In the interest of fairness, Fog Creek’s compensation policy is open, public, simple, and accountable. Many companies try to obfuscate the rules they use for determining compensation in hopes that they won’t get caught paying some people too much and others too little. Some companies actually consider it a firing offense to reveal your salary!

We feel that in the long run, this can only hurt us through negative morale, high turnover, and destructive office politics. Therefore, the policy in this document is publicly available. People have a right to know what the levels are and what they mean. Everybody has a right to know what their colleagues’ levels are.

It made me wonder what the Corporate Idealist crowd has to say about that approach. Your thoughts? Please share in the comments.