current salary plus 10k? 20k? Everyone has a price :)

[marcosdumay]

> Why wouldn't everyone ask for the maximum amount your company is willing to give?

Is there really a problem with that? Shouldn't everybody be getting this already?

I bet the GP's company can retain good people, and can afford to train them, so they can retain even better people.

[serge2k]

> always ask a new recruit which salary he/she wants publicly (by that I mean in front of a not insignificant part of the company, we are 50) and show them salaries of other people in case it does not really fit.

That sounds absolutely awful.