Possibly unpopular opinion here, but I don't think this policy will change much. At least, it is not as universally anti-employee as people make it out to be.<p>Already, the best way for anyone to get a better salary is to have a competing offer in hand. "Asking for more money" will just get you back the ~$5K that the company low-balled you in the first place, figuring that you would ask for it. Folks in the comments here are talking about getting a raise of $7.5K by asking for it - I've had multiple offers (at the same time) differ by ~35%, and doubled my compensation by switching jobs after about 2 years.<p>What this policy will do is ensure that Reddit will lose candidates who shop around to a higher bidder. This is not a loss for the candidate - they get the higher-paying job anyway - it's a loss for Reddit. Or maybe it's not, if Reddit is looking to employ "true believers" who care about the site itself and not their salary.<p>Or Reddit could up its base salary so that it has a reasonable likelihood of being the highest offer for any candidate it wants to employ. That's a win for all of Reddit's <i>current</i> employees, a financial loss for Reddit, but may be a cultural win for Reddit.
How is this not a win for Reddit and a loss for new hires? I have often heard, and seen first hand, that you can easy take home 20k+ more, just by ask for it during the hiring process. It is in the employers best interest, to low ball you, and lock you into making less money. Is this just a negotiation tactic, saying that they do not negotiate, maybe...
This may be an unpopular opinion, so forgive me in advance, but this new trend of non-negotiable salary is about one step away from Apple's anti-competitive employment agreements that became public after Jobs' death. In fact, that's exactly what it is: anti-competitive.<p>What is stopping all of the top SV companies from colluding on what a "fair salary" is? This just reeks of a glass ceiling that rewards nobody but the corporation. And now it comes in the name of feminism?
I wonder how they expect it to work out in practice. Are they increasing the amount of their offers to compensate for this, or are they just planning to accept that better negotiators will go elsewhere (for more money).
While I completely understand that by eliminating negotiations for new hires helps to level the playing field, this is just a short-term bandage on a much larger wound.<p>I would have much preferred she change their hiring policies to educate their hiring managers on how NOT to be biased against women and to NOT penalize women who negotiate for themselves. Treat women who aggressively negotiate their own salaries THE SAME WAY YOU WOULD IF IT WERE A MAN! Education, ultimately, is the answer to a long term solution. It would also help to make sure you have an equal balance of sexes that comprise your hiring team to truly level the playing field.<p>For a capitalist society, if you're a stronger negotiator, then you should absolutely reap those benefits, and if you're a weaker negotiator, then you have something to strive for and improve. By eliminating it altogether, I'm not sure how you can achieve sustainable, long term success. This decision also seems to undermine or belie the accolades thrown on her for being a Feminist icon in the tech/vc world. If you're trying to level the "playing field" then LEVEL it, don't eliminate it.
I have incredibly mixed feelings about this. Zero-negotiation policies are great tools for eliminating unfairness <i>if executed well</i>, the problem is that you still force the employee to end "trusting someone at their word", and <i>every company</i> claims they're going to make a fair, standard offer. Here's the thing:<p>1) Yes, being strict and almost formulaic will reduce inequality and increase probability that folks are compensated according to actual value.<p>2) But you need <i>meaningful transparency</i> around this. I guarantee you, 100% that if I had a live offer at Reddit, I could find some way to negotiate some additional crap that amounted to a meaningful compensation bump in the end.<p>3) <i>Every</i> company that does this ends up making exceptions for people the higher-up you go. Wealthfront, Stack Exchange, and now Reddit, will join the club of companies that negotiate with execs they hire, VCs, and bizdev partners, suppliers - basically, everybody except their employees. And even then only "most of the time"- there are always exceptions - just hold out for a higher comp band. Get a stronger inside referral. It's always possible.<p>Something very close to the Buffer model is the only real way to do things. You can tweak the variables, but you need strictness <i>and</i> transparency. <a href="https://open.bufferapp.com/buffer-open-equity-formula/" rel="nofollow">https://open.bufferapp.com/buffer-open-equity-formula/</a><p>Ellen, Alexis - If you're reading this, I'd love a chance to understand your challenges in crafting these policies, and see if I could offer any input from my perspective as well.<p>(Source I founded <a href="http://OfferLetter.io" rel="nofollow">http://OfferLetter.io</a> - we help engineers and other tech workers negotiate for what they're worth. I've personally had literally hundreds of conversations with folks about this.)
That is a way to say that women are inferior to men at negotiating. Isn't that sexist?<p>BTW best negotiators I've ever met in my life were all women..
The solution here is to help teach everyone how to negotiate their salaries. Not to let companies completely dictate the terms of your employment.<p>Also "We come up with an offer that we think is fair. If you want more equity, we’ll let you swap a little bit of your cash salary for equity, but we aren’t going to reward people who are better negotiators with more compensation." is a contradiction.<p>They are saying they won't negotiate and that you can negotiate in the same sentence. Asking for a swap is a negotiation unless you have an offer that gives you multiple salary to stock option balances to choose from to begin with.
The arguments in favor of such an elimination seem... contrived. Hell, I'd even figure them to be sexist with their implications of "oh gee, well women are bad negotiators, so we won't even give them the chance to negotiate in a very-visibly-male-dominated environment".
If this catches on, I wonder how long it will take the federal government to decide it's such a good idea everyone needs to do it. I can imagine a database of approved salaries that map to job titles, geographic metadata, and whatever else - and that's what you'll get paid.
This policy might not change much, but it will level the playing field for Reddit's diversity recruiting efforts. It's too bad that the few feminists there are in tech like Ellen Pao get so much criticism for trying to change an extremely male-biased industry.
That's certainly one way to address gender-bias issues. What issues will crop up as a result? Only time will tell. (Maybe none, but honestly I doubt it.) I respect that they're trying this.