[freyfogle]

In my experience as founder of a 20 plus employee start-up, I assumed all employees would find out each other's salary. There is no way to enforce secrecy, people talk. For exactly this reason it is better to have a clear policy. Having 20 different special deals - like "I want to work one month less, but get paid less" etc - means you spend all of your time managing HR. Everyone thinks the other person's deal is better. Absolute nightmare to manage. Much better to transparently say "This is what we pay, this is what we offer in terms of benefits / flexibility (location, time off, etc). If that matches your needs, great. If not, we are not the right employer for you."

[crdoconnor]

In my experience employers will often profess transparency but will refrain from sharing salary information (citing 'personal secrecy') and rely upon the taboo around discussing compensation do its work, which it usually does.

You sadly professed transparency and then immediately gave the game away when you said this:

"Everyone thinks the other person's deal is better."

That happens when compensation packages are kept secret or are revealed suddenly, not when they are open as a matter of policy.

It's not being 'transparent' when you share details of everybody's holiday entitlement, because it's easy to spot when people aren't in the office and there is zero taboo surrounding sharing how many days of holiday you take or whether you took friday afternoon off. It's simply a tacit acceptance of reality.

[x0x0]

It's actually illegal to attempt to enforce that secrecy, at least in CA.

https://www.dir.ca.gov/dlse/California_Equal_Pay_Act.htm