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Do companies, as a general rule, make information available to employees about what each job position pays?

I always thought that revealing such info can motivate people, but what is the standard practice?

Update 1: the information does not have to be about specific individuals, but all the possible salaries per position, without going into who exactly gets what.

Update 2: To those who voted to close: my question is about companies' rationale behind this, and it is not the same question as your linked posts.

Update 3: Let me rephrase the question after reading the comments.

In my experience, companies tend to keep info about compensation for various job roles hidden. I am not talking about John gets X amount while Jim gets Y. I am talking about how much money one could get if one performed as well as possible by the company's standards.

For example, in some cases a company may say Role A pays in the range of $Χ - $Υ, but the company doesn't disclose how many people actually get paid the $Y.

To me this seems demotivating, because there is no way to know if the amounts they say are real. This may cause people to think that it is a trick to keep people longer, and hence have the actual effect of people leaving.

mcknz
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smith
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    related: http://workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/55545/why-is-it-bad-to-compare-salaries-among-peers/55551#55551 – Kate Gregory Feb 17 '16 at 22:09
  • @smith You're asking about "company rationale" behind this but if you think about this it is most likely not actually company policy that stops discussing salary among co-workers. It just comes down to what co-workers choose to do/not to do. – Brandin Feb 18 '16 at 08:27
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    Your question is adequately answered by the answers posted to the linked questions. In particular, this answer addresses the issues that companies would face if they allowed salaries to be discussed openly. If there is anything else that this question asks for which the linked posts do not answer, please specify that clearly in your edit. – Masked Man Feb 18 '16 at 10:09
  • @MaskedMan: Please see new update. Does this improve the post? – smith Feb 18 '16 at 21:54
  • @smith Companies have no obligation to disclose salary information at all. If this were sufficiently demotivating as to cause people to quit, we'd see more and more companies disclose salary information. But they don't. Another reason why a company wouldn't disclose is there can be wide salary ranges, even for the same title. Your salary is determined by many things aside from title (such as your skill set, years of experience, and ability to negotiate), so publishing a range is, in fact, misleading. – mcknz Feb 19 '16 at 16:54
  • @mcknz: I don't know why you have this assumption because from my experience so far people that either I worked with or know or have heard of 99.9% of the time leave because of the compensation. And usually they leave believing they are getting less than other people working less for the same role. Disclosing such salary info at least satisfies more and feelings of being unappreciated would disappear – smith Feb 19 '16 at 20:33
  • @smith I agree that many people quit because of compensation. This doesn't necessarily mean that disclosing salary ranges is the cure. It's not in a company's interest to disclose ranges (then people can simply use the higher end as a negotiating position), and companies don't typically act against their own interests. – mcknz Feb 19 '16 at 20:48
  • Companies have salary bands (Role A ~ $Χ - $Υ) for several legitimate reasons, and usually the bands overlap. They're not legally allowed lie, so you can believe the band definitions, with the obvious caveat: $X and $Y are the absolute min and max, they're not guidelines on what people are actually earning within that band. Similarly, the distribution may well be skewed so that the mean and median are < (X+Y)/2 . Also, bonuses and stock allow them to play with total compensation. – smci Nov 18 '16 at 12:29
  • The *actual* salary paid for a specific role being hired for is disclosed on H1B visa notices which are publicly posted (sometimes the break room, sometimes HR's cubicle). If your company happens to currently have a H1B processing. Also, Glassdoor, and salary surveys. – smci Nov 18 '16 at 12:29

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I'll answer based on my experience as a software developer in Northern California. I have never worked at a private company where the salary schedule for each position was officially published. As in, if your job title is programmer level I, you were paid between $X and $X+Y. All salary information is disseminated via the grapevine. "Did you know so-an-so makes $90k? I saw her pay stub on the printer." My current employer (4,000 employee company) goes stupid one step further: it has a jobs web site which lists open jobs, but then has NO salary numbers whatsoever. I'm certain lots of people don't bother to apply (from within, even) because they don't know if it's worth their while. I know I've asked around about internal transfer jobs to find they paid significantly less than my current pay. You have to be "connected" some how to find out. Not sure how that benefits the company.

Nolo Problemo
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