The company I work for is small (15-20 people, mostly engineering and technical staff with a few support personnel) owned by a larger family-owned company back east. I will be replacing the retiring General Manager as a co/assistant GM with another member of the current management team (still haven't worked out the hierarchy yet).
The outgoing GM has been doing a lot of work negotiating with the parent company over the last two years to bring employee salaries up to modern, competitive levels and offering new hires proper-for-position and COL-reflective wages. During this, I have been shown in confidence what everyone's wages are and there are LARGE disparities… which the current GM pledges to fix or at least improve by the time of his retirement. I trust that he is sincere in this and will do what he says.
Once I graduate into a position of authority, I want to make the company's wages more transparent to them and the rest of the staff. However, I feel like I have some members of the staff who will not take this information kindly, will cause waves and discord, regardless of the fact that both the current GM and both of his successors feel this people are being properly and fairly, if not more so, compensated for what they do. It feels like opening a can of worms that can't be closed again.
How does one balance the commitment to their staff to be fair and transparent without letting that transparency disrupt the business?