This CEO discloses his and all the salaries of his 850 employees

A co-CEO of Wiesner Family Gastronomy AG introduced salary transparency across 32 restaurants and for 850 employees, emphasizing that the system is built on three pillars: a salary calculator, the right to request colleague salaries, and annual collective salary reviews. The system aims to foster corporate culture by eliminating backroom deals. Salary increases are based on further education and training to retain staff, and the process involves annual review of salary increases. While the EU Pay Transparency Directive relies on anonymous comparisons, the company’s system provides individual transparency. The introduction of this system resulted in raising salaries for underpaid employees, though this was framed as correcting past unfairness rather than pure raises. The CEO noted that while some employees did not want the transparency, subordinates felt empowered when leadership disclosed their own compensation.

The narrative leverages the tension between stated corporate values (fairness) and real-world economic structures, using personal experience to suggest that transparency yields tangible benefits. The argument pivots on the idea that information access alters power dynamics; by making salary ranges public, the system mitigates rumors and allows for proactive retention strategies based on development, rather than reactive demands. The pushback against broader transparency is framed by a significant disparity in economic reality—the difference between an employee's perceived potential income and their actual salary demonstrates how deeply entrenched systemic inequality resists simple disclosure. Furthermore, the resistance observed from high earners suggests that while procedural transparency can be enacted at the operational level (restaurants), structural barriers remain when wealth concentrates at the executive level. The tension lies in whether procedural honesty is sufficient to address deeper economic stratification.