職場常識: 與同事談論工資話題的技巧大綱
At Brian Bader's orientation for a tech-support job with Apple Inc. three years ago, he says, human-resources managers ran down the list of guidelines workers were expected to follow. Don't use explicit language on calls with customers. Treat other employees with respect. And, he says, they told the assembled recruits, don't discuss your pay with co-workers.
布萊恩•巴德(Brian Bader)回憶說，三年前他在蘋果公司(Apple Inc.)參加技術支持崗位的培訓時，人力資源經理曾逐一歷數了員工應當要遵守的一系列準則。比如說，與客戶通話時不要使用露骨語言，對同事要尊重。他還說，人事經理告誡聚集一堂的新員工，不要與同事討論自己的工資。
That last requirement backfired. 'It just made me more curious,' said Mr. Bader, 25 years old, who had been offered $12 per hour. Throughout the day's breaks, he surveyed his new colleagues about their wages, and learned that everyone was earning somewhere between $10 and $12 per hour. Apple declined to comment on internal policies.
然而，最後那條要求卻產生了適得其反的效果。今年25歲的巴德如此說道：“它只是讓我更好奇了。”他在整個日間休息時間裏調查了新同事的工資，瞭解到每個人的薪資水平在每小時10至12美元之間（約合人民幣62至74元），而他當時的工資爲每小時12美元。蘋果拒絕就內部政策置評。
That information became the basis of his decision to leave his job just three months later, after he realized -- thanks to the performance data managers shared with their teams every week -- that he was twice as productive as the lowest performer on the team, yet earned only 20% more.
這一信息成爲了巴德僅在三個月後就決定離職的根據。由於經理每週都要和他們的團隊分享業績數據，他了解到自己的工作效率是其所在團隊業績最差者的兩倍，而他的工資卻只高出20%。
'It irked me. If I'm doing double the work, why am I not seeing double the pay?' said Mr. Bader, who is about to graduate from California State University, Sacramento.
巴德說：“那讓我有些惱火。如果我乾的活是別人的兩倍，那我的工資怎麼不是別人的兩倍？”他即將從加州州立大學薩克拉門託分校(California State University, Sacramento)畢業。
Comparing salaries among colleagues has long been a taboo of workplace chatter, but that is changing as Millennials -- individuals born in the 1980s and 1990s -- join the labor force. Accustomed to documenting their lives in real time on social-media forums like Facebook and Twitter, they are bringing their embrace of self-disclosure into the office with them. And they're using this information to negotiate raises at their current employer or higher salaries when moving to a new job.
長期以來，同事之間的薪水比較一直都是辦公室閒談的禁忌。不過，隨着“千禧一代”──出生於上世紀80年代和90年代的一代人──加入職場，這種狀況逐漸發生了轉變。他們習慣了在Facebook和Twitter等社交媒體平臺上實時記錄他們的生活，因此也將他們信奉的自我表露原則一同帶入了職場。他們也利用這些信息在自己當前工作的企業商談加薪或是在跳槽到新公司時提出更高的薪資要求。
Not surprisingly, many firms want to keep salary information private. They hope to retain the upper hand on salary negotiation and hope to keep flawed or even discriminatory compensation systems under wraps.
不出意料的是，許多企業都想將工資信息保密。他們希望在商談薪資時保持優勢地位，並希望隱匿存在着缺陷甚至是帶有歧視的薪酬體系。
But for workers, information is power, and young people recognize this. 'People are much more willing to talk about pay than they were even 10 years ago,' says Kevin Hallock, director of the Institute for Compensation Studies at Cornell University and author of the 2012 book 'Pay: Why People Earn What They Earn and What You Can Do Now to Make More.'
然而，對於員工而言，信息就是力量，年輕人也意識到了這一點。康奈爾大學(Cornell University)薪酬研究所(Institute for Compensation Studies)主任凱文•哈洛克(Kevin Hallock)稱：“大家比10年前還要更願意談論工資。”哈洛克也是2012年出版的《關於工資的二三事：如何提高你的工資收入》(Pay: Why People Earn What They Earn and What You Can Do Now to Make More)一書的作者。
Still, revealing pay can be risky business.
儘管如此，透露工資也可能是頗具風險的舉動。
Pay differentials, when they become public, can engender resentment, envy and dissatisfaction among workers. One 2012 study by researchers at University of California, Berkeley and Princeton University examined more than 6,400 University of California employees once they became aware of a database listing staffers' salaries. Employees who were paid below the median were unhappy once they learned their colleagues' pay and were more likely to look for other jobs.
薪資差距一旦公之於衆，可能會在員工當中引發怨恨、妒忌和不滿。加州大學伯克利分校(University of California, Berkeley)與普林斯頓大學(Princeton University)的研究人員在2012年展開的一項研究中，調查了6,400名加州大學的畢業生在知道了一個列出員工工資的數據庫後的反應。薪酬低於中值水平的員工一旦瞭解到其他同事的工資後會心生不滿，更有可能去尋找其他工作。
While some of this information -- such as salaries of certain state employees -- has long been a matter of public record, the Internet has made it far more accessible, too, says Mr. Hallock. Sites where people post salaries and other feedback about employers, such as , also contribute to the sense that pay is no longer a private issue.
哈洛克說，雖然部分薪資信息，比如說某些政府職員的薪酬長期以來一直都屬於公開記錄，而互聯網也使得這類信息更容易獲得。此外，一些讓人們“曬”薪水和公佈對僱主其他評價的網站（例如）也推動了認爲“工資不再是隱私”的觀念。
When Dustin Zick, 25, was ready to leave his job in 2012 as a social-media specialist at BuySeasons Inc., a Milwaukee-based online retailer, he compared notes with 'five or six' trusted co-workers about their pay, and found most of them happy to divulge.
去年，在準備從密爾沃基(Milwaukee)的網絡零售公司BuySeasons辭去社交媒體專員的工作時，達斯汀•齊克(Dustin Zick)與“五六個”信得過的同事交換了他們的工資信息，他發現他們中的大多數人都樂意透露。
Several of his colleagues, also looking for new opportunities, strategized together about what salaries they were aiming for and how to negotiate to get there. The conversations helped Mr. Zick achieve his target salary at his new position as a social-media manager at a hospitality company, he says.
齊克有幾名同樣也在尋找新機會的同事就他們的薪資目標以及如何與公司談判來實現該目標共同制訂了行動策略。齊克說，這些談話幫助他在應聘一家酒店企業的社交媒體經理的新職位時獲得了預期工資。
'There's a culture of transparency in my generation,' he says. And 'the younger you are, the more likely an employer will try to get you for cheap. So to know what your peers are making benefits all parties involved, except maybe the employer.'
齊克認爲他們這一代人有一種透明文化。你越年輕，企業就越有可能試圖把你當作廉價勞力，所以瞭解你同事掙多少錢有利於相關各方，當然或許僱主不在此列。Companies may not like transparency, but they cannot outright bar rank-and-file employees from disclosing their pay internally or externally, under the federal National Labor Relations Act, says employment lawyer Charles Caulkins of law firm Fisher & Phillips. That means that an employee handbook or social-media policy barring workers from disclosing their pay is generally a violation, he says. (The rules are different for managers and supervisors, who can legally be prevented from disclosing pay.)
Fisher & Phillips律師事務所的就業律師查爾斯•考金斯(Charles Caulkins)指出，企業或許不喜歡工資透明，但是根據聯邦政府《全國勞工關係法案》(National Labor Relations Act)，企業並不能完全禁止普通員工在企業內部或外部透露自己的薪資。考金斯說，這意味着那些禁止員工透露自己薪資的員工手冊或社交媒體政策基本上都違反了該法案。（針對經理和主管的規定有所不同，防止他們泄露工資水平是合法的。）
Ultimately, says Mr. Hallock, compensation is an inexact science, determined by labor-market conditions, company budgets and individual employees' performance and turnover risk. Companies use salaries and raises to retain their high performers, but measuring performance itself is difficult, especially in fields that defy simple metrics like widgets built or customer-service calls answered.
哈洛克說道，從根本上講，薪酬體系也是一門不精確的科學。它由勞動力市場狀況、企業預算、各員工的表現以及員工流失率風險等因素所決定。企業通常利用高薪或加薪來留住業績優異者，但是業績考覈本身就是件難事，在某些簡單的衡量標準（例如完成的器件或應答的客服電話數量）行不通的領域尤爲如此。
So one way for employers to head off internal politics: Be even more transparent.
因此，企業遏制內部政治的方法之一就是：行爲更加透明。
New York data-analytics company SumAll makes pay scales and individual salaries open to everyone in the company. The company says that employees work more efficiently when no one is trying to guess whether their colleagues are making more than they are.
紐約數據分析公司SumAll將薪資等級和各員工的薪資向公司的每一個人公開。該公司稱，當沒人試圖去猜測自己的同事是否比自己掙得多時，員工們工作起來會更有效率。
Workers and employers who support transparency argue that it helps ensure that people are paid fairly, and reduces discrimination based on gender or other characteristics.
支持薪酬透明的員工和企業認爲，此舉有助於確保大家獲得公平的薪資並減少性別或其他特徵方面的歧視。
Of course, not every employee is, or would be, willing to spill.
當然，並不是每個員工都願意或可能願意透露自己的工資。
Lucy Bayly, 43, a copywriter for an advertising agency in Oneonta, N.Y., compares discussions about income with conversations about sex: 'You're dying to know, but it's too rude to ask.'
紐約州奧尼昂塔(Oneonta)某廣告公司43歲的文案露西•巴以利(Lucy Bayly)把討論工資與討論性愛放在了一起比較。她說：“你太想知道情況了，但是開口問就太粗魯了。”
Such conversations run the risk of inspiring a corrosive kind of jealousy, she says. 'You think you're satisfied and then all of a sudden, you find out someone is paid a little more, and it ruins your day because you start wondering, 'Have I settled?' '
巴以利認爲，此類談話有激發強烈嫉妒的風險。她說：“本來你覺得自己挺滿足的，然後突然間發現別人的工資比你高一點，這會讓你一天都不好過，因爲你會開始思考‘我滿足了嗎？’” 下頁是談論工資的技巧。
如何在工作場所談論工資
How to Discuss Pay at Work
以建設性的方式提出工資話題的小技巧：
Tips for bringing up the subject in a constructive way:
與同事談論薪資時：
When talking about salary with coworkers:
1.只和你信任的人談論工資。
1. Reserve these conversations for people you trust
2.瞭解你自己的目的，如果你只是想炫耀一番，還是別提出這個話題了，那從來都不會有什麼好結果。
2. Know your motivation─don't bring up the topic if you just want to brag. That never goes over well.
3.如果你打算利用該信息與老闆商談工資，首先要徵得你同事的允許。
3. If you plan to use the information to negotiate with your boss, ask your colleagues' permission first.
4.願意接受失望或尷尬。你可能會發現你的工資不如同事高。
4. Be willing to be disappointed or embarrassed. You might find out that your salary falls short of your peer's.
與主管談論薪資時：
When talking about salary with a manager:
1.向主管詢問公司的薪資理念和薪資制訂慣例並無不妥。領導層應能解釋他們爲什麼這麼制定工資。
1. It's acceptable to ask a manager about the company's pay philosophy and pay practices. Leaders should be able to explain why they pay the way they do.
2.如果你打算要求加薪，漂亮地完成項目後再提出要求。
2. If you're asking for a raise, do it after acing a project.
3.瞭解公司的處境。如果公司剛宣佈的季度財報非常糟糕，不要提加薪要求。
3. Understand the company context. Don't ask for a raise if the company just announced a terrible quarter.
4.不要辜負同事的信任。
4. Don't betray your co-workers' confidence.
