World Blu RSS Feed: WorldBlu in the New York Times!

[RSS FEED-from consistent personal brands]

My RSS Feed, Traci Fenton, is a Thinker and Has Just Posted the Following:

WorldBlu, along with Motek, a WorldBlu List of Most Democratic Workplaces two-time awardee, are both in the New York Times today in an article entitled, Psst! Your Salary Is Showing, by Lisa Belkin.

I really like how Ms. Belkin wrote this piece. I enjoy how she highlighted the nuances of the issue of salary transparency, emphasizing that it IS possible – and is already happening in the government sector, with many nonprofits, and at the top level of publically traded companies.

She also interviewed a fantastic group of people, including thought-leader Penelope Truck, Ed Lawler, the director of the Center for Effective Organizations at the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California and Robert Holman, founder of glassdoor.com (a company I absolutely LOVE, check them out!).

For those of you looking for a quick read, here’s what I, along with with Ann Price, the visionary CEO of Motek, had to say in the article:

Psst! Your Salary Is Showing

By LISA BELKIN

HIGH on the list of my least favorite tasks are buying a car and negotiating a salary. Both leave me wondering if I’ve been had.

Of the two, car haggling used to be worse. “If they are willing to sell it to you,” my father always said, “you’ve paid too much.” But in recent years, with Edmunds.com and Consumer Reports to tell you what the dealer is paying, and companies like Saturn, where the no-haggle rule means the price is the price, some of the migraine-making elements of the process are gone.

More recently, there are signs that salary negotiation is inching toward greater transparency, too.

“I believe the momentum behind salary transparency is really beginning to build,” said Traci Fenton, the chief executive of WorldBlu in Austin, Tex., which coaches companies on the creation of more “democratic workplaces,” and which practices what it preaches. The 11 employees at WorldBlu, most of whom work on contract, all know what one another are paid.

Openness about company ledgers “will become the norm,” Ms. Fenton predicts, “even if people come to it reluctantly. If people are paid what they are worth, there is no reason for people to feel uncomfortable about sharing salary information.”

The openness looks a little different at Motek, a company in Beverly Hills, Calif., that develops software for warehouses. Employees at the same level receive identical salaries, and raises are negotiated for the entire team. “Every one of my employees knows every other employee’s salary, from the receptionist right up to the software engineers,” said Ann Price, the chief executive. “There’s no comparing or jealousy or backstabbing.” . . . [read more].

Read the article, Psst! Your Salary Is Showing, here.



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