I don’t own a company but I guarantee you that public disclosure of what everyone makes will result in more in issues than it will solve.

the only people who benefit from nobody knowing what everyone makes are the companies and the people who make the most

I'm not sure if it's necessary to know everyone's exact salary, but I believe transparency in salary bands and clear criteria/benchmarks for raises and promotions would be extremely beneficial for employees.

Like exposing nepotism, sexism and other biases in the workplace? Yes it will be messy at first, but will lead to more clearly defined benchmarks for salary

if you're angry at your coworker for the amount of money they make/you don't make and not the people making the hiring decisions and the executives, it's misdirected. we need to stop fighting each other over crumbs and turn our attention to the people with full loaves of bread.

also pretty lazy to avoid doing anything about a system that's rife with corruption and discrimination because "oh no it'll be hard". will issues arise? sure. but there are plenty of issues now. if you really believe in making pay more fair for the people who deserve it instead of rewarding overconfidence and nepotism, you'll think the growing pains associated with a new system are worth the effort and tackle them with energy and optimism.

PM1: have you ever worked with a peer who just plain sucked? As in, this person doesn’t pull their own weight and really just half asses to get by?
Suppose compensation is public and he makes the same as you for the same role and title, would you demand more because you think you’re more valuable than they are?

Suppose this person makes less than you and they demand equal pay. The transparency will force leadership to provide that person with equal pay. Where do you think that money comes from? Probably your bonus/raise.

So salary equality discourages effort. Any inequality will require justification- and that’s a huge can of worms. How do you quantify one person being worth $3500 more per year? And justify that to ALL parties?

i'm pretty sure the prevailing school of thought for forever now has been that sharing salaries is bad because upper management knows what's best for its feeble-minded workers, so if anything, that's the popular belief. it takes critical thinking to consider why upper management may not actually have our best interests in mind and to come up with new, better, more transparent ways of handling salaries and raises like the people in this thread have done and no critical thinking to just dig in your heels in upholding the status quo.

Unless this guarantee is backed by Menards It means nothing to me

I agree that being able to gauge a baseline rate is valuable. But unfortunately that won’t be the end of it. Do you think people won’t be measuring their worth against their peers?

Everyone has some sort of preconception of how they stack up against others. I guarantee that those preconceptions won’t match up. When the salaries are revealed there will be resentment galore.

Any good manager SHOULD be able to defend the salaries of their employees. Maybe they’ve really been busting their ass, or they won a couple awards. The problem with keeping these things secret is managers can easily give their friends a bump in wage just because they’re better at kissing ass. I’m not sure if that’s the kind of skill we should be rewarding when it comes to income.

As a whole, we need to get over this fear of discussing money. The truth is your income affects most of your life and it’s the main reason we work. Being open about wages will allow for better conversations at the negotiating table that don’t walk around the elephant in the room.

I was accidentally exposed to the salaries of my peers and the rest of my team. What it did was the following:
1. Made me resent my career band peers because they were making 20-30K more than I was and I could quantify that I had a higher workload.
2. Made me resent my boss for allowing such menial raises because they didn’t fight to make sure I had some comparable pay. HR had to step in and correct them.
3. Remind me that years of experience, job hopping and opening your mouth and asking have a lot to do with getting what you earn. I stopped acting shy and started becoming more confident in who I was and what I deserve.

What are the issues you'd expect to arise?

Upon further reflection, I’d accept a Men’s Wearhouse guarantee as well.

this kind of shroud over salaries, raises etc. hurts historically disenfranchised people the most, as they tend to undervalue themselves and/or have less robust networks going in to guide them on what they should expect and how to sell themselves. making it more transparent would be doing something huge and concrete for diversity and inclusion.

It’s always fascinating encountering people who align not only with corporations but also actively against humans

The good news is we already have plenty of examples for how this works. Government agencies disclose salaries and plenty of other companies/industries publish salary bands and pay grades for all positions. I find that the only people who have issues with the concept are those that benefit from being compensated more than their counterparts and the companies themselves.

Depends on the role, but let's say non-admin where one you can compare performance. If goals are set annually, bi-annually, or whenever else you can easily prove merit would be earned.

This main reason why people should be able to discuss salaries is to gauge a baseline range for where they should be. Without that info, a company can say that they've always paid this role X rate even if it is 20-30% lower than the average.

clearly you’ve never learned that you’re being under-compensated while working like crazy and barely making ends meet. it’s not about creating issues, it’s about knowing your worth and demanding you’re being compensated for it. it’s business and no amount of agency “culture” is going to make up for the lack of dollars in my paycheck.

It’s just as fascinating to see full grown adults not only blindly adhering to a popular belief but also incapable of critical thought.

If i knew everyones salary at a company i can offer to do same job for less money..so ya go for disclosure and see how that works out.