After nearly 30 years in management, I can tell you that every situation I witnessed where someone shared their pay turned out badly. They led to jealousy, anger and resentment. They created ill will among co-workers and between workers and management.

I wonder how many times your workers shared their pay info where it did not cause jealousy, anger or resentment and you did not find our because it was not a problem or they did not reveal those feelings to you. You don’t know what you did not know.

There is no such thing as fair wages in a workplace. Each person has different skills, experiences and personality traits. Good managers pay them according to fact and logic. Bad managers don’t, so they eventually lose good people

There is absolutely such a thing as fair wages in a workplace. My previous employer used national statistics and regional data to set wages and salaries. Each person might have different skills, experiences and personality traits and managers can pay them accordingly and that would be fair. What is not fair is paying a person with more skills or more valuable experience less than others because of things like the job market at the time they were hired or because you made them a low ball offer and they accepted because they did not know better. Equal pay for equal work, better pay for better work. Regarding personality traits, did you tend to pay people better if the worked harder a kissing your ass even if they were less productive. Did you give better raises to employees who you were more social with.

If you are a good manager and pay is based on fact and logic then you should be able to clear up any jealousy or anger or resentment caused by the revelation of people rates of pay. The facts should speak for themselves.

I mean how did you deal with promotions. When you promoted people, didn’t you explain why you picked Chris instead of Pat.

TEK