Not the least bit shocking
Anyone have it on their bingo card that Netflix’s $810k wide salary range would be their 2nd most interesting story of the week?
Last week, Bloomberg dropped a story on how they’re gaming California’s new salary-in-job-ads law by posting a job between $90,000 to $900,000.
This was shocking to absolutely no one. Of course they did. Of course everyone does.
I’m a fan of putting salary in job ads because it’s efficient. Your job as a recruiter will be easier. Trust me. You’ll cut through some of the bullshit by getting it in the open sooner. Instead of shrouding it in secrecy that requires live (time consuming) conversations to happen.
(Side note: some will disagree. Don’t care. The counter is that you’ll have to deal with a lot of unqualified people taking a swing at way higher pay than their skills are worth. Guess what? You will always deal with that. Literally your job as a recruiter.)
So I rate that story a ‘duh’ out of 10.
Then something actually interesting happened. A 2nd story yesterday from the Wall Street Journal:
👉Netflix gutted their internal salary transparency.
At the Director level, Netflix was a rare org who actually did let people see what their peers were making. They were walking the walk, at least more so than most orgs.
Aaaand it’s gone. Ripped away. No longer making it available at the Director level of the org.
Why? Because they expanded the number of Director level employees over the last few years. A lot of people demanded to know why they’re paid less than their coworkers.
As the Fortune write up on this pointed out:
“Transparency has become [our employees’] biggest symbol of how much we trust them to act responsibly,” Hastings wrote in his 2020 book, No Rules Rules.
Well, he sure went the other way on that one. (Side note: that would have been great for a “how it started / how it’s going” meme but I’m not rewriting this.)
To be fair: most companies *never* did what Netflix did with pay transparency in the first place. Before you yell “F these guys” take a look in the corporate mirror and back away like the Homer Simpson back into the bush meme. (You know the one. I’m too lazy to search on it.)
Still, seeing a company of Netflix’s stature go from progressive to, well, like everyone else?
Just makes you realize how little teeth laws like salary-in-job-ads really have.
Partner at Hirewell. #3 Ranked Sarcastic Commenter on LinkedIn.
