[spcoll]

I see it more as leveling the playing field. Women are less aggressive and ruthless in negotiations, and that contributes to the staggering pay gap we see in tech and elsewhere. This gap needs to end, and such a measure might well prove effective.

Such a measure will also mean that aggressive salary negotiators will go elsewhere after their attempts at negotiation are rejected by Reddit HR. Since these people are almost always male, that's a win. It will result in a workplace with less men : )

[RexRollman]

The goal should not be to hire more of any particular gender. The goal should be to hire the best, most qualified people (although I believe it is okay to use diversity as a factor if one has to choose between two identically qualified applicants).

Eliminating salary negoiation just because woman are not good at is stupid. It baby's them.

[dragonwriter]

Whether it is gender-associated or not, if negotiation skill isn't what your company is seeking in employees, it shouldn't be providing premium compensation for it (and,consequently, inferior compensation for people with the skills you do want that lack negotiation skills.)

[smsm42]

Negotiation is not directly required skill, but refusing to negotiate will deprive them of candidates with other valuable skills, just because they would take better offer from elsewhere. It's not like negotiation is like performing some circus trick and getting paid for how well you performed it. It's finding a balance between what the company thinks you're worth and what you think you're worth and what you can get in the market. If Reddit says "we have predefined price and won't move" then either they would consistently overpay (which I have hard time believing in) or they would lose candidates that have better options. Usually such candidates are not the very worst ones.

[eonw]

agreed! its just teaching them to not learn a very valuable skill in this life. how will they deal with the next contract negotiation?

[marssaxman]

How many engineers do you know who negotiate over contracts as part of their work responsibilities?

[eonw]

if they plan to move up in the world, they may need to. negotiation isn't solely used in professional work either.

[nsxwolf]

Why don't women learn how to be better negotiators? I resisted the urge to say "Why don't we teach women to be better negotiators", because that sounds pretty sexist. But this whole thing sounds pretty sexist to me anyway.

[marssaxman]

What does salary negotiation have to do with engineering skill? Why should a company reward some employees more than others just because they happen to have superfluous skills they will never use in their daily work?

[smsm42]

You are saying it like salary is the sole decision of the company - they and only they decide what to reward and what not to reward. Thus, you pre-accepted the premise there can be no negotiation - no wonder with this pre-accepted premise you find nothing wrong with it! In fact, however, the size of the reward is a product of mutual agreement. So the right thing to ask is - why would the engineer want more money? What getting more money does with engineering skill? Maybe nothing, maybe something - but if you hate getting paid, feel free not to negotiate. If, however, you still have some uses for that root of all evil called money, then feel free to negotiate and take at least part of the control for your pay to yourself.

The whole premise that people - women or men - are not to participate in determining their future with the company, at least in the compensation aspect, but only can be externally evaluated, given something and have no further input in the process but either blindly accept whatever they are given or hit the road - sounds kind of demeaning to me. Negotiation is part of what mature adults do to arrive to commonly acceptable goal. Saying "here's your allowance and not a dime more" is how a parent communicates to a child. Not an equal standing.

[querulous]

because women who push back in negotiations are labelled 'hard to work with' and worse. women who attempt to negotiate can jeopardize their employment opportunities; something that rarely happens to men in the same situation

[2xlbuds]

Would you rather have a world when the pay gap is lessened by making men make less money, or by making women make more money? Because this is the former, and it's not good for anyone except for Reddit's bottom line.

[greenyoda]

In the long run, it may not even be good for Reddit. The best job candidates (both male and female) will probably receive several competing job offers, and if the other companies are willing to negotiate salary while Reddit isn't, Reddit could end up losing all the best candidates to their competitors.

[dragonwriter]

If they are eliminating negotiation, them either their offers need to be better than before or they'll lose talent. I suspect that the result of this will be people with less negotiating skill making more money in jobs where the skill is irrelevant to job duties and people with more negotiating skill making less than now in the same jobs at reddit. It won't be one side, and it won't particularly be about gender except to the extent that gender happens to correspond with negotiating skill and/or desire to have negotiation be part of the hiring process (the later more affecting who decides to apply to reddit in the first place.)