Get Your Nose Out Of My Pay.

Whole buncha replies to my item below about the widespread availability of government salary information. For starters, plenty of folks reminded me that federal employees' salaries are a matter of public record, so finding out your coworkers' grade level and bonuses is as simple as filing a Freedom of Information Act request. (Or even simpler: Let's just say that more than one person noted that the Washington Post helpfully makes this information available in a database on its Web site.) And agencies often make a big public deal of the incentive awards granted to employees.

This situation obviously emboldens a lot of workers to quiz their fellow employees about their pay. "Believe me, federal employees know exactly what people in their section or branch or division are making," says one Defense employee. "Bad form to ask? Maybe, but a lot of people ask." Some employees try to brush off the snoops. A first-line supervisor with 36 years of government service says, "Each year, I advise my employees to resist the temptation to respond to co-workers questions about their awards. I have even suggested they have three choices: to say 'no comment,' to change the subject or to lie."

While of course it's true that the current system encourages employees to track how their compensation compares to those around them, there are indications that things operate differently under pay-banding systems. A Navy employee who has been in a pay-for-performance demonstration project for 20 years says, "You're absolutely correct about co-workers openly discussing individual salaries--it just isn't normally brought up. Whereas, we may know which pay band a coworker is in, we are typically not aware of where within the pay band they lie. Sometimes, the gap between a junior employee in the pay band and a 'topped out' individual is more than $30,000. And we certainly don't divulge our annual performance ratings." An FAA employee adds, "I can speak from my experience with pay banding, that no one really discloses their pay any more, since not all get the additional annual Superior Contribution Increase. When I worked at DoD, it was commonplace to discuss grade and step."

This will clearly be an area to watch as the transition to performance pay unfolds. Thanks for all the e-mails.