
Reddit CEO eliminates salary negotiations for new employees - yuribit
http://mashable.com/2015/04/06/ellen-pao-reddit-salary/
======
nostrademons
Possibly unpopular opinion here, but I don't think this policy will change
much. At least, it is not as universally anti-employee as people make it out
to be.

Already, the best way for anyone to get a better salary is to have a competing
offer in hand. "Asking for more money" will just get you back the ~$5K that
the company low-balled you in the first place, figuring that you would ask for
it. Folks in the comments here are talking about getting a raise of $7.5K by
asking for it - I've had multiple offers (at the same time) differ by ~35%,
and doubled my compensation by switching jobs after about 2 years.

What this policy will do is ensure that Reddit will lose candidates who shop
around to a higher bidder. This is not a loss for the candidate - they get the
higher-paying job anyway - it's a loss for Reddit. Or maybe it's not, if
Reddit is looking to employ "true believers" who care about the site itself
and not their salary.

Or Reddit could up its base salary so that it has a reasonable likelihood of
being the highest offer for any candidate it wants to employ. That's a win for
all of Reddit's _current_ employees, a financial loss for Reddit, but may be a
cultural win for Reddit.

~~~
bmm6o
That's what I was thinking, but TFA is too thin on details to draw any
conclusions. Like your example about a candidate having a better second offer
and asking Reddit to bump theirs - I guess that counts as negotiation, but is
that the kind of behavior this policy is supposed to "level"? It seems like
the easiest kind of negotiation there is, and the kind I imagine would help
women the most. Especially since if you remove the opportunity for negotiation
later, the initial offer becomes that much more important.

------
WestCoastJustin
How is this not a win for Reddit and a loss for new hires? I have often heard,
and seen first hand, that you can easy take home 20k+ more, just by ask for it
during the hiring process. It is in the employers best interest, to low ball
you, and lock you into making less money. Is this just a negotiation tactic,
saying that they do not negotiate, maybe...

~~~
spcoll
I see it more as leveling the playing field. Women are less aggressive and
ruthless in negotiations, and that contributes to the staggering pay gap we
see in tech and elsewhere. This gap needs to end, and such a measure might
well prove effective.

Such a measure will also mean that aggressive salary negotiators will go
elsewhere after their attempts at negotiation are rejected by Reddit HR. Since
these people are almost always male, that's a win. It will result in a
workplace with less men : )

~~~
RexRollman
The goal should not be to hire more of any particular gender. The goal should
be to hire the best, most qualified people (although I believe it is okay to
use diversity as a factor if one has to choose between two identically
qualified applicants).

Eliminating salary negoiation just because woman are not good at is stupid. It
baby's them.

~~~
dragonwriter
Whether it is gender-associated or not, if negotiation skill isn't what your
company is seeking in employees, it shouldn't be providing premium
compensation for it (and,consequently, inferior compensation for people with
the skills you do want that lack negotiation skills.)

~~~
smsm42
Negotiation is not directly required skill, but refusing to negotiate will
deprive them of candidates with other valuable skills, just because they would
take better offer from elsewhere. It's not like negotiation is like performing
some circus trick and getting paid for how well you performed it. It's finding
a balance between what the company thinks you're worth and what you think
you're worth and what you can get in the market. If Reddit says "we have
predefined price and won't move" then either they would consistently overpay
(which I have hard time believing in) or they would lose candidates that have
better options. Usually such candidates are not the very worst ones.

------
robgibbons
This may be an unpopular opinion, so forgive me in advance, but this new trend
of non-negotiable salary is about one step away from Apple's anti-competitive
employment agreements that became public after Jobs' death. In fact, that's
exactly what it is: anti-competitive.

What is stopping all of the top SV companies from colluding on what a "fair
salary" is? This just reeks of a glass ceiling that rewards nobody but the
corporation. And now it comes in the name of feminism?

------
bmm6o
I wonder how they expect it to work out in practice. Are they increasing the
amount of their offers to compensate for this, or are they just planning to
accept that better negotiators will go elsewhere (for more money).

------
cLeEOGPw
So in other words reddit now will only take those who will agree to lower pay.
Hardly a strategy to strengthen developer team.

~~~
marssaxman
Or they will simply have to offer the higher pay up front, to everyone,
instead of reserving it only for people who ask specially for it instead of
taking their offer literally. This is a step toward improved transparency in
the hiring process.

------
shayaknyc
While I completely understand that by eliminating negotiations for new hires
helps to level the playing field, this is just a short-term bandage on a much
larger wound.

I would have much preferred she change their hiring policies to educate their
hiring managers on how NOT to be biased against women and to NOT penalize
women who negotiate for themselves. Treat women who aggressively negotiate
their own salaries THE SAME WAY YOU WOULD IF IT WERE A MAN! Education,
ultimately, is the answer to a long term solution. It would also help to make
sure you have an equal balance of sexes that comprise your hiring team to
truly level the playing field.

For a capitalist society, if you're a stronger negotiator, then you should
absolutely reap those benefits, and if you're a weaker negotiator, then you
have something to strive for and improve. By eliminating it altogether, I'm
not sure how you can achieve sustainable, long term success. This decision
also seems to undermine or belie the accolades thrown on her for being a
Feminist icon in the tech/vc world. If you're trying to level the "playing
field" then LEVEL it, don't eliminate it.

~~~
ForHackernews
Being a good negotiator is not well-correlated with being a good performer on
the job for most jobs, perhaps least of all for software engineers (who tend
to be conflict adverse and not particularly socially adept). It's absurd that
playing hardball during hiring negotiations counts for more than anything I
could possibly do once I'm actually working a job.

If anything, awarding massive rewards to stronger negotiators is a market
failure in a capitalist society, in the same way that paying more to taller or
more attractive people is.

~~~
nsxwolf
If that's true, that it's not well-correlated, why haven't companies figured
this out yet? You'd think someone would be paying attention when there's money
involved.

~~~
ForHackernews
I'd say several reasons:

1) People are people and ingrained biases and social pressures are incredibly
powerful forces.

2) The amounts of money are tiny ($1,000-$20,000) relative to a large
company's operating budget. It's the same reason businesses overspend on
airfare and SaaS products.

3) The hiring manager isn't spending _their own_ money. It's no skin off their
back if they pay a new hire an extra five grand.

------
mallyvai
I have incredibly mixed feelings about this. Zero-negotiation policies are
great tools for eliminating unfairness _if executed well_ , the problem is
that you still force the employee to end "trusting someone at their word", and
_every company_ claims they're going to make a fair, standard offer. Here's
the thing:

1) Yes, being strict and almost formulaic will reduce inequality and increase
probability that folks are compensated according to actual value.

2) But you need _meaningful transparency_ around this. I guarantee you, 100%
that if I had a live offer at Reddit, I could find some way to negotiate some
additional crap that amounted to a meaningful compensation bump in the end.

3) _Every_ company that does this ends up making exceptions for people the
higher-up you go. Wealthfront, Stack Exchange, and now Reddit, will join the
club of companies that negotiate with execs they hire, VCs, and bizdev
partners, suppliers - basically, everybody except their employees. And even
then only "most of the time"\- there are always exceptions - just hold out for
a higher comp band. Get a stronger inside referral. It's always possible.

Something very close to the Buffer model is the only real way to do things.
You can tweak the variables, but you need strictness _and_ transparency.
[https://open.bufferapp.com/buffer-open-equity-
formula/](https://open.bufferapp.com/buffer-open-equity-formula/)

Ellen, Alexis - If you're reading this, I'd love a chance to understand your
challenges in crafting these policies, and see if I could offer any input from
my perspective as well.

(Source I founded [http://OfferLetter.io](http://OfferLetter.io) \- we help
engineers and other tech workers negotiate for what they're worth. I've
personally had literally hundreds of conversations with folks about this.)

------
thelicx
That is a way to say that women are inferior to men at negotiating. Isn't that
sexist?

BTW best negotiators I've ever met in my life were all women..

~~~
EliRivers
_BTW best negotiators I 've ever met in my life were all women.._

Are you sure? I suspect your data set might be missing some; the best
negotiators I've ever seen were basically invisible. The people they were
negotiating with didn't even realise it was a negotiation.

------
cracell
The solution here is to help teach everyone how to negotiate their salaries.
Not to let companies completely dictate the terms of your employment.

Also "We come up with an offer that we think is fair. If you want more equity,
we’ll let you swap a little bit of your cash salary for equity, but we aren’t
going to reward people who are better negotiators with more compensation." is
a contradiction.

They are saying they won't negotiate and that you can negotiate in the same
sentence. Asking for a swap is a negotiation unless you have an offer that
gives you multiple salary to stock option balances to choose from to begin
with.

~~~
dragonwriter
> They are saying they won't negotiate and that you can negotiate in the same
> sentence.

No, they aren't. You are inserting assumptions not in their statement to come
up with that interpretation.

> Asking for a swap is a negotiation unless you have an offer that gives you
> multiple salary to stock option balances to choose from to begin with.

Since nothing in what they say indicates that they are not not providing
offers that give multiple salary to stock option balances to choose from (or a
base salary/equity balance and a defined swap ratio and range in which swaps
are allowed), and as you yourself note the only way the statement is
internally consistent is if it _does_ do that, why do you _assume_ that the
offers aren't structured that way?

------
yellowapple
The arguments in favor of such an elimination seem... contrived. Hell, I'd
even figure them to be sexist with their implications of "oh gee, well women
are bad negotiators, so we won't even give them the chance to negotiate in a
very-visibly-male-dominated environment".

------
nsxwolf
If this catches on, I wonder how long it will take the federal government to
decide it's such a good idea everyone needs to do it. I can imagine a database
of approved salaries that map to job titles, geographic metadata, and whatever
else - and that's what you'll get paid.

~~~
robgibbons
If this catches on, I wonder how long it will take for a class action lawsuit
against the companies involved. A widespread "take it or leave it" policy
across an entire industry would basically be akin to wage fixing. If nobody in
an entire job market will negotiate with employees on salary, they could
effectively lock out truly competitive wages.

------
2xlbuds
> Reddit CEO Ellen Pao, feminist hero,

What?

~~~
spcoll
She is.

She had the courage to stand up against sexism and bullying, and take on a
stronger adversary (KPCB), when many would have just given up. She fights for
what she thinks is right, and her fight is empowering all women in tech. If
that's not heroism, then I don't know what you need.

~~~
Retra
Have you thought about how many vile, insane people in human history match
your description of heroism?

------
JrobertsHstaff
This policy might not change much, but it will level the playing field for
Reddit's diversity recruiting efforts. It's too bad that the few feminists
there are in tech like Ellen Pao get so much criticism for trying to change an
extremely male-biased industry.

------
serve_yay
That's certainly one way to address gender-bias issues. What issues will crop
up as a result? Only time will tell. (Maybe none, but honestly I doubt it.) I
respect that they're trying this.

~~~
nsxwolf
"I want more money, so I'm not going to apply at Reddit" is one of the issues
that comes to mind. Only time will tell if it works out for them.

------
hashberry
If women are not good at doing something that men are (e.g. negotiating), then
don't let men or women do it.

Is this feminism or sexism?

------
eonw
seems like a bad idea to me and i struggle to understand how not negotiating
salaries makes it a more fair workplace.

~~~
dragonwriter
> seems like a bad idea to me and i struggle to understand how not negotiating
> salaries makes it a more fair workplace.

Paying people for the work they are being asked to do rather than for that
adjusted by their negotiating ability is more fair (unless the work they are
being asked to do is something closely relating to negotiating, in which case
paying for negotiating ability could reasonably be interpreted as paying for
job-related skills.)

As for why it might be a good idea, if they set the non-negotiation offers at
a level that pays what the average employee would end up with _with_
negotiation, it suddenly becomes a more attractive place to apply for people
whose skills are more in the area of the work of the job than in negotiating
(and, until other firms adopt similar approaches, may produce a particularly
strong retention advantage for those people.)

