Transparency would also level the playing field in terms of negotiations. Whether or not you are a good negotiator should not affect how much you get paid for most types of positions. As it stands, in most companies, negotiation is welcome and if you're savvy, you can get all sorts of perks that someone who is not savvy will be unable to get.
I'm a big fan of salary transparency -- the last startup I was a part of practiced this and I found it great for a number of reasons, primarily because anyone can say, "Hey, I'm performing at or above this person's level, I should be compensated accordingly."
Unfortunately, talking about compensation is still a pretty big taboo so I don't see this becoming mainstream anytime soon.
"Hey, I'm performing at or above this person's level, I should be compensated accordingly".
The value you bring to the organization should be the deciding factor, and your performance relative to someone else might be a way to measure this, but probably isn't a good measure.
The value you bring to the organisation is often beyond your control. You may be allocated to a profitable project or "on the bench" if the work has temporarily dried up.
Not many employees would be happy taking a salary cut if their skillset becames less valuable (for whatever reason
).
There are so many variations and possible complications I don't think there is a fair "solution" to the salary disclosure question.
Different approaches work at different times for different organisations.
I'm a big fan of salary transparency -- the last startup I was a part of practiced this and I found it great for a number of reasons, primarily because anyone can say, "Hey, I'm performing at or above this person's level, I should be compensated accordingly."
Unfortunately, talking about compensation is still a pretty big taboo so I don't see this becoming mainstream anytime soon.