42 percent talk about it – despite the non-disclosure clause

You don’t talk about money – or do you? In fact, 42 percent of German employees are very open about their salary. Only 26 percent prefer discretion on the subject and almost 32 percent have no clear opinion at all. That’s going out an international salary survey by SD Worx.

The payroll software provider surveyed a total of 16,000 employees from 16 countries – including France, Great Britain, Sweden and Poland. At 59 percent, the Croats talk most openly about their pay slips, while the Danes are particularly reserved at 28 percent. Germany is in the European average.

But employers also have their say: 47 percent of them communicate openly and transparently what their salary policy and possible salary packages look like. On the other hand, almost 21 percent of the German employers surveyed want information about wages and salaries to be treated discreetly.

In Germany, it is common for non-disclosure clauses in employment contracts to prohibit talking about salary. In fact, however, in most cases they are illegal, Benjamin Karcher, an associate at the law firm Bird & Bird, told t3n. Employees must also be able to exchange information about salaries and classify them.

“If such talks were forbidden, the employee would not have a promising means of determining and asserting any claims for violation of the principle of equal treatment in the context of wage planning,” explains the lawyer. Nevertheless, there are exceptions in which an employer can demand confidentiality.

“In individual cases, salary data can definitely be a business secret worth protecting. This is especially the case when, by knowing them, the competition could increase their own competitiveness,” explains Karcher. This usually includes the publication of a sum of salary data or an entire salary structure.

Employees should also not talk about the income of highly qualified executives. A special level of confidentiality also applies to personnel specialists and works councils. “Particularly as a result of data protection, these people are prohibited from talking about salary data that they learn in the course of their work.”

A new law will soon come into force for European companies, obliging employers to be more transparent with regard to the wage package. Stricter rules then apply, especially for companies with more than 250 employees. The aim is for employees to be able to compare their salaries in order to make any wage inequalities visible.

Apart from that, companies are also becoming increasingly transparent when it comes to salaries in order to keep up in the fight for skilled workers. Salary ranges are no longer a rarity, especially in job advertisements. Softgarden, a manufacturer of recruiting software, has determined that job advertisements with salary information are particularly attractive to applicants.

6,720 employees who were supposed to apply for a new job took part in the survey. They rated job ads that differed in just one detail, such as whether the salary was stated or not. These A/B tests revealed that 75 percent of respondents preferred the ad with a salary.