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Who gains, who loses?

A lot of us are uncomfortable talking about how much we earn. In fact, some organisations even make keeping your salary confidential an HR policy (check your contracts!). Often, the vague and unsubstantiated reason is pay transparency will encourage an unhealthy culture that leads to conflicts and complaints.

But often being secretive about our pay benefits employers more than employees (e.g. cost savings). Keeping you in the dark about how much your peers get paid creates information asymmetry. This means your employer has more and better knowledge about the distribution of wages across the organisation; and as we all know, knowledge = power. This is bad because:

• Worker has less info on wages → less bargaining power when negotiating for pay (see our IG post on asking for a raise) → cost savings for employer

• Where there is a gender pay gap, this also means women find it more difficult to achieve parity

• Not being transparent can lead to guessing and speculating, which actually DOES create that unhealthy culture that pits employees against each other

Not so nice, eh?

So...tell everyone?

Not exactly. The best people to tell are your friends who work in similar industries or sectors, because there is no real loss to the person earning more for being open, and the person earning less stands only to gain.

Knowing about the pay gap aids in deciding your next career move (be it to ask for a raise, work towards one, or start looking for a company that will pay you better for the work you’re doing…though of course, pay isn’t the only reason to consider when quitting – more on this next time!).

Who should you not share with? Maybe not your direct teammates, although this is really up to your own comfort and trust levels with your colleagues (and of course, be aware of your company’s policy on this before you share).

And definitely NOT a prospective employer. Disclosing your current or last-drawn salary compromises your position in negotiations for your next job. If a hiring manager asks for your current salary, counter with a question on how much they might value the prospective role at (it’s useful for you to do some research before, and come to your own position on how much you believe the role should pay).

TLDR

• Secrecy helps employers cut costs by underpaying you

• Knowing how you compare increases your bargaining power

• Check with peers in the same industry/sector on wages…

• …but think twice before sharing in the same workplace

• Don’t let prospective hiring managers know your last-drawn