A Step-by-Step Guide to Talking About Salary With Your Co-Workers
How to initiate an awkward but necessary conversation
“Please don’t share that you got a bonus,” my manager whispered to me in the same sort of lowered voice usually reserved for the juiciest office gossip. I was just leaving the one-on-one meeting where I’d gotten the good news — one of several such bonus-related meetings happening that day — and I knew that within the next 24 hours, our open-plan office would be abuzz with information about who had and hadn’t received one. Still, I agreed, mumbling, “Okay,” on my way out.
A few hours later, one of the women in my four-person desk cluster approached me to share, in hushed tones, that one of our colleagues hadn’t gotten a bonus. “How much did you get?” she added.
Unsure if my manager’s directive was a request or a command, I hesitated, trying to quickly run through the potential ramifications of sharing this information. What would it mean if it got back to this other colleague of ours that I had received a bonus when she, a superior, hadn’t?
Thus began the mental gymnastics done in offices everywhere: When faced with the conundrum about whether or not to talk about salaries with your co-workers, what do you do?
