[wccrawford]

My father once told me that money is how the company tells you how much they value you.

It isn't just about the money, it's about the respect. Many, many people leave jobs because of the salary. Not just they need more money, but because they know they're worth more than that and can get it.

Those people are not going to bother looking at jobs that pay less than they're worth. They are absolutely going to look at the money first, and other benefits after. All those benefits matter, but money is the one that's forced their hand. And by extension, respect.

[munk-a]

To follow up on this point. It's not just the amount that is about pay either... it's the fact that, during the job seeking process, you as an employer respect me enough to be transparent about what you're paying.

And, on a personal note, transparent wages are known to help break underpayment cycles where workers have been repeatedly underpaid and at each new opportunity their compensation is based on "Well what did you make in your previous job?" - a lack of pay transparency can end up giving people with social difficulties or who are of a visible minority much less take home. I want to work at a company where everyone is respected and valued because those companies are more successful in the long term. "Those who would give up company morale, to purchase a little temporary profit, deserve neither profits nor morale." - Benjamin Franklin (probably)

[jacquesm]

And, importantly: they indicate to the sitting crew how much they could make in their current jobs if they were to apply externally, and it isn't rare at all for that to be substantially more than they are making at present. So salary transparency helps employees evaluate their position across the board, not just new hires: if things are fair then there is no problem, but if things are not then employers will be loath to create such transparency because it equates to a break-off risk or an across the board raise.

[SauciestGNU]

Yeah this is exactly what I just went through, from making $70k-ish in a LCOL area to now triple that without moving. My coworkers knew their pay was low but not by how much. I did the best I could to be transparent with them on my way out. I'm curious just how many of them are planning on staying.

[ActorNightly]

There is a lot more complexity to this.

For example, I used to work in a SCIF for a government contractor in Northern Virginia, making 95k. No windows, no internet, no cell phone, no outside software without an approval process (had to manually burn linux packages to a CD, often multiple times a day because of dependencies).

Then I got a job at Amazon in their Austin location, essentially almost tripling my salary with the stock growth pre pandemic, with way better work environment, way easier work, but also with teammates with way less skill (after all, writing java web services isn't that hard)

So naturally, as my team and teams around us were hiring, to take advantage of the referral bonus, I contact all my old teammates, who would have easily aced the interview because they all had plenty of experience writing low level C code that was highly optimized, to suggest they apply.

Should be a no brainer, Austin had low cost of living back 5 years ago, no state income tax, your would be making way more, right?

Out of the 20 that I contacted, of them wanted to join. A lot of them were either single or with girlfriends, i.e without family, so relocation would not have been an issue. But they were perfectly content being way underpaid, living in a shitty area with high CoL. Still to this date don't know why. Seems like people value a certain things other than money.

[Broken_Hippo]

A lot of them were either single or with girlfriends, i.e without family, so relocation would not have been an issue.

Just because someone is single doesn't mean they don't have family and friends in the area. The further the move, the less contact they have with their existing social network. Not everyone is up for that, especially if you are moving a decent distance (like between states).

[wccrawford]

Oy, yeah. Getting people to even consider changing jobs is really tough. I've been surprised by it in the past, but I'm less and less surprised by it as I see it happen more.

I feel some of it myself, so I can understand it, but it's crazy hard for so many people.

[7402]

Respect to your father, who knew what he was talking about.

In a similar story, my father once told me, "People are always happy to pay you less than you are worth."

[trentnix]

It also provides insight into the type of talent you can expect to work with. I work best when working with smart people that I can learn from and that challenge me. On the average, those types aren't going to be found in workplaces that aren't aggressive in how they compensate talent.