Delphine Ménard, 05/02/2012 09:11:
This said, I believe that transparency can take many
forms. In this
case, I would suggest that an option might be putting in place a solid
salary grid (grille salariale), which gives a range of what salary can
be expected for what position (the grid can be "broad" enough so that
people don't feel their salary has been disclosed). Cultural and local
practices need to be taken into consideration of course (as Stu pointed
out, align with the local job market to some extent).
A grid may also have the important effect of telling people who are
joining the organisation what kind of progress they can expect within
it, which I find is both reassuring and motivating for employees. It
also helps the management to think about what structure to give the
organisation. Wikimedia Deutschland published not too long ago a plan
for hiring and staff which, if it is just a "plan" also brought up the
question of "how do we want to organize in the future?" and that was, I
think, extremely helpful, as it structured the way employees see their
job and future within the organisation.
I think this is a good approach, but there's room for complete
disclosure of wages in it too, just with a bit more work for interested
people, which is good.
For instance, in my university, which has to follow state law and has
some autonomy, managers' wages are very public, but all the others are
in 4×~10 classes for staff plus 3×~20 classes for prof., the class one
belongs to is very clear (not for profs, actually) and there are tables
in the website which tell you exactly what each class costs/takes (this
is a local decision). Nobody complains about it, actually there are
problems only when people don't find the data because they're stupid and
complain randomly about wages, but then it's easy to tell them that it's
just their fault. The other problem are those few millions euros which
aren't regulated by those classes; internal clarity is the first priority.
Nemo