[nmfisher]

Yeah, this explains a lot of it. Lots of people think it's unfair that Jim or Pam makes more than they do, but noone ever is blunt with them that "you're making less because you're not as good as them". Even worse are where they've never been told "you're lucky you still even have a job because I was close to firing you for poor performance".

To be fair, there are also the interesting niche cases where someone is equally capable as Jim/Pam, but they're just not as good at selling themselves. Both cases usually more applicable to larger companies.

[ChuckMcM]

And, perhaps not surprisingly, I think that last example "Not good at selling themselves" is also bad management. While everyone loves flattery, managers who aren't comfortable being objective with comparing work productivity are bad managers. I cannot count the number of times I wished there was something like codeacademy.com for learning management skills.

One thing that impressed me about IBM, during my brief tenure there after the Blekko acquisition, was that they had a very deep catalog of online self paced training material for developing manager skills. I don't know how many people availed themselves of that resource but since that time I have really wished I could have pointed people who were struggling at some of the courses they had.

[bananamansion]

if youre one of the employees that found out youre being paid significantly less than your team how do you convince your manager to increase your pay? Knowing youre high performing

[novok]

If there is a reason that they are perceived as higher performing, maybe you can figure out why. What you might think is important might be different from what your boss think is important as a complete package.

Also a lot of people get really defensive and go into denial mode. Or are really full of themselves. People have a really hard time getting the straight out evaluation, or get despondent, and your manager is trying to give the feedback to the capacity level you have shown.