r/personalfinance • u/ekampp • Jul 02 '19

I received an accidental mail with all salaries for everyone in the company Employment

Hey, first time posting here. Hope this post will be ok.

This is problematic in regards to personal information discretion, but my issue is:

I realized I'm being significantly underpaid in comparison to others who do the same work as me.

I feel frustrated and upset about that fact. Not sure how to approach from here.

How would you approach the situation?

EDIT 1: Thanks for all the answers. There are many good ones in-between!

There are also a few that clearly want to see the world burn 😅

I had never expected this many replies, so please don't hold it against me for not answering each one of you.

RESULT:

First off. Again, thank you to all of you, who pitched in with your personal experiences, hardships, concerns, and advice. I have read through most of all ~2000 of them 😅

I have chosen to simply delete and bury the faulty email, and I will add a bit about being careful to not forward email-chains in our security newsletter this month instead. This way it will benefit everyone in the company to be wary of forwarding email-chains. The WHOLE chain will be forwarded.

I had a sit-down with the boss-man, and he agreed to give me a raise, and a promotion.

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416

u/elus Jul 02 '19

This is the lie that people are fed to put up with lower wages. In any other profession, pure transparency of salaries is used properly by employees to negotiate in good faith an appropriate wage for their position. Employers count on information asymmetry to keep employees from asking for a proper wage. The value of an individual contributor will not vary much in a way that most managers can justify large variances in pay between different employees.

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u/Tammytalkstoomuch Jul 03 '19

Definitely happened to us. My husband was senior to the other employees in his area, had extra responsibilities and topped the stats. He repeatedly asked for a raise and was told there was no money for one, he was already making way more than the market average etc etc. A lady who had not worked in the industry before was hired, and got fired 3 months in for a positive drug test. They put her final pay slip on his desk instead of hers - they had hired her on a salary that was several thousand dollars higher than what my husband was getting. He left the job, no second chances for that sort of treatment. Knowing that they valued him after 7 years less than a new hire made it clear he was never going to advance. We're all way happier.

3

u/artemi7 Jul 03 '19

That's how McDonald's treated their managers. You just rack up whatever raises you get, but when someone new get hired into the position, they get a starting base that's adjusted for inflation that is likely higher then yours.

So it's like $10 +3% +3% +3% or whatever the numbers were, while a new person will just come on at $14. Then when you they get their raise, it'll be the same % as yours, but their base is higher, so...

We had multiple, including myself, leave over this. One lady quit and got herself rehired just to get the new base, because they weren't allowed to just bump her into the higher slot cause she she'd been there too long (like 10+ years). So her hire date reset but now she's making more; she essentially had to choose between seniority or higher pay.

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u/elus Jul 03 '19

Sounds like they hated your husband sorry. Congratulations on him for finding an opportunity that values him appropriately

16

u/Tammytalkstoomuch Jul 03 '19

I dont think it was personal, just that there's a certain type of workplace that does exactly what the original commenter said - they use the fact that no one talks about wages against employees, as an excuse to pay them as little as possible. Better to get out, because you can't talk someone into valuing their people.

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u/calmbill Jul 02 '19

Certainly not any other profession. I've never had a job as an adult with salary transparency. Though, from salary surveys and job offers I've received, I have a pretty good understanding of my value in the job market.

18

u/elus Jul 02 '19

Talk to law interns. Those kids are mercenary.

2

u/SultanOilMoney Jul 03 '19

Why talk to law interns?

1

u/elus Jul 04 '19

Because they know not to keep their mouths shut when it comes to sharing remuneration and it allows them a better chance at maximizing their pay.

3

u/katarh Jul 03 '19

Because I'm a state government employee, all our wages are publicly available information.

I know I'm criminally underpaid for my profession and my degree compared to the corporate rate, but I've got a lot of intangibles and one of the best benefit packages available. Sure, I could make twice as much out in the private sector, but I'd likely have a 45-60+ minute commute in exchange, and I'm not willing to sacrifice my time when I'm paid enough where I am.

1

u/NotYouTu Jul 03 '19

Some professions are more transparent... and then there's Scandinavia. Sweden, Finland and Norway all make tax returns public record, EVERYONE'S salary is public knowledge there.

103

u/Mookiepoo22 Jul 02 '19

Disagree completely on the point about no significant variance in value of employee. I have employees that are 2 to 3 times more productive than others. Some people are much better than the rest at their job.

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u/dasitmanes Jul 02 '19

Let me guess, they don't make 2 to 3 times as much salary than others..

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u/loonygecko Jul 03 '19

No matter what, the employer can get complained about, if the better employee makes more, than peeps would be on reddit complaining that they were there longer and are not get paid as much and it's age discrimination, etc. If they don't make more than they'd be on here saying they are not getting paid what they were worth. That being said, most companies are scum so it works both ways. ;-P

6

u/UnblurredLines Jul 03 '19

It's just that most people assume, sometimes erroneously, that they are a good worker. Which is why when they make more than others it's easy to default to "because I perform better" and if they don't make more than others then they'll often be quick to think of it as unjust.

1

u/loonygecko Jul 03 '19

Yep, that's exactly the prob, and why I doubt even honest companies will want to make pay amounts common knowledge, it would add to strife even if the company really did try to make the pay as fair as possible.

0

u/SteadyMercury1 Jul 03 '19

I understood u/dasitmanes statement to mean that employers are happy to use high performers as a way to hold salaries back for everyone else but very reluctant to use them to reward good employees.

1

u/loonygecko Jul 03 '19

I don't understand your comment, the high performers ARE the good employees and if you paying them well, then you ARE rewarding the good employees.

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u/[deleted] Jul 02 '19

[deleted]

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u/CircleDog Jul 02 '19

You say "why wouldn't they" but I have a reasonable range of experience and ive never seen salaried workers earn 2-3 times the money of other people at the same grade for being better. In commission based jobs like sales maybe but not wages. Like a slow factory worker on 25k per year and his better colleague doing the same job on 50-75k? Never seen it.

Mind you, I'd quite like to see it or something like it. The industry I work in just cannot seem to grasp the idea that you can pay a person lots of money for doing a job without promoting them to management.

9

u/thepug Jul 03 '19

Some people advocate for wage increases instead of title increases over time. I've see it happens when people advocate for wage increases instead of title increases at companies that join early on at a high growth company. Very rare these days though.

7

u/cballowe Jul 03 '19

I've seen it happen on occasion but it usually comes through in variable components of compensation and more at the low levels of employees. Occasionally someone is performing clearly above their level and managers have some knobs in terms of bonuses and stock grants that they can use to make the compensation closer to the next level higher. Those work a bit faster than the promotion process.

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u/dontich Jul 03 '19

It’s common enough in tech. As the levels go up, the stock portion of your comp can increase exponentially, for really good ICs. IE if you led improvements in google search that generated a billion in revenue you bet your ass that you comp will be insane (a stupid example but you get the point)

-1

u/elus Jul 03 '19

Yeah and tech is one field where everyone is hyper aware of what others are making.

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u/[deleted] Jul 03 '19

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/MyHTPCwontHTPC Jul 03 '19

Management isn't inherently worth more than normal workers though. Good leadership and people management is however.

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u/AsteriskCGY Jul 02 '19

Well then can you successfully argue that to their face? It's one thing to have pay variance based on metrics of productivity, but to try and trick them to hold to a lower salary is a completely different issue.

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u/Thecklos Jul 02 '19

And do you pay those more valuable employees 2 to 3 times the others? If so, then you could argue this in a 2agr discussion properly. My guess is at least 1 of those way more valuable employees actually makes less than some of the crap ones.

3

u/pirateninjamonkey Jul 02 '19

Then they should have a different position title, and perhaps some people they train to become productive like them.

2

u/loonygecko Jul 03 '19

It's not always that simple, sometimes they are good at what they do but either do not want or would not be as good at another job for instance. Salespeople and repair people come to mind, if they are on commission, that helps compensate but some places do not want to have commission because it encourages lying by the sales people or quickie not good fixes by repair people. Also IME, a lot of productivity is inborn talent, you can't train people to become smarter or have a much better attitude. Yes they can improve their skill set but they will hit a ceiling of improvement that will be lower than a more talented person and they will also improve slower. That's why talented people are so valuable, you can't just train another one so easily.

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u/UnblurredLines Jul 03 '19

This can often lead to people getting promotions until they reach a level where they're no longer competent.

2

u/elus Jul 02 '19

Yes but most managers can't tell.

1

u/Miss_Southeast Jul 03 '19

On the day they were hired, HR/you immediately knew that they would be 2-3x more productive so they got the higher offer? On the day before they even started working for the company?

21

u/KhamsinFFBE Jul 03 '19

The value of an individual contributor will not vary much in a way that most managers can justify large variances in pay between different employees.

There can be a huge difference in employee value to the company, even in the same position. Your experience, personal relationships with clients, trust the management has in you to make the best decisions for the company and to keep things going the way they would, etc. all factor into it.

Two doctors, two attorneys, two engineers, two actuaries, two of pretty much anybody may have wildly different value even if their business card says the same thing.

12

u/Devinology Jul 03 '19 edited Jul 03 '19

Value should be earned though. Hiring someone new at a higher pay than a top performing long time employee is just ludicrous. Regardless of what they say on their resume or in an interview, they aren't tested. This implies that either they are making a terrible gamble on a new hire they think has potential, which is dumb, or they are underpaying a tried and tested staff that is clearly valuable enough to keep around. New hires should always start at the same pay, and then compensation can very based on performance after that. And it should really only vary so much, unless it's a job about directly bringing in money like in sales.

It's also not smart to essentially punish the lower performing employees, as they won't be motivated to improve. The possibility of higher payout generally isn't enough to motivate people to do more, according to psychological studies. The highest paid people are the ones that pushed for it and did whatever it took to get paid more, but aren't generally the most productive or "good" employees. They're good at playing the game, not at their jobs. I mean I guess in fields like finance that's literally the same thing, but that's a whole other topic.

1

u/unusuallylethargic Jul 03 '19

Sometimes you have to pay more to get people to join your team. Thinking everybody should start at the same level is pretty naive and idealistic. That might work in entry level positions but once you're hiring for higher level positions everything changes

2

u/Devinology Jul 03 '19

Oh yeah of course. Sorry, I just meant that they should be hired at a preestablished rate for their level of experience, and that this should be the same across the board until productivity levels become clear.

2

u/elus Jul 03 '19

Actually those professions you listed have pretty narrow bands of remuneration given that they have equal education. There definitely can be huge value differences between employees but your manager doesn't really notice most of the time

1

u/Baslifico Jul 03 '19

Then you have poor management, but a decent manager will absolutely know and recognise the difference in skillset and value to the company

1

u/elus Jul 04 '19

Yes most managers are poor at judging value contributed. That's why it's imperative that an employee does their best to use all information at their disposal. I live in the real world where I do my best to maximize my goals by assessing the environment around me.

1

u/Baslifico Jul 04 '19

Interesting generalisation there... "Most" managers are poor at judging value eh? What are you basing that on?

I've worked with some good and some bad. Many more good than bad in my (anecdotal) experience, but I wouldn't assume about managers as a whole...

If you get a bad one, either work to replace them or move on, there will be many other problems you avoid

1

u/elus Jul 04 '19

Just because you like your manager doesn't make them good. most companies don't have proper management training nor do they have a properly structured environment to determine the value being brought in by their subordinates.

This is coming from over two decades of working in education, government, and private industry. I've worked in hospitality, resource extraction, logistics, business to business services, manufacturing, and other fields. I've worked for many wonderful people but it's very rare that a manager will know your true value. Most will have a general understanding and that's enough in most cases since that's only a small portion of their job duties.

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u/Baslifico Jul 04 '19

I never said I liked them, I said they were good. Feel free to respond to my actual point, rather than your interpretation of it.

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u/[deleted] Jul 02 '19

He never said his salary was not appropriate.

He said his salary was lower than those around him.

There’s a whole lot of unknown there.

0

u/elus Jul 03 '19

He said he was making less and most people were making more. So either he sucks at his job or he didn't negotiate properly. In a company most people won't be multiple standards of deviation away from a person in terms of productivity. The likeliest thing here is that they're paying him dogshit because they could get away with it

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u/[deleted] Jul 02 '19

I agree. If your efficiency and performance is bad enough to warrant a 20% pay difference or something significant, the. You aren’t really performing your job the what should be considered a standard and typically would be brought up or lead to termination.

1

u/ForYourSorrows Jul 03 '19

Do you believe that if one employee significantly outperforms other employees that they shouldn’t be paid more? If not, what incentive does an employee have to do a better job if he knows he can do the minimum and get paid the same?

0

u/elus Jul 03 '19

I believe that employees aren't given the opportunity to excel at their position to an extent that they deserve an outsized salary relative to their peers. This is because the metrics collected by their managers is insufficient for those managers to determine the value actually provided by their employees.

1

u/Baslifico Jul 03 '19

I disagree, but perhaps it's a per industry thing. I work in IT and for us the skillset is almost as important as the role.

To pick an extreme example, I've hired different people for the same role where one's salary was 50% higher than the other. (At roughly the same time)

In that case, it was due to a significantly better skillset. Both could do the job I was hiring for, but one could also cover other roles, and had to experience working with the types of client we deal with, so had useful insights. He also indicated he was happy to be flexible and "muck in" wherever we needed him.

He was considerably more valuable to the company as a resource and thus we paid more to ensure he worked for us, rather than any of the half dozen other companies who wanted to hire him.

Were we unfair to the lower paid guy? I don't believe so. I could (not that I'd want to) replace him without too much effort/cost. That doesn't hold true for the higher paid guy.

1

u/elus Jul 04 '19

In your case you didn't hire two people for the same role. You hired for different roles. One had an expanded list. My caveat for my original post is that OP and their predecessor both did the same work.

OP should be able to go in and talk to their superior and say hey I just saw this salary list and I'm getting a pay that's a lot lower than my predecessor. Is there any specific reason why that's the case? What can I do to put myself in that pay bracket?

In that situation having a candid conversation regarding remuneration is the responsible thing to do.

1

u/Baslifico Jul 04 '19

They are both employed for the same role, with the same daily activities, but one is more effective due to a wider skillset.

It all comes down to how valuable you are to the company and how well you leverage that value when negotiating a salary.

1

u/elus Jul 04 '19

It doesn't matter if you call it the same role if the responsibilities are different. And an employee is free to discuss a renegotiatiom of the terms of their employment at anytime.

1

u/Baslifico Jul 04 '19

The responsibilities aren't different.... They both create technical solutions to client issues, it's just that one is good at the tech, while the other is also good at the tech, but understands enterprise clients better, so needs less guidance/correction/oversight.

Of course they're free to discuss it at any time, but if their value to the company is objectively less, I'm not going to fight so hard to keep them.

1

u/collin-h Jul 02 '19 edited Jul 02 '19

I happen to think most managers vary pay based on the value the employee adds. Even “value” that doesn’t necessarily translate to profit but makes the jobs/lives of people around them easier and more pleasant. You might have two people doing the same job, but if one has a bunch of intangibles like:

always willing to help out in an emergency even if it’s after hours or beyond the scope of the job because they believe in the mission of the company.

always has a positive attitude about tough deadlines, or difficult projects, or shitty clients.

always thinking about solutions rather than looking for someone to blame for issues that arise.

If you’re that person, great! You deserve a raise, and your manager would be a bad manager if they didn’t see that. If you are that person, wouldn’t you feel like you’re worth more than the other guy who isn’t like that?

If you’re not that person, then yes, you do the same “job” as that other person, and you might be just as productive as that person.... but are you more valuable? Are you irreplaceable?

1

u/elus Jul 03 '19

I think most managers give a salary based on the initial number a hire offers. That becomes the anchor for the negotiation. In so.e cases a good manager will offer more because of productivity but that's rare

1

u/9bikes Jul 03 '19

The value of an individual contributor will not vary much in a way that most managers can justify large variances in pay between different employees.

What!?!

You and I have obviously never worked at the same places!

At every place I've worked there was a least one guy to the bare minimum to avoid getting fired.

It also wasn't unusual to have one coworker who carried far more than his share of the workload.

I would not only have not been unhappy to find out the hard-working coworker received significantly more compensation than the slacker, I'd be disappointed if I found he didn't.

1

u/elus Jul 03 '19

Yeah. Sure but your manager doesn't see that contribution. If they did they'd give you an outsized reward or they were hamstrung to do so. Sorry but the variance wasn't big enough to make a difference. Or the employee wasn't strong enough to take a stand and properly negotiate

1

u/diecastbeatdown Jul 02 '19

Some companies have strict wages based on title. unfortunately the ones that adhere to that typically have a ton of different titles for similar positions. "Software Engineer II", "Cloud Architect III", "Lead Developer I", etc, etc. So you'll never really know how your salary compares to those around you due to this guise of title variance.

1

u/elus Jul 03 '19

Yes and those companies pay more fairly if you can meet their arbitrary requirements. Salary and the value you bring to a company aren't positively correlated

1

u/dontlookformehere Jul 02 '19

There is no law stating two people need to be paid the same. What if they don't perform the same? What is one is late more often?

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u/elus Jul 03 '19

No one said that the government is mandated to pay it. All I'm saying is that your manager mostly doesn't see the difference. Sorry but you're not that exceptional

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u/Meanonsunday Jul 03 '19

People need to take responsibility. If you accept the salary then there’s only one person to blame ; yourself. What you are worth does not depend on the salary of anyone else. If you are really worth more then go ask for that next time and you will get it.

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u/Devinology Jul 03 '19

What you are worth absolutely depends on the salary of others. In countries where a certain job generally pays more, anyone in that profession can ask for and be likely to recieved more. It's not like there is some objective way to measure worth. It's based on belief, which can vary from person to person and culture to culture. In North America we arbitrarily pay doctors more than most people. It's not like there aren't jobs that are just as difficult or valuable. Somehow they just convinced society to pay them that and every doctor since had just followed suit. In different countries they aren't payed much more than other professions and thus any doctor's value will be viewed accordingly.

What I'm saying is that pay is mostly based on sociocultural perception and standards of value, as well as people actively steering that throughout history. Some of the wealthiest people created value only for themselves while essentially robbing it from others by convincing them to hand it over. How does that make sense?

0

u/Meanonsunday Jul 03 '19

You lost me when you started whining about doctors. The life and health of my family is worth more than anything else to me. A doctors training is longer than just about any other profession. They have huge financial and moral liability if they make a mistake.

It’s easy to be jealous of those that earn more and convince yourself it’s unfair. It’s also just an excuse for being mentally and physically lazy.

1

u/Devinology Jul 03 '19

I'm not saying doctors aren't skilled and important, I'm just saying there are many other jobs that are roughly equal but get paid much less, which is just arbitrary, and demonstrates that people aren't paid based on some sort of objective worth. Anyone with a PhD or two masters degrees was in school just as long and paid just as much as a doctor to get through it. There are a lot of people with that education. I've spent 9 years in post secondary myself, plus all sorts of additional training. Many have spent more.

There is no financial liability for mistakes as they have insurance for that. Sure, there is moral liability, but there are hundreds of jobs with an equal amount of that. Again, I'm not complaining about doctors, I'm just showing that what they are paid is not based on objective worth.

1

u/elus Jul 03 '19

Again thats the mentality of sheep. Most people don't have the necessary information to be able to negotiate fairly. You're willing to handicap yourself just for your employer. Congratulations, you're in the rat race

1

u/Meanonsunday Jul 03 '19

You have that turned around. Your the one complaining about it’s so unfair, someone has to make it fair and spouting psychobabble. I know what I’m worth and I’ve never had trouble getting paid. I also made sure that the people that worked for me got paid what they were worth.

You obviously have no respect for employers which guarantees you will always be a loser. When you take money from someone you owe them 100% performance. If you think they are taking advantage of you then stop taking their money and leave.

-2

u/derpycalculator Jul 03 '19

Actually it’s not a lie. I recently saw this scenario go down: person A saw person B’s salary and demanded more based on the fact they had been here longer than B. They let HR know they believed they were being discriminated against because of their gender. They did not take into account B had been at PWC prior to joining the team, had better soft skills, and worked more independently. B also happened to be a minority. Person A received a plan on what they needed to do to get the raise they were looking for but ultimately left. Good riddance. If you can’t keep salary information confidential (she didn’t) then you’re clearly not ready for the raise.