What is an open salary policy and should you consider having one?
At GDC last month, Lightforge Games CEO Matt Schembari shared the studio's approach to salary transparency and the benefits across the company to have an open salary policy.
Schembari is part of the group of Blizzard and Epic veterans who formed Lightforge Games in 2020. He previously worked at Epic Games as Fortnite's UI director, after spending a decade at Blizzard.
"The goal here is not to convince you all to go home and enact an open salary right away," he said as a preamble to his GDC talk. "[It's] about planting a seed. When I was first introduced to this idea, I thought it was absolutely bonkers and thought there were probably all sorts of unintended side effects and downsides.
"But after three years of open salaries and reaching almost 40 employees, I can unequivocally say that, for us, it's been a really big success."
In his talk, Schembari talked attendees through the initial research and thought process that led to introducing salary transparency at Lightforge, provided a blueprint for implementation, and touched upon the various pros and cons of the policy.
"Open salary is a policy where management publishes full compensation information for all employees to all employees," Schembari first explained. "And that includes the names, titles, levels, and any other contributing factors that go into it. And this is specific, actual hard numbers, too. Not ranges. This is all forms of compensation, including bonuses and equity.
"So essentially, this is your HR nightmare scenario where someone takes your payroll and emails it to the entire company. And it's doing it intentionally. So why would anyone do that? Let's go on that journey."
Lightforge settled on an open salary policy from its foundation, with
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