> All arguments against salary transparency seem to be that people will be unhappy when they find out that the company has screwed them over and therefore it's better for these people to be ignorant.
Why do you assume someone making less is being "screwed over"? Imagine employees A and B. B greatly outperforms A and therefore rightly makes more. However, A is delusional about his skills and thinks he is as good as B. Pay information is made transparent and A sees he is making less. This makes him mad because by all rights he ought to be making as much as B! This type of comparison/resentment might make A want to quit or ask for a raise, whereas before he was both content and fairly paid at his performance level.
Sounds like the only benefit is keeping A in his delusion, instead of informing him via a competitive market that his skill is not as high as he thought he'd be. Oh, and saving the company money. And making it easier to have private favorites.
If someone is in an executive position, and something like you describe happens, it is their fucking job description to resolve the problem. Meanwhile, by having open salaries, everyone has the information needed for a competitive market. Including college graduates, who get screwed over routinely
//Edit: Oh, and if A ever DOES need to find a new job and advertises his "delusional" skills, either him or his next company will feel the pain from the lack of price information here
Companies not over-paying for their resources is generally a pretty critical factor in them staying solvent and being able to employ people, rather than a nice-to-have.
To put it another way, it's a pretty critical factor in ensuring that more wealth flows into profits rather than salaries and a way to keep sickly companies afloat via the deception of their employees.
Then A is free to do so, but if he's not actually worth more, then he's likely to find out in his job search that he can't command B's salary. WSJ seems oddly unwilling to let the free market resolve this issue.
I really wish this was true, but alas, there are a lot of devs out there who talk a great interview but can't cut it with the real work. They tend to get hired with inflated salaries, screw up the companies systems for a year and then move on when questions start to get asked (but of course, they'll tell themselves the company changed, not that they've messed up). Unfortunately, there are not enough companies out there who can unearth this type of incompetence before hiring.
Sure, that might happen. But you're invoking a potential problem that might happen, when we have problems (gender and racial pay gaps) that are A. more severe than the potential problem you're invoking, B. already demonstrably occurring, and C. potentially correctable via salary transparency. If we can make a step towards correcting existing problems, and the best argument against it is "this might create a less-severe problem at some point in the future", we should probably take that step.
The solution is for the manager to sit down with A and tell him to stop being a brat.
No, seriously. If A is getting upset because he feels he's not paid "fairly", but A isn't contributing enough to get paid more, then someone needs to tell A exactly why he's being paid less. And if you can't explain why, then you need to reconsider that decision very, very carefully.
This doesn't hold. If A is 'greatly outperforming' then a bonus or incentive can be linked to the greater performance leading to a higher pay.
Without measurements how can we can say who is delusional, A or B? Ultimately transparency benefits everyone except those who currently non transparently draw greater wages without justification.
People will adopt their attitudes, there is no place for immaturity and ego in a professional context.
Why do you assume someone making less is being "screwed over"? Imagine employees A and B. B greatly outperforms A and therefore rightly makes more. However, A is delusional about his skills and thinks he is as good as B. Pay information is made transparent and A sees he is making less. This makes him mad because by all rights he ought to be making as much as B! This type of comparison/resentment might make A want to quit or ask for a raise, whereas before he was both content and fairly paid at his performance level.