Salary Transparency: Yes or No?

Salary transparency is almost a taboo topic among HR and company policies. It is not even clear if employees would be comfortable with disclosing something as personal as their pay level to friends and colleagues. While overall we vie for more transparency in our political, economic and social environments, will such a level of transparency in compensation mean better pay equality, or will it just create new problems?

As per David Burkus, best-selling management author and associate professor of leadership and innovation, pay transparency is not all that negative, provided that it’s fair. "I don’t think we need a world where everybody knows what everybody else gets paid", he says.

In my personal opinion, I don't think it's important for us to know every other person's salary. On the other hand, we do need a system in which people can trust that their salary is fair. Although total transparency may not be the best tool to achieve pay equality, it can serve as a recourse, basis which we can make a case that we should be paid more.

As per Burkus, we’re more likely to think we’re being paid unfairly in a secrecy condition than in a transparency condition. He suggests sharing the formula used to determine salaries with employees and provide an opportunity to renegotiate salaries that are not up to the mark. David further suggests that in order to avoid possible conflict arising out of the situation, performance data should be transparent as well.

Do you have any thoughts on this topic? I would love to hear them :)