Do You Know What Coworkers Get Paid?

Why do we find it awkward to talk about our salaries with our coworkers? Should we stand up to our right for pay transparency?

As we’ve discussed previously on our blog, several forward-thinking companies in our database adopt a transparent culture. It brings many benefits to an organisation – opening up the communication channels, building trust, bringing more clarity to teams, boosting performance – and it’s what employees want.

It’s even more important for remote distributed teams because being transparent ensures everyone is on the same page.

But what about pay transparency? Do you know what your coworkers are getting paid? Do you feel uncomfortable asking? There are some trailblazing tech companies like Buffer and SumAll who are already open about pay levels to varying degrees. But if we all started to have open conversations with our work colleagues about our pay, all hell would break loose, right?

Well, not according to Management Researcher, David Burkus. In his TED Talk, Why You Should Know How Much Your Coworkers Get Paid, he explains why being open about our pay is the only way to ensure fairness. Pay transparency can close the gender pay gap and keep people more engaged in their work. When people know what their coworkers are getting paid, they strive to work harder to improve progress. And they’re also less likely to quit.

Listen to the TED Talk below.