Everyone at her company knows her salary. What big deal...they are woke! Many Claudine Gays around..

This analytics firm's CHRO says, "What people get paid should not be shrouded in secrecy! The more you hide it, the more it reveals! She says, and her company's LinkedIn handle shares her thoughts, which goes on to say that it takes a new staff just a week to know what others around her are paid! It's an open secret!

HR had been organizing Secret Santa recently! But with this claim, she took it too far!

It can be a cultural thing! Or no-culture thing! That's the debate that Arnab shall run for primetime, but here, I have a few cases to make based on my experiences with compensation, aka salary, and how dumb analytics and tech MNC CoEs can get!

I was HRBP for an American $3 billion power electronics company in their R&D CoE in Bangalore. I had three tech teams to look after, and they sat in different offices in the city! 2 of these R&D teams had their payroll run from the factory operations in Bangalore Suburb, and the third R&D team (Siebel Services, CAD designs, etc.) ran from the sales office in the city! It's interesting, isn't it?

One day, I visited this third team's office and met a guy I had onboarded a month ago. It was also a check-in meeting with him. He told me that his salary has some mismatches as against the offer letter's salary breakdown. I was curious (damn curious!). I checked his pay slip (which was for a full month) and checked his offer letter breakdown. The offer letter was issued by me and signed by the Head of HR for India. To my shock, the Basic and HRA were different, and there was a component in the payslip that was not even mentioned in the offer letter. I met the finance and accounts team that sent data to the payroll vendor for pay-out. He showed me his excel file, which he used to create a breakdown of payouts from the offer letter, which he sent to the payroll vendor. There were differences, as I had observed. In fact, the team of 45 staff, for 5 or more years, paid less than and even different Basic and HRA than their offer letter, but maybe one asked anything as the difference was less (maybe ~Rs. 900 every month for someone who got Rs. 56K take-home!). This was shocking because no one corrected it for all these years. Even the Big 4 audited this firm every year.

Shameful, but it happens.

Case #2: A Chicago-based management consulting firm. 3500 people across 18 global offices. Hires from the Ivy League. I was even ranked no. 5 in the vault rating during that time, not any more.

My first salary was credited...I was in shock! It was nearly three times my monthly salary. I was paid assuming my start date was May 7, not July 5, which was my real start date!

(American Day/Month ka chakkar Babu Bhaiya!), but happens! I signed a check in company's name and paid back, wrote a side note : Keep the change! :)

The same analytics and management consulting firm gives annual salary raises and promotions to campus newcomers from the previous few years.

Juniors got a salary raise and the same designation as their seniors, with a higher designation! Yes, kids share their new compensation, as they want to know what others in their cohort got.

Seniors protested, and soon corrections were made! You don't need to go to Ivy League College to act dumb!

Please take these stories for humor.

These are real stories, and I have written them with full responsibility and intent, not to demean anyone but to highlight what my mentor said:

We believe in people, but verify!

My dad told me what he learned in his civil service training. "Trust the process, not the people!