
The Downside of Full Pay Transparency - grellas
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-downside-of-full-pay-transparency-1502676360
======
kevinmhickey
I have worked for a company with full pay transparency and for several with
full opacity. I prefer opacity.

At the transparent company, I was hired in as one of the highest paid
employees at a time that the company was struggling. Everyone ranked higher
than me had taken a voluntary pay cut, to the point that some of them were
paid less than me.

I felt guilty for taking more money than them, but conflicted as the problems
were not of my making. I felt some resentment at pay peers that were
underperforming. I was able to observe the performance of other employees and
knew which ones were being treated fairly and not.

It was information that did nothing to benefit me, my peers or those below us
in the organization. It led to more bad feelings than good and I am grateful
that I do not have that information at my current employer.

I prefer sites like Glassdoor where you can get a general idea of what your
coworkers might make, without the fine resolution of a name to dollar amount
mapping.

~~~
astura
>It was information that did nothing to benefit me, my peers or those below us
in the organization.

You are mistaken, open salaries benefited you. They let you actually see the
huge organizational problems in the company that would have otherwise been
hidden. You had more information in which to make your career decisions on.

The bad feelings were not _caused_ by the open salaries, they were caused by
the problems you listed.

~~~
unabst
Exactly. Information is never the cause. It is only the trail. The most
information can do -- and is meant to do -- is influence people. Ergo, the bad
or good feelings (or decisions, in most cases).

Except, the problem is then the inability of the person with that information
to attack those problems.

Anyone with the capacity to do something about those root causes should know
everything. For the rest, that information is irrelevant to their job, and
distracting at best.

~~~
astura
Going by that logic you shouldn't tell your spouse if your terminally ill
because he or she can't do anything about it and public companies shouldn't be
required to release their financials because you can't do anything about it.

~~~
djsumdog
Terminal illness can't really be hidden and does affect your spouse and
family.

A better analogy is infidelity. You shouldn't tell a partner if you've been
unfaithful because it benefits no one. I think this quite by the Australian
author Bettina Arndt says it best:

"That's the amazing thing. So many people end up confessing to an affair,
which strikes me as the ultimate stupidity. Sure, you may believe you are
confessing all to preserve honesty in your marriage, or because he/she
deserved the truth, but the reality is that this 'telling' business is all
about people not having the backbone to live with their guilt. Telling doesn't
right the wrong; it adds to it."

(The Sex Diaries / Bettina Arndt)

------
xster
Yet another corporate lobbyist type response

    
    
      - You can't have net neutrality, it'll confuse customers
      - Food origin labeling? Bad, people will realize we have no idea where food came from.
      - Single payer? But it'll undermine the whole employer paid insurance patchwork.
      - Close tax loopholes? We'll just push rich people to move money offshore.
      - Stop bombing the world? Where's all the weapons, oil and mercenary companies gonna make money from?
      - Share compensation data? People will quit once they realize their pay grading mechanism is subjective and arbitrary.

~~~
colemannugent
>Share compensation data? People will quit once they realize their pay grading
mechanism is subjective and arbitrary

Do you have an objective and determinite way to set compensation? If you do
then you should tell the good folks here at YC that you have a great startup
idea, pay gradation as a service, and collect your easy fortune.

All pay grading schemes are subjective by definition. A product is worth only
what others will pay for it. When you are looking for employment you are
selling your labor to an employer, of course your prospective employer can
always not buy your product, especially if she can find another product for
less.

~~~
xster
I think it's worth taking a step back and looking at the grand scheme.
Everything is a non-binary spectrum.

As an example, if you temporarily suspend societal norm (which is what I'm
challenging here), to think that we have the audacity to pretend that we know
how to tax people and objectively rate society's needs and redistribute wealth
into various public programs in a way that's objectively fair to everyone is
absurd if we try to think of objectivity as a binary thing.

But our policies obviously have socialistic elements because we don't
dogmatically lock ourselves in a strict dichotomy.

And I argue for the same thing in work compensation. Some form of pure cosmic
objectivity may not ever be possible but it doesn't mean we should
ideologically oppose attempts to approach that end of the spectrum.

~~~
colemannugent
Since you mentioned socialism I thought I'd try and address that as well.

The problem with redistribution of wealth and price setting by governments is
that they cannot properly price goods and services because they have no vested
interest in the effect of the resulatant price. As an analogy, it would be
like sending your friend Donald Trump to buy your groceries for you, he would
have no idea what he should be paying and would likely spend too much or
purchase goods that you wouldn't have.

You say that we should keep our minds open in the hope that in the future this
problem could be solved, but I think that by trying to look towards the future
you look past the advantages of the free market.

As this relates to work compensation, the Trump analogy is still somewhat
applicable. You wouldn't send Trump to negotiate your salary as he would
probably overvalue you and ask for way more than you're worth to the employer,
who would promptly tell both of you to look elsewhere. In a system where the
government set your wages this would be great for you, as the employer would
be forced to hire you at whatever ridiculous price Trump comes up with, but
terrible for the business who depends on you making them more money than they
spend on you. Such a system could never sustain itself in the hybrid socialist
state, but would be forced to resort to complete government control of prices
and wages as the weight of their own bad decsions weighed the system down.

In the capitalist/free-market system the individual takes the hit for making
bad decisions, in the socialist/communist system everyone does.

There are systems that are more consistent in the way they reward employees,
Gitlab [1] comes to mind, but what happens when the economy shifts and the
compensation rates that the algorithm spits out are now way over or below what
is normal for that position? They now have to change their algorithm again,
which is effectively right where we started at as new hires will all be based
off a new algorithm which would lead to dissent from the older employees.

[1]: [https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/people-
operations/global-c...](https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/people-
operations/global-compensation/#compensation-calculator)

~~~
uoaei
You've lumped "redistribution of wealth" in with "price setting" as if they
are in any way related to each other. They certainly can interact if they're
both present, but neither need to be there for the other to exist.

I'm actually having trouble following your line of reasoning because I can't
tell how these two are related in your formulation of the hypothetical.

------
everdev
I've seen team chemistry dissolve when pay information was released.

The problem is with egos, Employee A might view themselves as more valuable to
the company than Employee B and vice versa. If Employee B gets a raise,
Employee A will want one too, or a higher one. A spiral of trying to get a
higher salary relative to other team members can begin.

Also, Employee A and Employee B might have private salaries that meet or
exceed their expectations and everyone is happy. When salary information is
public, unhealthy comparing can begin. Even though they're grateful for what
they have, they see that more might be available if they ask for it.

~~~
kaosjester
It seems like this could be fairly easily resolved by the management having a
rigid "we pay everyone the same, deal with it" position, perhaps up and and
including a formula for salary computations.

~~~
rjzzleep
A lot of German institutions work this way. There are a lot of problems with
this. But one of the biggest is the following:

When you notice that someone that brings zero value to the company gets the
same salary as you one of two things happens:

1\. you either loose any incentive to do anything

2\. or you quit.

In time all what you're left with is the people you don't want.

~~~
trowawee
Ok, but that's not really my problem. That's bad management, because they're
apparently carrying around a bunch of dead weight and not doing anything to
correct that problem.

~~~
dmitrygr
firing someone in EU isn't easy, no matter how useless they are.

~~~
DanBC
In the UK you can be fired within the first two years without reason (unless
it's connected to a protected characteristic). After two years you can still
be fired - the company just has to follow a simple procedure of giving you
some warnings before firing you.

Employer tribunals are not free and are intimidating to use, so many people
who are wrongfully dismissed don't seek justice.

~~~
bshimmin
Having had to fire someone who had been at a company for more than two years,
I can say it was anything but a simple procedure: it involved a performance
improvement plan which lasted interminably (and actually sapped a really
surprisingly large amount of my own time...) and it became an awful lot more
complicated when it turned out the guy was on anti-depressants. In the end, HR
suggested I take the guy to the pub for lunch and they told me a series of
things I could say to encourage him to quit but which couldn't possibly be
construed as constructive dismissal; thankfully over lunch he told me he'd got
another job offer, and I walked him out of the office the following day with a
great sense of relief.

------
Mitchhhs
The problem with pay transparency starts with the problem of determining
compensation itself. If compensation could be a direct output of an algorithm
that was highly accurate based on attributes of an individual that highly
predict their market worth, pay transparency works well because people could
agree that this person is being paid fairly. Also, if everyones pay could be
dynamically determined it would help too. Basically, people get hired and get
their salary set. Then new people are being recruited and market dynamics may
have changed and now maybe a higher salary is required to attract this
candidate.

I'm not being very articulate here, but i'd say the problem with pay
transparency isn't the transparency part, but the actual process of
determining fair/market-clearing wages for employees.

~~~
abtinf
> If compensation could be a direct output of an algorithm ... people could
> agree that this person is being paid fairly

Nope. Then they would start accusing the algorithm of being racist, sexist,
otherist. They would cite institutional bias - bias so pervasive everyone has
it even while no individuals do - and demand the algorithm be tweaked for
their favored lobbyists.

The problem with pay transparency is not that it doesn't work; the problem is
that the entire concept is immoral and evil. How much money you make is,
properly, strictly a conversation between the parties in the transaction. No
one else should care about your income; they should focus on maximizing their
own value and find those for whom their services are the most valuable. The
kinds of benefits valuable to an individual are unique: everyone has a
different in background, life choices, purpose, and capability. There is no
way to account for the fact that person A values work that involves travel,
while person B is interested in work with a predictable schedule; and it is
improper for person B to look at person A's compensation and make judgements
about their own compensation, not because it is impossible to analyze all of
the factors, but because person B must decide their own purpose and work
toward it.

This is simply another manifestation of the inequality debate. Equal is Unfair
is a great book that unpacks the issues of inequality:
[https://www.amazon.com/Equal-Unfair-Americas-Misguided-
Inequ...](https://www.amazon.com/Equal-Unfair-Americas-Misguided-
Inequality/dp/125008444X)

~~~
09094920394314
>The problem with pay transparency is not that it doesn't work; the problem is
that the entire concept is immoral and evil. How much money you make is,
properly, strictly a conversation between the parties in the transaction.

so how does this differ from any other good/transaction where we DO share
prices? Why is it not immoral and evil that I can compare prices between
amazon and walmart?

All the problem you describe can be resolved by employers either justifying
themselves to their employees like adults, paying more, or the employees
quitting. All of which are free market actions, the first of which having the
added bonus of humanising the relationship. The only downside: you can't just
treat your employees like "human resources" and get away with it as easily.
You need to treat them as people

~~~
abtinf
The difference is that every individual is unique in their ability to create
value and their compensation preferences.

A product on Amazon has a market price - the thing being exchanged is an
objective, metaphysical fact and people assign it a value. In areas of labor
where the uniqueness of individuals is less of a factor, you will generally
find that pay transparency is the norm. This is often unskilled/low-skilled
labor in jobs that cannot offer meaningful non-pecuniary compensation.

But most people do not work in such jobs, and even in most manual labor jobs
there is a strong element of applying your mind to do good work. As such, your
purpose as an individual is much more important.

Pay transparency detrimental to you, as an individual. To live a happy life,
you must figure out your own purpose and use your mind to achieve it.
Happiness is not the result of income, nor is money required to be happy. Your
happiness is a function of the achievement of the values you have defined for
yourself. If you allow the income of others to influence your decision making,
you are only hurting yourself. You should not leave a job that is satisfying
in its essentials - that is, it fits with your purpose, you do meaningful work
- merely because you discover someone else makes more; that would only hurt
you. You don't know - can't know - their purpose, their value, their
preferences, that lead to their income and work environment.

~~~
deathanatos
> _Pay transparency detrimental to you, as an individual. To live a happy
> life, you must figure out your own purpose and use your mind to achieve it.
> Happiness is not the result of income, nor is money required to be happy.
> Your happiness is a function of the achievement of the values you have
> defined for yourself._

Perhaps someday I'll be less cynical, but I'll go ahead and say it: money
might not _be_ happiness, but it sure goes a long way to helping. If you need
to work 80 hours / week just to keep food on the table and a roof over your
head, leaving no time for you to express you own desires and wishes (and no
money to do so), how are you supposed to be happy?

Money isn't directly happiness, but it helps in that you can acquire things
that make you happy. For example, if my dream is to become a great guitar
player, money towards instruments, lessons, etc. greatly helps. What if I want
to see the world? That will cost money and time, which is often even more
valuable than money.

> _If you allow the income of others to influence your decision making, you
> are only hurting yourself._

If I find out that I'm getting screwed by my employer, and that I should ask
for $20k/year more (which I can _only_ know if I know the salary distribution
for people of my trade, in my location), I fail to see how that can harm me.
By the very definition, I'm being harmed every day I remain ignorant.

(Certainly, there are individuals who will chase the number, and let their
hubris get ahead of them. They're not the people I think such initiatives are
attempting to benefit. And I think the argument is that while such initiatives
might not be perfect, they do more good than harm.)

~~~
neilwilson
As the old line goes, money doesn't make you happy, but it sure does allow you
to be miserable in comfort.

------
maxxxxx
If you can't explain why someone gets paid less than someone else then you
have a problem that shouldn't be solved by keeping people in the dark.

~~~
matwood
On the flip side do people want all the reasons listed out why someone is
better than them?

Athletes are used to this comparison because it’s happened literally their
entire life (well until the everyone gets a trophy crowd kicked in), but I’m
not sure the population at large is ready to be explicitly told of their short
comings.

~~~
phil21
Yep. People are horribly fragile when it comes to this, and vastly
overestimate their importance in comparison to others.

Just this week I had a talk with an employee asking for advice. He was paid
$10k under one of his peers, and he was rather upset he got told to go pound
sand when he asked to be brought up to that level.

My thoughts at the time? Only $10k? The other guy is vastly more valuable in
his role than you, sounds like either you're overpaid, or the other guy is
underpaid to me!

The fact the guy thought it was unfair is the _norm_ for humans. Exceedingly
few folks have the self-awareness to step back and say "oh yeah, that guy
really is more valuable to the company than I am - maybe I should step up my
game".

Typically we call those folks high performers, and they aren't generally the
ones having issues getting paid well :)

~~~
maxxxxx
"Typically we call those folks high performers, and they aren't generally the
ones having issues getting paid well :)"

I know plenty of high performers who suck at negotiating.

~~~
phil21
True, very good point I didn't consider. This is pretty common actually, as
unfortunate as it is.

~~~
maxxxxx
And most companies are perfectly content underpaying high performers.

~~~
mi100hael
Why wouldn't they be? If Apple started selling iPhones for $20 against their
best interests I sure wouldn't complain.

------
Harkins
> And the legal basis for such rules [prohibitions on employees sharing salary
> information with their peers] is at best murky—indeed, a large number of
> U.S. states now explicitly ban them.

And besides that, the National Labor Relations Board considers employees
discussing pay to be protected concerted activity. I'm not sure if just having
the rule is illegal, but enforcing it certainly is.

------
thetron
I work for a company with full pay transparency – well, complete transparency
across all parts of the organisation – I can't imagine working in an opaque
environment ever again. I love it.

------
tabeth
Transparency aside, I've seen little evidence that employers can properly
measure the exact value an employee adds to their organization.

The reason for most of these problems lies there. If employers could solve
that there wouldn't be any problem. However, since that isn't the case,
employees can take advantage of the opaqueness.

\---

Case and point: if you could measure the value, you could figure out what is
valuable, and if you can figure out what's valuable and what qualities it
takes to create said value then your organization would already be successful.

~~~
neilwilson
If the information is available to all the function of the labour market will
force the value to the correct figure.

It's not a matter of individual firms. It is a matter of individual firms
interacting with a functional market.

~~~
tabeth
I disagree. What's valuable, and therefore compensation, is a matter of
opinion, not fact.

------
pjungwir
Reflecting on this article brings up a lot of contractions in my own past
thinking:

I wouldn't want to work somewhere with public salaries, because I suspect that
like unions they wind up enforcing mediocrity. I'm confident enough in my own
abilities that I want the possibility of out-performing and being compensated
for it.

On the other hand, as an employee I _would_ want freedom to discuss salary
with fellow employees, to get better information when it's time to negotiate
raises and promotions.

Also, in a professional services firm, which I think is the ideal structure
for software developers to capture more of their value, the partners all know
each other's earnings (at least assuming the firm is of modest size). What's
more, I agree pretty strongly with David Maister's recommendation in _Managing
the Professional Services Firm_ that partner profit-sharing should be based on
seniority rather than some metric, since that is less likely to distort
incentives and cause resentment.

It seems like I am all over the place! I'm not yet convinced these are _true_
contradictions, but having them laid side-by-side does force me to ask why
not.

------
epx
"nearly 40% perceived themselves as performing within the top 5% of their
peers.". That's exactly the problem. I've been well paid my whole life, but in
comparison with other peoples' productivity, I should have been paid thrice as
much. I don't complain; everybody has to eat, everybody has to take care of
their families, etc. But I am damn sure all these people would not tolerate
knowing even that I got as little as 30% more.

This is one reason why I don't have a typical job for almost a decade now. I
get interview invitations from big SV companies, but I hardly ever get
invitations from local software houses, and when it happened, it went nowhere
because they wanted to pay the average ERP programmer salary, citing "internal
politics".

It _also_ happens when I do per-hour consulting work - my rate is considered
high compared to what Dummy Database Consulting charges, so I have to settle
for lower values, but at least the values are higher in absolute terms.

~~~
jackgolding
What you are saying is as a top performer it financially was and is better for
you to charge based on results? (i.e. as a consultant)

~~~
epx
Yes.

------
mietek
_> Surveys done shortly after this found that employees who went to the
website and discovered they were paid below the median for their peers were
much less satisfied on average with their jobs and more likely to express an
intent to depart than those who were paid below the median but didn’t receive
the prompt to compare their pay. So in this case, full pay transparency
encouraged greater overall dissatisfaction and possibly turnover—the exact
opposite of the power that full transparency has in the right situations to
motivate employees and attract talent._

What really makes people unhappy: telling them that they are underpaid, or
underpaying them?

------
dawnbreez
If your employees are angry and think that they're not paid fairly, that's on
the employer to fix. Either it's perceptual, and the employer needs to clarify
something, or it's a real gap, and the employer is at fault. This article
suggests that the solution is to continue not telling people what they are
paid. I concede that humans have terrible judgement in many things. This is
why it's absolutely necessary to be as transparent as possible. Tl;dr: If your
employees are complaining about unequal pay, you're doing something wrong.

------
phoobahr
So.... Companies used to using information-hiding to manipulate negotiations
with employees find that Thierry culture and skill sets aren't well adapted to
maintaining the 'house advantage' in a free and open market place for talent.

This is my surprised face.

------
throwawaymsft
There are numerous thought experiments on how transparent salaries affect team
cohesion and go against human nature.

Meanwhile, professional sports teams and the military, who rely on team
cohesion more than random white collar professionals, have transparent
salaries. If teams worked better with opaque salaries wouldn’t these ultra
competitive/life-or-death industries have figured it out?

------
neilwilson
So the downside of Full Pay Transparency appears to be that it causes the
labour market to function as a market by increasing the information necessary
to eliminate sub-optimality.

Who knew?

It isn't the company that provides you with job security. It is the job
market. If everybody who thinks they are being underpaid moves on, it soon
sorts itself out.

------
lolsal
I can't really articulate why, but to me my salary and compensation is
extremely private. I'm not ashamed of my compensation and I could justify it
(compared to my peers for example), but it still seems like something that is
extremely private. When I ask myself why I would care if my coworkers, family,
friends, etc knew my compensation I can't come up with a solid answer. I am in
my early 30s, if that matters.

If we think of compensation being directly and only related to the value that
that person brings to a company, it seems like we're neglecting half the
equation. The flow of value goes the other way as well - I would require
higher compensation for the same value delivered if I did not like the company
or the work environment for example. I could also require lower compensation
if I really liked the company or work environment. How does this discrepancy
have any bearing on compensation compared to a peer who is (for the sake of
argument) delivering the same exact value to the company? This half of
compensation is extremely personal and subjective.

If transparent compensation becomes the norm (or legally required), I can see
myself migrating back to consulting work where I would charge by project or
deliverable which would totally obscure my hourly compensation even if the
contract itself was public.

------
seem_2211
I think the hardest bit about salaries is that most people bring an intangible
amount of value to their companies, with pay usually determined by the local
market.

For example, I'm not sure how you'd accurately determine how much someone in
HR middle management brings over the course of a year, or for someone working
in corporate PR.

The company I work for has extremely transparent pay - you keep a % of the
amount you bring in. It's no great secret how much anyone makes in a given
month, nor how much the company brings in. But this only really works in that
we're all working sales jobs, so you don't have to justify anything.

------
dragonwriter
> Full pay transparency works well in two settings. One is where pay levels
> are based simply on rank and tenure, and perhaps location—not on
> performance. Think government agencies.

But, that's not how government agencies work; in the federal general schedule
system initial pay steps within a grade can vary based on special needs of the
hiring agency or special qualification of the candidate, and advancement in
steps within the grade is based not only on longevity but acceptable
performance.

State and local civil service systems I've seen seem to be generally similar.

~~~
holograham
have you ever worked in a government setting? I would hardly call them the
epitome of a highly functioning workforce. Laziness and waste is rampant.

~~~
ryandrake
Sorry, but laziness and waste is rampant in the corporate world as well.

------
Corrado
This Joel On Software article[0] is my favorite work on compensation. It
details a ladder system that exposes everyone's salary as well as the
requirements to move up. The lack of individual bonuses is an interesting
twist and I'm thinking that it might not work in a large company where you
can't directly influence the direction of the company.

Then again, when requirements are clear it becomes much easier to make
decisions that benefit the company. "Maybe we don't need to have the company
retreat in Tibet this year."

[0] [https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/08/30/fog-creek-
compensa...](https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/08/30/fog-creek-
compensation/)

------
mk89
The concept of salary is interpreted by people in all different ways since
always, therefore you won't achieve nothing but grudge and dysfunctional teams
on long term, unless pays are really fair and people are really the right ones
for implementing such a system.

Some people see their self worth in their job, some in how much they earn,
some mixed, some in how much good they do at work, some in having a family,
etc. One fixed component is the salary which can't be the lever among people
but it can certainly be interpreted as such, therefore should be private.
Also, if I am a better negotiator than you are, why should I be perceived in a
negative way? "Oh he works less than me, but he earns more". Maybe he is
better at selling himself (?).

But it's ok that companies do such experiments, otherwise we would not know
the outcome...

------
mankash666
No surprise that a Murdoch publication hell bent on proselytizing Reganomics
opines against open salary information. Nothing here stands muster - in
school, kids freely share their grading information, and seldom do they not
understand why an objectively better performance earned someone a better grade

~~~
detaro
Pupils will disagree on what "objectively better" means if at all possible
though, despite individual pieces of schoolwork being relatively easy to rank.

------
marcoperaza
> _In a study of engineers at two major Silicon Valley companies conducted
> some years ago, I found that nearly 40% perceived themselves as performing
> within the top 5% of their peers. Ninety-two percent felt they were in the
> top quartile, and only one engineer felt his or her performance was below
> average._

This is the heart of the problem. People think they are more deserving than
they actually are. When they find out that they're not getting paid as much as
they think they should, relative to people who they wrongly think they perform
better than, they will be upset at management and envious of their peers.

------
Joakal
Pay transparency could cause a revolt by women when they see they're paid less
than men. This is not studies they were quoting but they could see themselves
paid less than men for same work, etc. BBC and several other places are having
this issue.

Without the pay transparency, the women would've been oblivious.

~~~
sonthonax
Women are rarely paid less for the same jobs anymore.

[https://www.ft.com/content/a0d8872c-d1b9-11e6-9341-7393bb2e1...](https://www.ft.com/content/a0d8872c-d1b9-11e6-9341-7393bb2e1b51)

[https://www.theguardian.com/money/2015/aug/29/women-
in-20s-e...](https://www.theguardian.com/money/2015/aug/29/women-in-20s-earn-
more-men-same-age-study-finds)

Edit:

I do know you're talking about the 'scandal' where there was a paygap between
male and female presenters in the BBC. Obviously it's not great, but it's also
something I find it hard to care about when the story is, "Man is earning 500K
a year, while woman is earning 300K".

------
kristofferR
I like the Norwegian model, full tax/income transparency.

~~~
fastbeef
If it's anything like the Swedish model, it's not as easy as that. You can of
course solicit someones tax return from the Tax Agency (as it's a public
record) and read how much income they declared, but it's not as easy as typing
in someone's name into an API and getting "They make X per month".

~~~
dx034
The process is quite easy and can be done online [1] but since 2014, the
person in question will be informed via email about the request. But as anyone
can request salaries, you can just ask someone else to request your
neighbour's salary if you don't want him to see it was you. Journalists are
exempt from that and can see any tax report without notification.

[1] [http://www.skatteetaten.no/en/person/Tax-
settlement/Search-i...](http://www.skatteetaten.no/en/person/Tax-
settlement/Search-in-the-tax-lists/)

~~~
Enhanced
There is no e-mail being sent, but I think many people actually believe that
the person they search is notified - would explain why so few people have used
it in recent years.

Everyone who has searched for your name is listed in a sub-section / "tab",
listed as a link on the same page where you can search for the information of
others. I imagine that very few people are looking at that, especially not a
few days after the initial "OMG now you can look up what everybody makes"
articles in the newspapers.

------
NateyJay
This article says that it's easier and better for companies to keep their
unfair compensation schemes private than risk employee unhappiness by making
them transparent.

Sure, it's easier and better _for companies_ to keep their dirty laundry
hidden, but it's better for employees. That's the whole point of transparency:
to see the unfairness, and to work to fix it. And if you don't fix it, you
won't be able to attract talent.

~~~
matwood
Define ‘fair’.

~~~
whipoodle
People get what they deserve and deserve what they get.

~~~
krotton
And that's precisely the subjective part. If neither party knows the worth,
neither can objectively argue, so we deal with emotions on both sides.

~~~
whipoodle
Oh no, not subjectivity!!!

~~~
dang
Since you've continued to post plenty of unsubstantive comments after we
repeatedly asked you not to, we've banned this account.

If you don't want to be banned on HN, you're welcome to email
hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll use the site as
intended.

------
JohnnyConatus
ITT people assuming they have an objective view of coworkers performance.

------
kruhft
All income should be reported.

------
whipoodle
> But it can also have the opposite effect, demoralizing employees and driving
> valuable talent away, especially when it isn’t clear why some people are
> paid more than others.

Yes, if only something could be done about that.

~~~
ch4s3
Sometimes I think that the staff at the WSJ has no understanding of irony.

