Yep...I've never been a manager, but I've been peers with them. It's taxing.
To that I'll add:
Watching the pr0n your employee has viewed as part of HR-compliance process to fire him.
Mediating petty disputes.
"HR Compliance" meetings that look every bit like something out of The Office. (Thankfully, most of these are online videos these days)
The people side of management is something you'd better have a heart for, or else it seems to kill people's spirit.
IANAL, but this:
it is a fire-able offense to disclose your salary to another employee
violates Federal law, I think. That being said, I'd heard for years that this was the policy at my old company. When I raised it on an internal chat board, the Head of HR came and officially said it wasn't.
Wow, I did not know that, and I just looked it up to confirm. I'm pretty sure I have seen this in the employee manual at every place I've worked since graduating. (I always read them, a depressing venture.) Apparently, the penalty for violating the law is negligible compared to the fear of sharing it puts into employees. The protection also does not appear to extend to "supervisors", so maybe that's how they slip it in. (I'm also not a lawyer, though.)
Thanks for posting those articles -- they're super helpful for others. When I headed up Career Development I strove to create an environment of transparency. That meant we didn't allow pay secrecy policies in our employee manual and trained managers not to imply it. While the penalty is negligible, I always urge companies not to go down the pay secrecy route -- it erodes trust and often leads to higher rates of people leaving (driving down retention).
Thanks for the great conversation about this Kasey and Harold!
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Yep...I've never been a manager, but I've been peers with them. It's taxing.
To that I'll add:
The people side of management is something you'd better have a heart for, or else it seems to kill people's spirit.
IANAL, but this:
violates Federal law, I think. That being said, I'd heard for years that this was the policy at my old company. When I raised it on an internal chat board, the Head of HR came and officially said it wasn't.
Wow, I did not know that, and I just looked it up to confirm. I'm pretty sure I have seen this in the employee manual at every place I've worked since graduating. (I always read them, a depressing venture.) Apparently, the penalty for violating the law is negligible compared to the fear of sharing it puts into employees. The protection also does not appear to extend to "supervisors", so maybe that's how they slip it in. (I'm also not a lawyer, though.)
NPR piece on Pay Secrecy
National Labor Relations Board FAQ
Thanks for posting those articles -- they're super helpful for others. When I headed up Career Development I strove to create an environment of transparency. That meant we didn't allow pay secrecy policies in our employee manual and trained managers not to imply it. While the penalty is negligible, I always urge companies not to go down the pay secrecy route -- it erodes trust and often leads to higher rates of people leaving (driving down retention).
Thanks for the great conversation about this Kasey and Harold!