Should your salary be known to everyone?

[loc]

I also think employers have used the secrecy to their advantage. Sometimes I have found out what others are getting paid and realized I'm being screwed, leading to getting a new job. I've found employers tend to pay new hires more while people who have been there for 2 years don't get increases. If salary was known they would have to give more regular increases to keep people

 

[TJ99]

I don't think salary information should be secret at all. I think employers have created this culture where we don't talk about salaries because it suits them. People who don't know how much their colleagues earn, have a much more difficult time arguing for raises. Imagine if your company hires a guy with the same experience as you but pays him 20% more because he is a new hire. You aren't paid the same because you haven't complained.

This happens often at my work. Only thing is, you can't complain either because you're not supposed to know.

 

[Ancalagon]

Yep, I know myself well enough that I'd be fairly annoyed if someone reporting to me were to earn more than me. That's a stupid example but it's a real example as one of my software developer friends had to deal with that. The inexperienced (in the technology being used) new hire was earning what I'd call significantly more than himself, being the new hire's mentor. He handled it professionally but there was a lot of resentment and eventually the new hire couldn't cope and was given the boot. My friend left not too long after.

This would not have happened if the employer had played open cards. Your friend would have felt comfortable approaching management and motivating for a salary adjustment. The secrecy culture resulted in resentment and ultimately the loss of two employees, and this would not be the first case like it in history.

There is a reason, but what that reason is, is between the employer/management and the employee. Having to justify (and then argue about) every query for why I pay my staff what I pay them, would be inane, not to mention that the reasons are usually confidential.

I don't know where you work, but where I work, people don't complain behind their manager's back - if they think they're underpaid, they leave. If the management wants to retain them, they pay them enough so that they don't complain.

I think you are completely discounting the envy factor - it doesn't just vanish if/when reasons are provided.

What could be so confidential that you need to hide it from everyone else? That the person is dating the boss's daughter? That they are old college buddies?

In 99% of industries, there is no good reason to keep the reasons why someone is paid what they are paid, confidential. I should be able to go up to anyone, and say, what value do you add? The only exception is if someone is being hired for particular skills that are part of a secret project the company is implementing. An example would be Steve Jobs hiring a telecommunications engineer to help him develop his iPhone prototype. If he had to tell everyone why the guy was being paid what he was, he would give the game away. But that is an exception, and not the rule.

I can justify to anyone who asks why I am paid my salary. I don't see it as confidential. Confidentiality would imply that the health of the business as a whole could be harmed if the reasons came to light. What possible reasons could those be?

Also envy would disappear if the culture around salary changed. If we Westerners saw wealth as less important and didn't judge everyone on it, if it wasn't so taboo, then envy would not be an issue.

EDIT: Also wouldn't you rather that it not get to the point where the employee feels his only option is to leave? If they add value, wouldn't you like to retain them without the relationship becoming sour between you two? He is going to think you are a miser for not paying him fairly, and then your relationship has gone to hell. So to say "they can just leave if they are underpaid" means you will be losing valuable staff. How much does it cost to train new staff up? Plus recruitment fees etc. To say they can just leave is not a good answer to the problem.

This happens often at my work. Only thing is, you can't complain either because you're not supposed to know.

This is my point.

 

[w1z4rd]

Some people are so for transparency....unless it involves them

I personally think, shine a lite on it, and let the chips fall where they may.

 

[cguy]

What could be so confidential that you need to hide it from everyone else? That the person is dating the boss's daughter? That they are old college buddies?

In 99% of industries, there is no good reason to keep the reasons why someone is paid what they are paid, confidential. I should be able to go up to anyone, and say, what value do you add? The only exception is if someone is being hired for particular skills that are part of a secret project the company is implementing. An example would be Steve Jobs hiring a telecommunications engineer to help him develop his iPhone prototype. If he had to tell everyone why the guy was being paid what he was, he would give the game away. But that is an exception, and not the rule.

You hit on something, but I don't think you realize just how prevalent it is (the Steve Jobs example, not the nepotism crap). Just about every technology company has a significant part of their work force working on new IP. Some people have key roles in the development of the IP, some don't, also, some IP is much more important than other IP. All of this affects your value to the company. Even outside of technology, depending on how competitive the environment is these issues become very sensitive.

Also, just about every company has some sort of long term strategy. This often means deprioritizing a certain type of worker in favor of another as goals and markets shift - making this public can cause chaos, and people fear that they will be out of a job soon and starting making exit plans. Sometimes, of course this is in fact true, but often it is just a slight reprioritization, and steps are taken to ensure that the better performers of even the deprioritized groups are retained.

Also, some people contribute to individual products that make significant profits - ideally, they are rewarded accordingly. It is generally not publicized within the big companies exactly which groups make the largest profits (usually, some rough degree of resolution is offered, but not very fine) - making this known is a huge risk (internal politics, and leakage to external competition).

I can justify to anyone who asks why I am paid my salary. I don't see it as confidential. Confidentiality would imply that the health of the business as a whole could be harmed if the reasons came to light. What possible reasons could those be?

See above. I can't tell people what I do (even inside my company I can't tell most people). Hell, I'm not even allowed to work for 12 months after I leave my current job (I am paid accordingly, however).

Also envy would disappear if the culture around salary changed. If we Westerners saw wealth as less important and didn't judge everyone on it, if it wasn't so taboo, then envy would not be an issue.

But wealth is important. Not everyone wants some BS like the latest McLaren. Wealth is a significant part of the freedom, health and security for you and your family, and any other cause(s) you may advocate. Envy isn't just about not having the toys/material possessions of others - it's also wanting the non-material benefits that others display in front of you. I don't see where judgment comes in over here.

EDIT: Also wouldn't you rather that it not get to the point where the employee feels his only option is to leave? If they add value, wouldn't you like to retain them without the relationship becoming sour between you two? He is going to think you are a miser for not paying him fairly, and then your relationship has gone to hell. So to say "they can just leave if they are underpaid" means you will be losing valuable staff. How much does it cost to train new staff up? Plus recruitment fees etc. To say they can just leave is not a good answer to the problem.

You're putting the cart before the horse. From the company's perspective he is being paid fairly. From his perspective he's being paid unfairly. If the company is well run, then they have assessed fairly, and if he leaves it is for the best (disgruntled employee with overinflated opinion of his value to the company). If the company is poorly run, then they lose valuable employees without knowing it, and have to pay the associated costs.

What you're really complaining about in this thread is actually poorly run companies, and you're proposing salary transparency as a solution, since it gives an avenue of recourse for the employees. I don't disagree that this would improve the situation for the employees in this situation, but it makes it nearly impossible to run a world class company. It also begs the question, why would one want to work at a company that doesn't know how to recognize its employees, and expects them to perpetually argue for higher salaries relative to their peers?

 

[Paul_S]

I don't agree with salaries being public simply because of the fact that productivity is not the same for every employee and it actually demotivates achievers if they're paid the same as lazy workers no matter how much effort they put in.
Once salaries are made public, people (especially unions) will insist that everyone is paid the same amount regardless of skill, experience or productivity for a given job position.

Example:
Software developer X with 10 years experience churns out 500 lines of code an hour and often puts in extra time to meet deadlines.
Another software developer Y with 10 years experience joins the same company but only produces 10 lines of code per hour, doesn't care about deadlines, yet he get's the same salary as developer X.

Developer X thinks: "Why should I put in the extra effort to get the same reward" and he thus stops working as hard.
Developer Y thinks: "This is the minimum salary I'm going to be paid so I can take it easy."
Productivity drops and the company makes less profit (or a loss).

 

[Ancalagon]

You hit on something, but I don't think you realize just how prevalent it is (the Steve Jobs example, not the nepotism crap). Just about every technology company has a significant part of their work force working on new IP. Some people have key roles in the development of the IP, some don't, also, some IP is much more important than other IP. All of this affects your value to the company. Even outside of technology, depending on how competitive the environment is these issues become very sensitive.

I've been working for 7 years now and I've never worked in something that required secrecy. Confidentiality to protect our clients, but not secrecy. I think that is the exception and not the norm. Think about a state employee. Does it matter if everyone knows why they hired a policeman? No, of course not. How many policemen work undercover - pretty few. How many staff are involved in R&D vs day to day tasks - again quite few.

Also, some people contribute to individual products that make significant profits - ideally, they are rewarded accordingly. It is generally not publicized within the big companies exactly which groups make the largest profits (usually, some rough degree of resolution is offered, but not very fine) - making this known is a huge risk (internal politics, and leakage to external competition).

Most large companies publish profit numbers for their larger divisions. AMD, for instance, will tell you how much it made on CPUs last year. So I don't see that as an issue.

But wealth is important. Not everyone wants some BS like the latest McLaren. Wealth is a significant part of the freedom, health and security for you and your family, and any other cause(s) you may advocate. Envy isn't just about not having the toys/material possessions of others - it's also wanting the non-material benefits that others display in front of you. I don't see where judgment comes in over here.

Wealth is important, agreed. I'm not saying that everybody should be paid minimum wage, I'm saying it should not matter what you are paid. If salary discussions were less taboo, then perhaps people would get over it and stop judging each other on salary. Envy sets in because people think they are inferior to those that earn more than them, and I think that goes hand in hand with all of the secrecy regarding salary. Its also why people buy things they can't afford, to appear rich.

You're putting the cart before the horse. From the company's perspective he is being paid fairly. From his perspective he's being paid unfairly. If the company is well run, then they have assessed fairly, and if he leaves it is for the best (disgruntled employee with overinflated opinion of his value to the company). If the company is poorly run, then they lose valuable employees without knowing it, and have to pay the associated costs.

What you're really complaining about in this thread is actually poorly run companies, and you're proposing salary transparency as a solution, since it gives an avenue of recourse for the employees. I don't disagree that this would improve the situation for the employees in this situation, but it makes it nearly impossible to run a world class company. It also begs the question, why would one want to work at a company that doesn't know how to recognize its employees, and expects them to perpetually argue for higher salaries relative to their peers?

No, the company does not care whether he thinks he is paid fairly or not. The company is interested in getting the resource for the lowest price possible. If the resource will work for $1 per year, then great. The human elements of the company, say the manager, might feel some loyalty to the guy and want to reward him for his efforts. But the manager is not there to only look out for his employees, he is there to look out for the interests of the company in general, which means he needs to balance how much he spends on salaries with ensuring that the company has the resources it needs to function. Remember that the manager and the employee will have different ideas of what constitutes fair payment, and if they can't agree, then the employee will most likely reason.

To say that a well run company will mean that the manager and employee have the same idea of what is fair is wrong. A well run company profitably fulfils its objectives with the resources at its disposal. Lets face it - sometimes you will get employees with realistic ideas of what their salary should be, and in those instances, nothing can be done.

But even in the more common case that the employee is actually being realistic, his salary at his old company will still lag behind what he is worth. I could find you 100 posts on this forum about exactly that, about guys getting 50% raises at new companies. If you claim that this only happens to badly run companies, then at least 80% of companies are badly run. And remember what I said about what the goal of the company is - to get the resource for the lowest price. Why pay more? So it is natural that these gaps in salary expectations and reality should appear, which is why employees generally get a raise when they move. How many people do not get raises when they move? Do you know of anyone? I don't. I've never met a single person who did not get a raise when they moved. If this only happens to badly run companies, then every single person I have ever known who has ever changed jobs, was working for a badly run company at the time. If they were not, then they would already be paid at the market rate for their skills, and a raise would be impossible.

So no, I do not propose salary transparency to fix only the bad companies. Salary transparency would simply even the playing field for employees.

I don't agree with salaries being public simply because of the fact that productivity is not the same for every employee and it actually demotivates achievers if they're paid the same as lazy workers no matter how much effort they put in.
Once salaries are made public, people (especially unions) will insist that everyone is paid the same amount regardless of skill, experience or productivity for a given job position.

Example:
Software developer X with 10 years experience churns out 500 lines of code an hour and often puts in extra time to meet deadlines.
Another software developer Y with 10 years experience joins the same company but only produces 10 lines of code per hour, doesn't care about deadlines, yet he get's the same salary as developer X.

Developer X thinks: "Why should I put in the extra effort to get the same reward" and he thus stops working as hard.
Developer Y thinks: "This is the minimum salary I'm going to be paid so I can take it easy."
Productivity drops and the company makes less profit (or a loss).

So what is the solution? Hide the bull sheet or fix the bull sheet? Sweep it under the rug or take care of it?

 

[Nerfherder]

It can create a very hostile environment.

When I was working at one of the big corporates and employees were graded according to salary and the gradings were public knowledge.

So if you were a level 9 then you were junior management and got a salary of X amount, so pretty much everyone knew what you earned.

I have seen it get ugly when someone who is on a high pay grade gets lazy or finds themselves under-performing. Others are picking up the slack and they are 2 or 3 pay grades below.
You can see why the bosses might want to keep that info disclosed.


Also even if you are performing, you can still get prejudiced.

To move to CT I had to take a bit of step back in my career, but the company kept my salary the same. I worked with this other guy who is not as qualified as me and has not been with the company as long. We were basically doing the same job but he was at the head office in JHB and I was at the satellite CT office.
So when our boss left the decided to replace him with someone internally. Its impossible for me to do the job from CT as its client facing so he was the obvious choice.
I didn't make a noise about it because I knew it was the right choice anyway. So everything was fine and dandy until it came time for performance reviews. He gave me a glowing review and thanked me for not making it weird.
Then a week or so after the review his attitude changed dramatically and it started getting a little ugly. Communication broke down and I started getting a lot more work dumped on me... with a general coldness that had not been there before.

I guess he saw how much I earn after the review. I know it would have been less and I doubt they increased his salary dramatically after his promotion. They would have never moved him up to my old bosses salary as he had been there even longer and had even more qualifications.

I know its not fair but I get a market related salary.

 

[cguy]

I've been working for 7 years now and I've never worked in something that required secrecy. Confidentiality to protect our clients, but not secrecy. I think that is the exception and not the norm. Think about a state employee. Does it matter if everyone knows why they hired a policeman? No, of course not. How many policemen work undercover - pretty few. How many staff are involved in R&D vs day to day tasks - again quite few.

I've been working for 16 years, and everywhere I've worked has required extreme secrecy. It really depends on how competitive the environment is - if you're not competing with IP or clever business processes, then fair enough (although in the cases you list, and the cases this is likely to apply, the salary bands often already fixed and public, or at least well known). I think that you are making a mistake if you think that these are exceptional cases though. Even if only some of the company is privy to confidential information or trade secrets, it makes it hard to go public with just "some" salaries.

Most large companies publish profit numbers for their larger divisions. AMD, for instance, will tell you how much it made on CPUs last year. So I don't see that as an issue.

AMD is a perfect example of the coarse resolution reporting I mentioned (private companies are even worse) - even here in a public company like AMD the information is extremely scarce. They're not giving any information about the individual CPU segments, or stats on the margins for these segments. The bits that they're giving are things that are either obligatory or already public - there is a huge wealth to knowing exactly how each CPU/GPU/APU model did, and in which segments (desktop, professional, server, mobile, etc.).

Wealth is important, agreed. I'm not saying that everybody should be paid minimum wage, I'm saying it should not matter what you are paid. If salary discussions were less taboo, then perhaps people would get over it and stop judging each other on salary. Envy sets in because people think they are inferior to those that earn more than them, and I think that goes hand in hand with all of the secrecy regarding salary. Its also why people buy things they can't afford, to appear rich.

I think that you are conflating people with insecurities, with people who want to benefit from wealth. It always matters what you are paid.

No, the company does not care whether he thinks he is paid fairly or not. The company is interested in getting the resource for the lowest price possible. If the resource will work for $1 per year, then great. The human elements of the company, say the manager, might feel some loyalty to the guy and want to reward him for his efforts. But the manager is not there to only look out for his employees, he is there to look out for the interests of the company in general, which means he needs to balance how much he spends on salaries with ensuring that the company has the resources it needs to function. Remember that the manager and the employee will have different ideas of what constitutes fair payment, and if they can't agree, then the employee will most likely reason.

Of course the company cares whether he thinks he is paid fairly or not. If they want to retain him, they need to make sure that he thinks he is paid fairly. How much they want to retain him is something that companies will put a number to. A well run company will set the right number, and a poorly run company won't. The right number doesn't mean he will stay.

To say that a well run company will mean that the manager and employee have the same idea of what is fair is wrong. A well run company profitably fulfils its objectives with the resources at its disposal. Lets face it - sometimes you will get employees with realistic ideas of what their salary should be, and in those instances, nothing can be done.

Who's saying things like that? I said the opposite.

But even in the more common case that the employee is actually being realistic, his salary at his old company will still lag behind what he is worth. I could find you 100 posts on this forum about exactly that, about guys getting 50% raises at new companies. If you claim that this only happens to badly run companies, then at least 80% of companies are badly run. And remember what I said about what the goal of the company is - to get the resource for the lowest price. Why pay more? So it is natural that these gaps in salary expectations and reality should appear, which is why employees generally get a raise when they move. How many people do not get raises when they move? Do you know of anyone? I don't. I've never met a single person who did not get a raise when they moved. If this only happens to badly run companies, then every single person I have ever known who has ever changed jobs, was working for a badly run company at the time. If they were not, then they would already be paid at the market rate for their skills, and a raise would be impossible.

Dude. More reading, and less writing... I never made any such claims. I claimed that good companies pay people what they are worth to them, factoring in how much they want to retain the employee and pitting that against the market demand. People are initially paid more when they move companies because A) they're compensated for the risk and effort of moving. B) they need a higher expected income in order to justify the move, and C) the hiring company may need their particular skill set badly. There is also D) when your company is taking liberties.

If a good company (no (D)) wants to retain an employee, it has to counter the market pressure, such that the employee is priced out of the market ( (A)+(B)+(C) is to high for another company to pay) - it's simple market mechanics. The more the company pays, the more surety they have.

Also, the fact that another company is willing to give you more money to move isn't necessarily a sign that you are currently underpaid: A small increase (like the 20% you mentioned in your first post that you thought was unfair) is simply compensation for risk, and motivation to move. If the person was equally qualified and at another company, then all things being equal, that person would be earning the same salary as you, and would need to be paid more just to move, so a 20% increase is a perfectly sane thing for the company to do - otherwise they would only be able to hire people from below average paying companies. If you complain that the company is paying equally qualified new hires more, and should raise your salary to match, then you are effectively arguing for your company to pay its employees 20% above the average - clearly not something mathematically sustainable across the industry.

As for people talking about 50+% increases, these are more likely either people who were at poorly managed companies, or they were simply doing the wrong job. There is huge selection bias in those "100 posts" - these people are the most vocal about their situation - not too many people are bragging how they moved companies for 5%.

So no, I do not propose salary transparency to fix only the bad companies. Salary transparency would simply even the playing field for employees.

Yes, it would even the playing field for employees. It would also distract the hell out of everybody as they bicker for consensus and keenly watch one another to see if they can make a case for a earning more, make management a total nightmare, push salaries to unsustainable levels or cause some salaries to be reduced (that always goes well), and require that confidential information be shared in order to justify higher than expected salaries. Tragedy of the commons.

 

[F1ve_Claw]

These walls of text. Second page was too much for me!

I know how much other people earn in the company. Some know how much I earn. If anyone asks I'd tell them, no reason it should be a secret

What really grates my carrot is knowing how much I'm getting charged out at, and how much I get paid

 

[Malasius]

I don't think salary information should be secret at all. I think employers have created this culture where we don't talk about salaries because it suits them. People who don't know how much their colleagues earn, have a much more difficult time arguing for raises. Imagine if your company hires a guy with the same experience as you but pays him 20% more because he is a new hire. You aren't paid the same because you haven't complained.

Think about why salary information is treated as confidential - because people have been led to believe that your salary defines your worth as an individual. You are taught that a lesser paid individual is a lesser individual. Thus, you do not want people to know how much you earn, either because they will realize you are a loser because you earn to little, or they will judge you and say you are not worthy of your salary. That is what everyone fears.

First, I hope everyone can immediately see the fallacy in judging people by their financial status. Second, I don't know why financial information should be confidential at all. It is numbers, it is just accounting. So what?

Having salary information out in the open would ultimately lead to more people being paid a fair amount. Some would get less, some would get more. The distribution would be more even.

+1 completely agree with this!

 

[SoulTax]

I think keeping salary information secret, has its advantages. I also see the point that Ancalagon brings up, that employers can use those blinkers to keep you underpaid and overworked.

My personal gripe about keeping salary info secret, is when companies put that info into contracts. A company making me sign a piece of paper that forbids me from revealing my remuneration details to any other employee of the same company, is just stupid. It should be a person's decision to reveal what they earn.

The legal "fear" that clauses like that carry with them, is just another tool that most employers exploit come bonus/increase day. When they call each person in individually and give them sob stories about the reason the increases are so low.

I often feel like the confidentiality of earnings clause is more designed to ensure that the peons cannot be privy to the management/board members' earnings. Because we all know that when the sob stories about company performance and tough times come out, the board members are still getting % and value increases at level: insanity.

 

[icyrus]

I think keeping salary information secret, has its advantages.

It does, but all in the employer column and none in the employee column.

 

[Aghori]

I got this from ages ago. I love the design of it plus the look and sheer size of these buggers.




View attachment 130711

 

[noxibox]

Companies want you to keep it secret partly so that those they're paying less for the same work don't find out.

Where 2 does not work, out of experience as an example is where everyone knows each others salaries, but not everyone is working as they should. Especially if the person earning more is the one who does the least in the exact same job. I've been in this scenario, worked more, worked less and worked the same and no change in salary. However that one person just keeps on getting more than yourself.

That can come about because they have made a better impression in other ways. I've seen guys push their pay up purely by making friends up the chain of command. I've also seen guys who work hard get ignored because the people higher up don't like them or they simply haven't made an impression. Company size can also factor into it. In a company of five people you can usually see who isn't contributing, whereas when there are five thousand creating the appearance of being a major contributor can be enough. That's why it is possible to be high paid slacker at many big companies.

If you are a supervisor and earning 150k/a and get a 10% increase due to good work performance it takes you to R165k/a.

The person cruising along, doing just enough to keep everybody happy, is on R140k/a and gets a 7% increase will then go to R150k/a.

So the gap has increased from R10k/a to R15k/a and this is fully justified.

That's often not how it works though. Companies will often try to nudge everyone toward the middle of their salary band. Then the big increases only come from being moved into the next band. Salary bands are actually another idea regularly backfires on companies.

not to mention issues such as IP retention, key skill retention, company specific logic/knowledge retention and skill rebalancing to meet long term goals.

Keeping it secret works against that at least as much.

This would do more harm than anything else, the massive gaps between admin and IT staff salaries would cause endless issues.

The administration staff often know what everyone else earns already.

EDIT: Also wouldn't you rather that it not get to the point where the employee feels his only option is to leave? If they add value, wouldn't you like to retain them without the relationship becoming sour between you two? He is going to think you are a miser for not paying him fairly, and then your relationship has gone to hell. So to say "they can just leave if they are underpaid" means you will be losing valuable staff. How much does it cost to train new staff up? Plus recruitment fees etc. To say they can just leave is not a good answer to the problem.

By that stage offering more money to get them to stay is often an even bigger insult. It is saying we screwed you as long as we could, but now you've caught us.

Also, some people contribute to individual products that make significant profits - ideally, they are rewarded accordingly.

That's a fundamentally stupid way to do things.

From the company's perspective he is being paid fairly. From his perspective he's being paid unfairly. If the company is well run, then they have assessed fairly

For the company it is about what they can get away with.

why would one want to work at a company that doesn't know how to recognize its employees, and expects them to perpetually argue for higher salaries relative to their peers?

Because that is how most companies are run.

(especially unions) will insist that everyone is paid the same amount regardless of skill, experience or productivity for a given job position.

That's completely false. Not how unionised worker pay scales work at all.

Example:
Software developer X with 10 years experience churns out 500 lines of code an hour and often puts in extra time to meet deadlines.
Another software developer Y with 10 years experience joins the same company but only produces 10 lines of code per hour, doesn't care about deadlines, yet he get's the same salary as developer X.

Developer X thinks: "Why should I put in the extra effort to get the same reward" and he thus stops working as hard.
Developer Y thinks: "This is the minimum salary I'm going to be paid so I can take it easy."
Productivity drops and the company makes less profit (or a loss).

Firstly developer X should not be putting in extra hours as it leads to loss of quality. If extra time has to be put in to meet deadlines it means the company is poorly managed. Or maybe they have to put in the extra hours because those 500 lines are pure garbage and require rewriting. Maybe developer Y is converting those 500 lines to 10 lines that work and wondering why the company is still employing this incompetent ass who hasn't yet realised it isn't about how many lines they do per hour. If they were paying someone who does no work that would be additional proof of this. But this is why the company would want the pay secret. They either know they're screwing whoever is doing more work or it's a case of being invisible in a big company.

 

[Willie Trombone]

I was listening to this debate on 702, in short the argument was about

1. It is good to know everyone's salary in the workplace.
2. It is not good because it creates difficulties between employees.

I leaning towards 2, but with an exception to 1:

What should be known is the amount it was increased with because of getting yourself more educated or skilled. Meaning for example you work in IT as a developer and you just got that additional certification. This is both good for yourself and the company as they can use it as part of the bid to get a contract. Then I would say it is good make it known that X is now getting R1000 more p/m because of the skills development that has taken place.


Where 2 does not work, out of experience as an example is where everyone knows each others salaries, but not everyone is working as they should. Especially if the person earning more is the one who does the least in the exact same job. I've been in this scenario, worked more, worked less and worked the same and no change in salary. However that one person just keeps on getting more than yourself.

Should not be known. We don't live in a communistic society in general the salary negotiations should be between the employer and the employee. My observation is that it's those who complain about such things that aren't pulling their weight and want what the next guy, who is, is earning.

Screw that. Some people just don't handle other's success that well and if I get paid the same as a guy doing half arsed work the company can shove the job (I don't handle being treated the same as the masses that well)

This.
If you're unhappy with your salary, let it be on merit, not because you don't earn the most... and then negotiate for an increase and if you don't get what you want, and it's reasonable, move.