I've got about 20 years experience from jobs and positions as described here as well as hiring and having a say in salaries etc.
I'll just make a couple of observations that may or may not apply but I think are important:
1) People with the same responsibilities can have wildly different values and wildly different net impacts
2) People can think they're doing a great job and be doing a TERRRRIBLE job, some can think they are skating on thin ice whilst performing INCREDIBLY. It constantly surprises me the number of incompetent people that are shocked when they're fired for poor performance. Sometimes it is managements' fault for lack of metrics but I've seen truly low performers have the ego Einstein would deserve
With that in mind I think it is much better to remove the gendered part of this discussion as it doesn't add any value. People that have lower ability to judge their own performance and further stand up for what they're worth come in all flavors, shapes, sizes, whatever.
Public salaries are probably a great resource for jobs where the same title exactly describes the requirements otherwise they also need to involve hours worked, output and other important metrics. I've seen developers with the same title put in wildly different hours however the developer putting in extra hours might have a lower net output or net impact. Many people work extra hours to make up for their lack of ability for instance.
This, especially in knowledge based work, isn't as simple as equal pay for equal title. Furthermore if you have a team of developers working on highly technical and difficult work paving the way for developers doing less intense or difficult work how would that break down? This is common practice that in an organisation different skills have different values. I could absolutely see something like all seniors in Team A get $x, all seniors in Team B get $y and so on being perhaps possible.
In the grand scheme of things, especially in jobs where output is difficult to measure and value, I think equal pay for equal work is difficult to achieve by management. I would not want it at my workplace as we do not have the ability to measure it. I am not as a valuable as my colleagues which is not to say I am more or less valuable - just that it is different. To me it is the same problem as tipping in a kitchen. You either realise that we all as a team contribute to output and feel okay about all of us agreeing to this new scheme - or we do not. Having it pushed top down is just another move that is as much collective punishment as reward.
As a team in a previous job we at drinks would play a game where we'd start at $x and as we announced $x+10k, $x+20k we would drop our hands as the figure passed our salary. It gave everybody on the team an idea of where they sat and other than a few instances people were happy with their position - essentially their value on the team.
I'm sad to say but I think this post is probably by someone that either hasn't thought about the problem enough, had enough experience, or just is a overly annoyed to see the issues with what they're suggesting. I really hope people don't think this is a good solution to a problem that in a lot of ways doesn't exist. If it is a problem I would urge you to raise it inside your team and find ways to come up with bottom-up solutions to the issue. Essentially you're building a mini union and collective bargaining is almost always better than the alternative.
I've got about 20 years experience from jobs and positions as described here as well as hiring and having a say in salaries etc.
I'll just make a couple of observations that may or may not apply but I think are important:
1) People with the same responsibilities can have wildly different values and wildly different net impacts
2) People can think they're doing a great job and be doing a TERRRRIBLE job, some can think they are skating on thin ice whilst performing INCREDIBLY. It constantly surprises me the number of incompetent people that are shocked when they're fired for poor performance. Sometimes it is managements' fault for lack of metrics but I've seen truly low performers have the ego Einstein would deserve
With that in mind I think it is much better to remove the gendered part of this discussion as it doesn't add any value. People that have lower ability to judge their own performance and further stand up for what they're worth come in all flavors, shapes, sizes, whatever.
Public salaries are probably a great resource for jobs where the same title exactly describes the requirements otherwise they also need to involve hours worked, output and other important metrics. I've seen developers with the same title put in wildly different hours however the developer putting in extra hours might have a lower net output or net impact. Many people work extra hours to make up for their lack of ability for instance.
This, especially in knowledge based work, isn't as simple as equal pay for equal title. Furthermore if you have a team of developers working on highly technical and difficult work paving the way for developers doing less intense or difficult work how would that break down? This is common practice that in an organisation different skills have different values. I could absolutely see something like all seniors in Team A get $x, all seniors in Team B get $y and so on being perhaps possible.
In the grand scheme of things, especially in jobs where output is difficult to measure and value, I think equal pay for equal work is difficult to achieve by management. I would not want it at my workplace as we do not have the ability to measure it. I am not as a valuable as my colleagues which is not to say I am more or less valuable - just that it is different. To me it is the same problem as tipping in a kitchen. You either realise that we all as a team contribute to output and feel okay about all of us agreeing to this new scheme - or we do not. Having it pushed top down is just another move that is as much collective punishment as reward.
As a team in a previous job we at drinks would play a game where we'd start at $x and as we announced $x+10k, $x+20k we would drop our hands as the figure passed our salary. It gave everybody on the team an idea of where they sat and other than a few instances people were happy with their position - essentially their value on the team.
I'm sad to say but I think this post is probably by someone that either hasn't thought about the problem enough, had enough experience, or just is a overly annoyed to see the issues with what they're suggesting. I really hope people don't think this is a good solution to a problem that in a lot of ways doesn't exist. If it is a problem I would urge you to raise it inside your team and find ways to come up with bottom-up solutions to the issue. Essentially you're building a mini union and collective bargaining is almost always better than the alternative.
Yep, pretty much. The better the measurements the better the “equality”.