My salary is none of Bridget Phillipson's business
How much do you earn? If that question makes you flinch, then you're in good company.
I have never had a comfortable conversation with a colleague about pay, and I'm not sure I know anyone who has. British people are apparently seven times more likely to tell a stranger how many sexual partners they've had than what their income is, a University College London survey once declared.
So if you're itching for some awkward water-cooler chat this afternoon, just ask your colleagues what they earn – and hey presto, everyone's feeling hotter.
The Government is determined to banish this self-consciousness, concerned that our stiff-upper lip attitude benefits some far more than others. It is hard to call out inequality if nobody has any idea what anyone else earns. There are stories of mothers re-entering the workforce only to discover that the people they are managing are taking home far more than them.
The Office for Equality and Opportunity, which is led by the Minister for Women and Equalities, Bridget Phillipson, is currently consulting on ways to break this taboo. The most eye-catching idea on the table is to force businesses to tell staff what their colleagues earn.
That's not going as far as Norway, where everyone's tax return is fair game, but it would be a big cultural shift and could eventually pave the way for a Norwegian-style system where pay becomes a matter of public record.
It sounds like a quick fix, until you seriously think about the implications of opening this Pandora's box. There would be the inevitable office infighting – furious colleagues discovering that the incompetent so-and-so they work with earns far more than they do – followed by some pretty demotivating conversations as staff are told that more experience doesn't necessarily mean more productivity or skill.
Next would come an inevitable fudging of numbers by bosses eager to protect those on big incomes. When the BBC first decided to publish the salaries of high earners, the aim was to mark a new era of transparency. However, in reality, any earnings made through the BBC's commercial arm (which is not funded by the licence fee) do not need to be disclosed.
TV chat show host, Graham Norton, acknowledged this loophole when he said that the list of mega earners is 'frustrating, because it's so inaccurate'. He added: 'There are people I know who make millions from the BBC who are just not on that list'. Radio host, Simon Mayo, has also dismissed the annual publication of staff salaries as an 'annual turkey shoot'.
If things then did evolve into a more Norwegian-style system where all salaries are out in the open, then just think of all that salary snooping. People could end up hunting down the earnings of potential partners, former partners, enemies and tenants.
The numbers could be dug out and weaponised by siblings in inheritance battles, landlords eager to push up rents or tech giants harvesting information for targeted adverts. And even if none of that did happen, the simple facts are in front of us – Norway still has a gender pay gap, with men on average earning 13pc more than women. The same problems remain.
Everyone deserves their privacy. Although research suggests that we tend to overestimate the number of people who are wealthier than us and underestimate the number who are poorer, there's no way the publishing of everyone's salaries will create a more understanding, equal society.
Previous studies have shown that the phenomenon of 'keeping up with the Joneses' is not about the people living in the same street or country as you, but about those in your inner circle – close family, friends and colleagues. People might not care if a stranger in their area knows what salary they're on, but they don't want the person they sit next to at work or their university friend to be able to dig up the figure and bring it up at a dinner party.
This came up when American social media marketing site, Buffer, decided to start listing staff names, locations and salaries in a detailed public spreadsheet. In seconds, strangers can scroll from highest to lowest earner in the company, from the chief executive's £224,000-a-year salary to a 'customer advocate's' £61,000 figure (both are US-based).
'Someone felt that if their friends and family knew their salary, it might change the relationship they have with them,' Gascoigne said to the Huffington Post in 2016, before adding that this discomfort proved unfounded. Instead, he said there was a 'dramatic' rise in the number of people applying for jobs.
It might have worked well for a start-up, but are our salaries really any of Bridget Phillipson's business? At the moment, nothing is off the table, although the most likely option if the Government ends up doing anything would probably be listing salary ranges in job adverts.
That's already law in California and New York, but the verdict on whether these rules have made much impact is mixed, and the last thing British businesses want right now is more red tape. Bosses are already gearing up for the enormous raft of changes coming in the Employment Rights Bill, and won't have much patience for new rules which they deem unnecessary.
The next generation of workers might just come to the rescue. According to a survey conducted by recruiter Robert Half, 86pc of Gen Z workers are happy to discuss their salaries compared to 59pc of millennials and 41pc of baby boomers. This point might crop up as the Government seeks evidence before making any decisions.
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