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My company has transparent salaries since the beginning 14 years ago.

Funnily, in the words of one of the co-founders, it's more a mere accident than a clear will from the beginning : "we did not really plan it that way, but back then, it was easier to let the document listing the salaries open for everyone than restricting its access to a few persons" and they decided to keep it that way ever since :) We always ask a new recruit which salary he/she wants publicly (by that I mean in front of a not insignificant part of the company, we are 50) and show them salaries of other people in case it does not really fit.

We are also experimenting with allowing people to choose their salary after 3 years in the company (there's a process and some caveats of course).

And we did not really see any downside so far

Truly an interesting approach, thanks for sharing. I think the "choose your own salary" in particular is fascinating because with the right culture and the right people, in theory it works exactly as you would hope -- those that are highly driven and want to work epically hard will set their salary and their expectations accordingly. Someone who is looking for more work-life balance might set the bar somewhat lower. As long as there's a feedback cycle which takes salary level as an significant input, it might actually work for a small company. Yadda yadda, plus or minus the Dunning–Kruger effect.

> We are also experimenting with allowing people to choose their salary after 3 years in the company (there's a process and some caveats of course).

Why wouldn't everyone ask for the maximum amount your company is willing to give? I don't really care if Mark from billing is getting paid 1/3rd of what I'm asking for, what I care about is if you'll give it to me...

Hey I know who is coming in Saturday to fix the prod bug, the guy that picked 500k salary ;)

Although maybe for some people they would want the extra work for extra money and it could be a win win.

Uh, hell yes I'd come in on Saturday to fix that bug if you pay me 500k.

How about current salary plus 10k? 20k? Everyone has a price :)

> Why wouldn't everyone ask for the maximum amount your company is willing to give?

Is there really a problem with that? Shouldn't everybody be getting this already?

I bet the GP's company can retain good people, and can afford to train them, so they can retain even better people.

Well, I can't answer this question for 2 reasons : 1. This is the first year this has been done (well, apparently, it was like that also in the past when there were only 6/7 people but that's a different dynamic I guess). 2. I will myself be part of this process only from next January on, so I was not in the room so to say.

Everyone is free to ask what they want. They are assessed by the others though. The process is the following (again, I'm not part of it yet, so it's only what I remember being told) : - You give your number in front of everybody else (here it means people in the "choose your salary category"). - People can make remarks directly or later if they choose to do so - 1 week later, people meet again, and give a possibly updated number based on the feedback they got. They can also justify this number (be it because it's too "low" or it's too "high". For instance, you have the right to say "I had a hard year last year, I prefer to take it a bit more easy this year, therefore I put a lower number").

If there is a very big mismatch, then it can be decided there is no agreement and we should probably stop working together. Anyway, with a "normal" system, an employee would not have had the salary he/she asked for and would probably have looked elsewhere for a new job. Here at least it's pretty clear. It can also be decided that the salary is granted but he/she has a year to prove he/she's worth it.

The goal is to have transparency, so all those decisions are clear from the beginning and throughout the process. Otherwise, it's useless.

>We always ask a new recruit which salary he/she wants publicly (by that I mean in front of a not insignificant part of the company, we are 50) and show them salaries of other people in case it does not really fit

This smells the subtle management trick. As far as I can see you create a peer pressure. These people shouldn't come into play in the salary discussion, the salary discussion should be solely based on : what do I deserve to earn based on what I will bring to the company. Putting these people in the room - even if they don't speak - is a very sophisticated mecanism subtly repositioning the whole thing.

I would personally smell it and would filter myself out as I dislike companies using subtle management tactics very much. And I think many other people would.

Just by seeing this, I can also derive that this company is full of politics and change happens slowly there.

You can smell whatever you want, but that's not at all what is happening.

Is there politics within the company ? Yes, of course, like in any assembly of human beings.

This is not a management trick at all. Not everybody does have the same salary, some are better than others at negociating. But if there is a too big difference of people with the same level, then that is what creates problem.

By the way, it happened more than one time that we told a candidate he should up his salary, because it was too low compared to what we are paying similar employees. So, it goes both ways. And that's exactly about "what someone deserved to earn based on what he brings".

People are not "put into the room". Simply, the final step of a recruitment is an oral presentation on the topic of the choice of the candidate. Anybody can join. And whoever is in the room has a right to say something while the candidate is here, and once he's gone and we decide if he's hired or not.

This is a ritual of the company, everybody had to go through this (except trainees who were later hired).

> always ask a new recruit which salary he/she wants publicly (by that I mean in front of a not insignificant part of the company, we are 50) and show them salaries of other people in case it does not really fit.

That sounds absolutely awful.

I saw a documentary a few years ago about Pimlico Plumbers, a large plumbing firm near where I live in London, who went transparent and revealed all the employees' salaries to their colleagues. It was interesting because salary transparency was not part of the company culture all along; it was an experiment in changing the status quo of an already-large workforce.

It did not go entirely smoothly: there was significant anger and resentment in the workforce at first, but eventually things smoothed over and (as I recall) everyone ended up more-or-less happy.

I dug out a review of the doc, if you're interested: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/9393303/Show-M...

You should never calculate stock options, or bonuses into your base salary, ever. I don't care what anyone says. Bonuses, and stocks are exactly that. Bonuses and stocks. They are great when they are way up, and shitty when they are way down. For the first time in fifteen years, I didn't get a bonus, and the stock price is way down. Never, ever, let someone hiring you convince you otherwise. They tried this when I got hired, and I held out, until my base pay was something reasonable.

I disagree. While it might be difficult to calculate the value of stock options and bonuses, they are part of your compensation for working at the company. If the company gives you a car for free use, it's also a compensation. At least the tax office in the country I live taxes the car as a part of an income.

Well I don't agree with you. A car is a bit different story, since it has an immediate impact on your compensation. You no longer are paying for a car/gas the entire time you're employed. Granted, that could also disappear one day. Stocks and bonuses need to vest, and there is no guarantee they will ever show up.

What is your bonus going to be next year? How much are you going to spend operating a car next year?

I would agree about stock options. They're so risky as to generally be almost worthless.

I don't agree about bonuses. Bonuses aren't guaranteed, but at well-established companies with healthy rewards cultures, there will be a target amount you can expect if you do your job. You should still discount bonus somewhat when comparing offers, but I would not discount it to zero.

It's not always dependent on your job. We work our ass off, travel around the world maintaining systems. However the company on a whole is hurting, because the oil and gas industry is hurting. I have nothing to do with that. Is that fair? Absolutely not. But it's not based on individual performance.

Bonuses cut because the company is suffering is always a possibility. But then so are layoffs and salary cuts. I would not discount bonuses entirely just because they are not 100% guaranteed.

On 3: I suspect that it's hard to get too precise on the A+++ to B grading scale. It's an imperfect measure and there's already plenty of disagreement between 4, let alone going to 10. You can fix some of the bias by using other measures that may correlate to the grade, but also provide some other guidance. Years of experience is one of them. You'll see that grade has a much higher impact than years of experience, so it's just modifying the total on the margin.

I haven't worked at a company with total transparency, at least not at the worker bee level. I have worked at partnerships where all the partners knew what each other made, and it was generally heavily weighted towards seniority. The system seemed to work better than I would have expected. My experience in "secret" systems is any time two people compare salary, one gets very pissed off. This is why I keep my comp private.

Stack employee here:

1) yes we have stock options, and no, they are not documented.

2) we have no bonus

3) years of experience are factored in because they bring value which is not expressed elsewhere and because they reflect market value.

I'd argue that experience should be a prime factor in salary. Ability is also a key component but not a substitute for hard won experience. Of course not all experience is equal but four things to be gained with experience that ability can not sub for:

1. Pattern matching on ways and processes to solve problems, otherwise known as the "been there, done that" effect. Seeing something that is the same or very similar to something that you have already done allows you numerous ways to improve upon it.

2. Greater depth of tools in the toolbag. May not be true of all experience but for a lot of people, the longer you have worked in the industry the more likely it is that you have stored process and approaches that you know work. This always more time to focus on the truly new and novel parts of the problem at hand.

3. Higher levels of respect from other team members. Again depends on the person in question but it's easier to speak authoritively on a subject when you have experience in that subject.

4. Record of dedication. If you have been the industry for 18 years it's pretty clear that this is your passion and you are likely in it for the long haul.

This is a salary calculator, not a compensation calculator. Bonuses and options are not part of an employees salary. I imagine years of experience is measured as some value beyond skill. Knowing when to do and not do certain things seems like it would fall under experience, and not necessarily skill.

As per the experience, I think it makes sense, both for real life and role playing games :)