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