| I have incredibly mixed feelings about this. Zero-negotiation policies are great tools for eliminating unfairness if executed well, the problem is that you still force the employee to end "trusting someone at their word", and every company claims they're going to make a fair, standard offer. Here's the thing: 1) Yes, being strict and almost formulaic will reduce inequality and increase probability that folks are compensated according to actual value. 2) But you need meaningful transparency around this. I guarantee you, 100% that if I had a live offer at Reddit, I could find some way to negotiate some additional crap that amounted to a meaningful compensation bump in the end. 3) Every company that does this ends up making exceptions for people the higher-up you go. Wealthfront, Stack Exchange, and now Reddit, will join the club of companies that negotiate with execs they hire, VCs, and bizdev partners, suppliers - basically, everybody except their employees. And even then only "most of the time"- there are always exceptions - just hold out for a higher comp band. Get a stronger inside referral. It's always possible. Something very close to the Buffer model is the only real way to do things. You can tweak the variables, but you need strictness and transparency. https://open.bufferapp.com/buffer-open-equity-formula/ Ellen, Alexis - If you're reading this, I'd love a chance to understand your challenges in crafting these policies, and see if I could offer any input from my perspective as well. (Source I founded http://OfferLetter.io - we help engineers and other tech workers negotiate for what they're worth. I've personally had literally hundreds of conversations with folks about this.) |