Businesses could be forced to tell workers what colleagues earn

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>Businesses could be forced to tell workers what their colleagues earn under measures designed to boost pay transparency.

>Ministers are considering how to end pay discrimination, with options including insisting that employers list salary brackets on job adverts and mandating companies to publish pay structures and criteria for progression.

>They are also consulting on whether to increase the level of fines that can be levied on firms that fall foul of equal pay rulings, which will be expanded to include race and disability discrimination.

>The drive is part of an overhaul of equality laws, which would also make public authorities account for socioeconomic disadvantages in their decisions.

I completely agree that we should be more open about what we earn, but anything that focuses on the employer will be worked around in weeks. A rule that says pay bands must be published just means pay bands become huge and all encompassing, and tells you nothing of value.

Unless you can know exactly what someone is on, it’s pointless, which is why we need to remove the cultural taboo and start talking about money. Speak to your colleagues, find out what they’re on, offer to go first, do it at a christmas party after a few drinks, and remember there’s nothing your employer can do about it.

I think this would be positive. 

Secrecy over pay allows businesses to pay employees less and pay unequally. 

I think if everyone found out their colleagues pay, there would be a lot of awkward conversations. 

When I worked for one of the big high street banks they were VERY big on keeping pay quiet. At pay review managers were given a big long blurb to read and use to base their pay conversations on. It went over why pay is confidential and you would be disciplined for discussing it with colleagues.

They even walked the line with US colleagues who have a legal right to discuss wages by saying discussion should be “discouraged”.

Absolutely despicable in my opinion.

As someone who’s been a contractor on a contract with a client under a firm, would this extend to knowing what other contractors who work with a different firm but do the same job role on the same client earn?

Very short sighted thinking

Wages have been stagnant since 2008. Let’s get employers legally bound to annually increase wages of the higher of either inflation or the businesses increase in year on year profit before we start tweaking wages to get everyone paid the same to the penny.

I don’t like this, seems very odd that random colleagues who I don’t know well can know how much I make.

Even when applying for jobs, typically the salary bands are online anyway. Further transparency has the potential to do more harm than good. Specifically around a toxic work environment. I know a fair few colleagues who do fuck all and are likely on more than i am.

I can’t see this happening, however if it did, only base salary would be declared, not commission or bonuses

Good. There should also be a legal requirement for job advertisements to state an exact salary too.

I consider my salary private but I support this:

> also require employers to list salary brackets on job adverts

I hate job ads that say “competitive salary” that turn out to be anything but competitive. Such a waste of time.

I do a lot of contracting work and part of the deal is salary negotiation. If I am being offered a job by two different companies both very keen for me to work for them and they have others doing the same role, surely a company who really wants me can no longer offer me more than the rival company if that meant they had to then reveal my salary to the rest of the team, who may have varying levels of competencies and skillsets and who may then demand equal pay?

Therefore to secure my employment, most likely you wouldn’t be able to use a higher salary as a negotiating tool without most likely offering everyone else a payrise too?

Yes please.

Also; mandatory for actual minimum salary amount to be shown in any job advert, in £.

We did a balancing exercise last year where every team member (in the same position) in our team had their pay aligned. It meant a good bump for some members and a below inflation rise / freeze for others. Going forward everyone in that role is on the same pay and they know this.

The salary is also aligned to market rates every 3 years so new staff coming in aren’t at a huge advantage.

I’ve worked in places before where salaries have ranged from £60k to £95k for the same role within the team. The thing is the team almost always know or at least get a good feel for what others earn so all it does is breed resentment.

A situation in my previous workplace:

Colleague A was a manager to colleague B. Colleague A had more experience, more knowledge, and of course took on more responsibilities as they were a manager. While there was certainly nothing wrong with the quality or volume of Colleague B’s work, it was obvious that Colleague A was particularly talented at their job.

Colleague A found out that they were being paid less than Colleague B. They asked for a pay review and a modest salary increase, which was denied. The reason? Because Colleague A was a single person, whereas Colleague B had a family.

Colleague A promptly got a new job with a 40-something-% salary increase, and the department fell apart without them. Edit: and the rest of the team found out that there wasn’t much point progressing at the company for such poor pay, so we slowly started to leave too.

I mean all this would do would push employer’s to give employees doing the same job the same base salary, then big bonuses depending on performance (like sales).

Push people to work harder for more bonus.