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Mike Hosking: Why you shouldn't know how much your colleagues earn

Author
Mike Hosking,
Publish Date
Wed, 18 Jul 2018, 11:06AM
It's a good idea in theory, but only trouble can come from knowing how much everyone earns. (Photo /

Mike Hosking: Why you shouldn't know how much your colleagues earn

Author
Mike Hosking,
Publish Date
Wed, 18 Jul 2018, 11:06AM

Hot on the heels of yesterday's survey into recruitment practices by New Zealand firms, and how hardly any of them use social media despite the millennials making up more and more of the workforce, we have the latest hair-brained idea destined for carnage at the office

Presumably driven out of the whole #metoo, time is up, we are all equal, gender pay gap fiasco, comes the concept that we should all know what each other earns.

Alarmingly companies, not in New Zealand right now, but internationally are embracing the practice.

Presumably, they're the same ones who hand out unlimited leave.

And the ones who last week I saw, and this was here, who hand out maternity or paternity leave for those who get a new puppy.

If you missed that and are now in shock, the idea is if you get a new pet, you need a weeks' free leave to settle it in.

You can't possibly be expected to be stressed at work and worried about Barney wetting your carpet all alone at home.

Anyway, back to everyone knowing everyone's pay. Can you just imagine the fallout?

In theory, we are all open, equal and supportive of each other’s ambitions. We all bond as a team support, admire talent promote dedication and good ideas.

But in reality, the bloke next to you is a bastard and he gets paid too much.

The BBC has learned this the hard way.

They were instructed last year by the government to publish all salaries in 10,000 pound bands above 150,000 pounds a year.

When they did, the most explosive gender pay gap spat broke out. The blokes, it turned out, seemed to earn more than the ladies. And that could not do.

And that’s before you got to the facile argument over who earned what anyway, and whether they were worth it.

The second year's results were published last week, and low and behold the gap hasn't really closed but all the salaries have gone down.

Massive wage bill saving for the BBC? No.

They have probably gone and hidden salaries in separate companies so they don’t get reported.

And that is what happens when you introduce that level of artificiality to things like pay.

As regards to us all knowing what each of us earn?

Here's the unwritten, not often, spoken truth: most think they're better than the person next to them.

Most would resent knowing anyone even remotely close to them in terms of experience or responsibility got paid more. Or even if you got paid more but it wasn’t enough more.

There will be people, and we all know them, who you can't actually believe have a job, far less have money.

It would end in acrimony, aggression, or most likely all-out war. There would be seething resentment, fury, and plotting.

In this age where seemingly any mad idea is to be embraced and listened to, perhaps it pays us to just take a minute and remember there are generally good reasons for doing things the way we already do.

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