What We Talk About When We Talk About Money

I remember the first time someone asked me the amount of money I made as a sportswriter for a daily newspaper. I was in my early 20s and at a house party, so it wasn’t hard to sidestep the question, given the loud music and the long, awkward pause. Still, I was appalled at my friend’s rudeness. My meager salary, I thought, was none of his business.

A few decades later, my opinion on the subject hasn’t fundamentally changed. Although I no longer consider it taboo to discuss religion and politics in social settings (despite my mother’s admonishment), I take the high road when it comes to discussing my salary. As a self-conscious, private-sector employee, my annual income is a personal matter. Isn’t it?

Evidently not.

Five years ago, a Wall Street Journal article reported that comparing salaries among colleagues was no longer “a taboo of workplace chatter.” Many Millennials, the WSJ authors claimed, document their lives on social media and therefore are inclined to share and use salary information to negotiate pay rates.

Smart cookies, those Millennials. Now the largest generation in the U.S. workforce, they are leading the calls for pay transparency — the topic of this month’s cover story. And much like the hotbed issue of pay discrimination (see “The Push to Advance Pay Parity”), the climate appears poised for the scales of justice to tip and the tides of pay transparency to rise.

What does this mean for your company? Do you operate in a work environment that discourages people from talking about their pay? Or do you take it a step further and have a company policy that forbids and penalizes workers from disclosing their pay? If it’s the latter, then you better check in with an employment law attorney because you’re likely to be in violation of the National Labor Relations Act.

More importantly, what are your compensation/total rewards philosophy and salary data gathering practices? Does it cause you angst or embarrassment if your employee posts her salary on social media? If so, is it because you know you are paying below market value for what her job is worth, or do you just think it’s inappropriate?

Family health-care woes, financial struggles, age, gender and sexual discrimination, these aren’t exactly “small talk” topics, yet employees every day volunteer this information to commiserate with their peers, air their grievances and address social injustices. Is money the last taboo?

As with most complicated subjects, there is no black and white answer to the pay transparency question. Way too many variables and circumstances exist. Do the pros outweigh the cons for employers? What is the right level of pay transparency for your organization?

“Moderation is the best policy.” “Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.” These maxims embody the cautious underpinnings of most companywide initiatives and employment policies. Many seasoned rewards professionals would say for good reason. Radical transparency — a program that radically increases the openness of organizational process and data — may cause the opposite of what pay transparency intends to achieve (employee engagement, decreased turnover, increased satisfaction). Or it may produce a walk-off home run.

Let’s face it: What society once considered taboo is now fair game and commonplace to discuss. Our parents may have taught us to never talk about politics, religion or money at the dinner table. But perhaps true progress is achieved from talking about the things that no one really wants to talk about in polite company.