“How much do you earn?” — pay transparency vs privacy

After a meeting about raises, Nia and Marek leave the room together.

— What are you on after the raise?
— I’d rather not talk about my salary.

Nia sees shared information as a way to balance employees’ position against the company. Marek also sees salary as private information that can change relationships between colleagues.

What really happened

Nia asks Marek about his salary because she believes employees negotiate from a stronger position when they know what comparable work is actually paid. Marek does not deny that information can help. He simply does not want his own pay to become part of the relationship between colleagues. To him, the number can change how people see one another. Nia primarily treats pay information as a tool in relation to the organization. Marek also sees it as private status information between people.

What the research says

A broad review of pay-transparency research suggests that greater transparency can reduce wage differences between similar employees and improve people’s knowledge of the market, while also increasing social comparison and changing employer behavior in negotiations (Cullen, 2023). Research on employee preferences also suggests that many people want transparent rules, salary ranges and pay-setting processes without necessarily wanting individual colleagues’ salaries disclosed; preferences vary across groups (Heisler, 2026). Transparency of the system and compulsory disclosure of personal pay are therefore not the same thing.

How to handle it

Companies can improve fairness through visible salary ranges, job levels and raise criteria without forcing employees to reveal their own numbers. Employees can choose to share salary information voluntarily without expecting others to do the same. The general rule: the more people know about how pay is determined, the less they negotiate in the dark—but a transparent system does not require every individual salary to stop being private.

How Empatyzer and Em can help

Empatyzer should not need access to salaries or evaluate what people “should” earn. It can, however, help Nia and Marek discuss transparency without immediately turning the disagreement into a judgment of character. Motivators related to status, fairness, security or independence can mean that one person sees salary discussion as a way to correct information asymmetry while another experiences it as a private boundary. Em can suggest a simple form: “Are you comfortable talking about this? If not, I won’t push.” At organizational level, it can also support conversations about transparency in processes and ranges rather than other people’s private data. Micro-lessons reinforce that the right to understand the pay system and the right to keep one’s own salary private do not have to conflict.