The Value of Being Transparent, Especially When It's Hard

http://blog.statuspage.io/the-value-of-being-transparent-when-its-hard

by dannyolinsky • 11 years ago

44 13 11 years ago

blog.statuspage.io

aidanhs• 11 years ago

The links in this article go to some very good case studies on getting the correct tone for downtime status updates.

However, I found the most interesting link the one about open salaries [1] - are there any other businesses doing similar things? I'd be inclined to consider it a very strong mark in their favour as a workplace.

[1] https://open.bufferapp.com/introducing-open-salaries-at-buff...

stevenklein2• 11 years ago

Good question -- I personally don't know of anyone else who is doing the whole "Open Salaries" thing. Does anyone else?

mattoxbeckman• 11 years ago

Maybe not in the same category, but the University of Illinois system has a site where you can look up anyone's salary.

irishcoffee3• 11 years ago

Ironically, I think all government agencies have open pay scales and everyone knows exactly how much everyone else makes.

swombat2• 11 years ago

My company (GrantTree) does totally open salaries. AMA...

shurcooL• 11 years ago

I agree that open salaries are really really nice.

I am only aware of Balanced Payments that used to have it, but unfortunately they've recently shut down.

Chad Whitacre of Gratipay may know if any other companies do this by now.

_benedict• 11 years ago

The idea of open salaries is great, but ultimately it turns all salary negotiations into either a promotion or a collective bargaining situation. The former is obviously harder to obtain, and the latter is very much out of fashion. Organising a labour union in tech seems unlikely to become common place in the near term.

So this trend would shift the cards to the employer unreasonably AFAICT, working to keep salaries suppressed.

Remember that when posting for a new position, salaries are pegged to prevalent market rates. Even bad negotiators as a result benefit from the upward pressure on salaries introduced by good negotiators. If all companies started fixing salaries (which is so far the only way I've seen open salaries implemented), a lot of upward pressure on salaries would be removed, harming all employees, not just the good negotiators.

The Value of Being Transparent, Especially When It's Hard

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