Can you tell colleagues how much you earn?

Dilemma

It is perhaps the biggest taboo in the workplace: salary. Out of shame or for fear of conflict or jealousy, many people find it uncomfortable to tell their colleagues how much they earn. But openness about salaries can also have advantages, for example to close wage gaps. Is it wise to tell your colleagues how much you earn?

No

Don’t do it, is the advice of Lidewey van der Sluis. According to the professor of strategic talent management and organizational leadership at Nyenrode Business University, salary is a very sensitive subject: it is about what people are worth in the eyes of another. « That is a very big question. »

That sensitivity makes many people reluctant to talk about their salary, says Van der Sluis, and she thinks that is wise. « Only zooming in on the salary is a limited look at what someone is worth in the eyes of an employer, there is much more around it. » A salary says nothing about the other agreements made about employment conditions, such as a course, an assistant, a colleague who takes care of work, a commitment for a sabbatical or a new project to control. « A salary is therefore not the complete picture and then you will compare apples with pears, » says Van der Sluis.

A distinction must be made between employers who reward the person, depending on the added value of an employee, and companies that stick to the traditional way of rewarding by looking at which function someone fulfills and hanging a salary scale on that position, says Van der Sluis. Rewarding ‘the person’ is mainly done at private companies and is becoming increasingly popular, says Rolf Baarda. He is an expert in the field of ‘modern reward’. The government is an example of an employer who still sticks to rewarding per position, although there is also increasing attention to customization within the government.

The reward for the person cannot be compared, but with a reward per function that could be, says Baarda. Yet he is not in favor of openness about the salary, because according to him he is feeding the wrong discussion. « If you communicate the salary to people, you get discussions that are only about the amount: » Why do I earn so much and my colleague so much and why is that less?  » While it is much more interesting to talk about what contribution you make, what quality it has, when you feel your senang in your work and when something becomes too difficult. ”

« The discussion should be about whether you think you are being honestly rewarded, » says Van der Sluis. « It is easy to compare and point salaries to the other, but it is better to look at yourself: do you do enough to create the value you are paid for? »

Based on that analysis you can also conduct a more interesting negotiation, says Van der Sluis. Understanding how much you have delivered and that you want to be rewarded more for that reason – in whatever form. « That has nothing to do with age, that is a kulargument. The one simply does better or more work than the other, you can reward that too. »

Only in specific situations

Is there no situation in which you do benefit from being open about your salary or to ask your colleagues how much they earn? Of course there are nuances, says Van der Sluis. « In the Netherlands we are entitled to equal reward. If you have doubts about it – for example because you think that a colleague earns more in the same position, or because a male colleague gets more than a female – you can certainly ask about that. » In that case, openness about salary can indeed be useful, says Van der Sluis. « I have also seen a few times that male and female colleagues with the same functioning do not deserve the same thing. You have to raise that. »

It is crucial to first see in the mirror whether your salary can be compared, says Van der Sluis. « Do you function as well as the colleague with which you compare yourself? Did you show the same bet just as often? » Baarda also finds it useful to discuss the salary to raise any wage gaps, although he points out that it is not necessarily necessary to tell each other what you earn. « A P&O department can investigate the data and determine how much the pay gap is and which causes it. »

Transparency about the salary can also be beneficial for starters on the labor market, says Baarda. « Your first negotiation as a junior is the most important thing, you take it with you for the rest of your career. In that case it is logical that you want to know what others deserve with the same kind of profession. » In this situation there is an external comparison, Baarda explains to discover what is paid in the market. That is different from a comparison between colleagues at the same company, for which Baarda advises to discuss the salary.

Yet in this situation, Van der Sluis would not recommend asking colleagues or other people in their area about their salary. « You can find a lot on the internet if you want to know how much salary you can expect for your first job, but don’t ask people about it, that is uncomfortable. Moreover, you have to know what you are worth. »

So

Talking about salary is taboo and that is for a reason. A salary often outlines an incomplete picture about the full reward of an employee, because not all employment conditions can be seen in it. Yet there are also situations in which openness can help about salary: for example, if there is a pay gap in the workplace, or if a colleague who performs the same earns more.

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