Photo by: zzzack  

A new site called Glassdoor.com that just went live, allows anyone to see details that many employers would like to keep secret.

According to the site, first you must share an employer review or salary and post it anonymously to the site. After sharing your review, you then gain access to browse the reviews and salaries as well as the forums.

For those who are uncertain, you can still view teaser details for some companies such as Microsoft, Yahoo, Cisco, and Google.

Although the site currently focuses on the San Francisco Bay Area, Glassdoor has plans to expand to other regions.

Despite what many employers say, there are others who believe that secret salaries are not a good idea. One such article on PositiveSharing.com says that "there are three major reasons why salary secrets are a bad idea:


     1. It frustrates employees because any unfairness (real or perceived) can’t be addressed directly.
       2. They’re not secret anyway. People talk, you know.
       3. It perpetuates unfair salaries which is bad for people and for the organization

Some companies have decided to take open salaries one step further, but allowing employees to create their own! Since all salaries are open information, it seems to work. If someone demands a high salary, they can do so, but others will certainly be watching to make sure that they are fairly earning their money.

On the flip side, employers prefer to keep information such as salary a secret. Some employment contracts demand that workers keep their pay a secret from other employees. Keeping paychecks a secret is done often to keep the peace and to reduct conflict when salaries are very different from employee to employee, especially when the same job title is involved.

According to a blog entry by Dr. Salary , "Many businesses discourage employees from discussing salaries, usually by cloaking salary information under a company policy of "confidentiality." However, companies cannot ban salary discussions between employees in the US, thanks to the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA)."

There are strong opinions on both sides of the argument.

Where do you stand on the secrecy of salaries issue?