Tech company Expensify lets workers vote on each other's pay raises

Negotiating a pay raise with your employer can get uncomfortable for some and could even work against some workers, such as women who are often judged negatively when they ask their employer for more money. But one technology company has come up with an approach that sidesteps some of those pitfalls. The solution is to let all employees vote on their fellow workers' pay, including the chief executive's pay and all negotiations are forbidden. 

The pay is based on your coworkers' assessment of your performance and broader contributions to the company. David Barrett, CEO of Expensify told CBS MoneyWatch, "It has a nice benefit — we think it controls for internal bias because there is no manager you have to suck up to. The only way you can game the system is by kicking ass. You win by being amazing." The new system for setting they pay at Expensify comes at a time when compensation practices are undergoing a transformation. A lot of sites now provide more transparency to the workers about what their colleagues earn. More and more states and localities are also enacting laws that ban companies from asking about a job applicant's pay history because it could put women and people of color- who have been historically paid less for the same job- into lower-paid jobs.

Even amidst a lot of change, experts say that Expensify's system is quite unusual.  Jennifer E. Dannals, an assistant professor of business administration at Dartmouth College says, "I haven't heard of a scheme quite like this. It's not uncommon to have a peer rating within your team, but it's unusual to have it within the entire company." 

Source: CBS News