Our poll on how to handle a Salary Leak has generated a big response, with the majority choosing to hold a staff meeting where they explain how salaries are determined and what employees can do to improve their future pay.
But what’s really going to happen at such a meeting? Isn’t there already an obvious explanation to to how salaries are determined? Companies pay people as little as they can, yet just enough to keep them. “If a company has the opportunity to save a few bucks by not paying an employee as much as another,” reader “Toodor” wrote in the comments section, “they will take it.”
To keep the debate going, I’m going to play devil’s advocate here and say that calling a meeting is wrong because it acknowledges that this salary discrepancy is a problem that needs to be fixed. Isn’t the company doing what’s right for its bottom line if, in the salary negotiation process for new hires, they can get some people cheaper than others? Isn’t that the employee’s fault for not knowing their own worth? As reader “jim_moroney” wrote: “Assuming that some people are truly underpaid, why are they still there? Since anyone can look up what they may be worth on salary.com, why aren’t they looking?”
If you’re one of the underpaid employees, would this salary leak really have you screaming for gender equality, or feeling like an idiot for not demanding more from the beginning? Some people are getting paid more than others. Wouldn’t you be asking yourself what it is about those people that forced the company to give them more money for similar work? Are they better workers than me? Or are they just better than me when it comes to negotiating starting salaries and raises? Isn’t the only thing that’s going to be corrected in this situation your own reality of how money works in the business world? Isn’t it time to dust off the resume and go play the game elsewhere, since you’ve finally woken up to how the game works?
