You obviously thought about this and got it into account. But being a bit smarter ape that we are all, you decided on what way of going about this is best for you. As a rational ape you should at least understand this much.
The thing is, we are all mature apes and we understand possible problems and we can decide for ourselves if the risk is worth it in a specific situation we're in at one time or another. And we do so, and we have every right to do so, and you trying to take it away from us is very apish and understandable, but unacceptable behaviour.
When a colleague asks me about my salary I think about what to tell him for myself. I consider how well I know him, how long we've been working together, how likely he is to be underpaid, how likely he is to get angry because of it and so on and on. I then decide to either tell him or not, and also on how specific my answer should be, and so on.
Sorry, but I'll trust my own judgement over your arbitrary decision you made without taking into account any of those situation specific things, and - not to forget - for your benefit.
One of the gentlemen ended up leaving with in a year. I had been asking him to fill out a self performance assessment so I could get him a hefty raise. The other guy is quite timid, somewhat immature, and socially inept... I suppose he was getting paid what he and his personality deserves. No?
Or I could have gone about righting the ship rather than throwing all the weight on one side and sinking it... causing not only the two underpaid guys to lose their jobs but also the rest of the dozen employees. Which would be the more appropriate move in your opinion?
If you'd like I could just as easily justified by rationalizing why they deserve what they were getting paid... because that's what they were getting paid. Their backgrounds/education wasn't very strong and (at least one of them) had poor judgement and reasoning skills (I mean look what he was accepting for pay!).
ADD: The one I probably wouldn't have ever hired in the first place, but he was there before, knew a fare amount of the current situation, and unfortunately got hired because his mom new one of the managing partners. The managing partners were also somewhat clueless to what they were wrongly paying...
When I was a team leader, I didn't have a big disparity of salaries in my team, so I think I had it easy, but when you have a tester or a designer among developers, their salaries might be way different (testers are not engineers, and I have no idea of the rate for a designer actually).
I know I get paid less than the devs (both at my company and in the industry on average,) but I'm paid well and enjoy testing more than the work the devs are doing.
All it takes is for a tester to go on Glassdoor to find out that their average salary is lower.
Half the developers salaries are more than the managing partners salaries (although the managing partners get a bonus which then makes their annual income higher than anyone else in the company so long as the company does well).
When I tell the employees not to discuss salary I offer them a few things to say in case another coworker asks them. My first go to reply is "I consider my salary and finances to be private matters that I don't tend to share with others." or "We're coworkers, what good could possibly come from us talking about this? The only outcome is someone, you, me, or [boss/company] will be upset. Do we want to add drama and tension to our relationships?"
If they had found out about it, and then decided to look for another better paying job, they could potentially be significantly further along in achieving their financial life goals compared to where they are now. Underpaying people isn't an entirely victimless scenario, and it might be a little bit paternalistic for you to encourage keeping them in the dark while you gradually sort it out.
When I started several years ago it came to my attention that the existing developers and IT staff were drastically underpaid (there was one other internal developer, an internal IT guy, myself, and a few outside contractors). I brought it to the attention of my bosses (managing partners) and have made it my goal to bring other developers salaries up to par. When I was hired I was making almost double what the other two were. I realized one of the biggest risks to the company was if either one of them decided to look across the street and find they could probably get a 40% raise on the spot. If they left a lot of knowledge and investment would walk out the door.
Over that past few years we've weened ourselves off the contractors/consultants and have hired internally. We are now at ~8 developers. In order to hire the more recent developers we've had to offer market rate salaries. During reviews and hiring I've always told employees not to discuss their salary, mostly for psychological reasons. No matter what someone will feel bad. "What if you make more than them? They might not think you're worth more than them. Causing tension and friction. What if they make more that you? Same thing."
I know that some have discussed it salary with others. At times it ticks me off.. makes me want to ensure they aren't lying by reducing their or withholding their next raise. (Please note that's a immediate gut reaction and I throw it out the window) quickly.
I'm happy to report, after much effort, I've been able to show the managing partners again this year that some developers still need larger than COLA raises (some should get 20%, 15%, 10% and most 5%). They are weary but I think they finally understand the importance of this. We do reviews and raises in a few months, and when I sit down with them I will still insist on not talking about salary or raise (amount/percent) and use the same explanation as before.
Yes, no one wants to be taken advantage of and the easiest way we think about doing that is salary transparency. That would work great in a world were psychology and subjectiveness didn't exist. I tend to be a very logical, analytical, rational personal. And as much as I hate office politics, emotions getting in the way, and having to hack psychology, they exist and as the logical, analytical, and rational person I think I am those things must be factored into going about things.