Do You Really Want to Know How Much Your Co-Workers Make?
Salary transparency has an emotional dark side
When I was in my early twenties, my co-workers and I would ride the subway home after happy hour, and — a little more brave than sober — we’d talk about our salaries as naturally as we’d psychoanalyze our bosses. We weren’t making much.
Some of us were hoping for an edge in our own salary negotiations, sure, but we also hoped our openness would combat pay gaps, and help our colleagues demand equality. I didn’t know it then, but it turns out we were engaging in “salary transparency,” which has grown more popular recently, boosted by egalitarian impulses.
The practice has become especially common among millennials, as we reach a stage of life when we’re experienced enough to merit raises that could separate us from our peers by tens of thousands of dollars, even while performing similar work. Paid-off student loans, guilt-free trips, maybe a Casper mattress (the hybrid kind with the foam and the springs) — all are just a well-executed negotiation or a new job offer away.
This transparency movement has been bolstered by new state laws that punish employers who prevent employees from discussing wages, and enabled by websites that list salaries in various fields, such as Glassdoor. Now, many…
