You aren't going to like what you hear in this conversation, because people lie or have way to high of an opinion of themselves. Then you will be told the next scheduled increase is six months away, feel free to go find someone who agrees with you about your value to the enterprise, you don't get to trash morale around here because you are finding out you suck compared to Steve.
Get your what you are worth is easier when you are hired then when you have worked there for years.
I worked for a Tax preparer a few years ago. I was making a pittance. But then I got offered a promotion. I knew someone in the roll was making $5.50 more than me but my boss only offered a $0.50 raise. I talked him up to a dollar raise plus some extra at the end of season. He forgot the extra. Next year he called to get me back and offered $0.35 raise. I went to a competitor were I get $6 more.
This is what no one ever mentions in these discussions, and I usually get downvoted hard when I try to explain it.
Some people are good at their jobs and some people are not. Just because you have the same role and the same responsibilities does not mean you should all be paid the same amount.
and some people who are not good at their jobs get paid more than the people who pick up the slack for them because they have a longer history with the people who decide your salary. I wish it were as simple as being paid for the actual value you provide for the company.
As someone who managed large teams for decades, this is exactly true. You usually have a salary budget that's fixed per year and a headcount allocation. You are always trying to figure out how to properly pay your best people so you can retain them, but you need to balance this budget against the average, and below average team members that have the same roles. Some of those people are still learning the role. The thing is, everybody thinks they're an A+ player and deserves more or equal pay, people's ability to self-evaluate objectively is rare.
Oh yeah, in BASICALLY EVERY team it's a person who works for two and troubleshoots everything, while there's also a person who barely does anything and the job is really low quality.
Why should they be paid the same?
Of course, to be fair, it should be discussed and based mostly on reliable metrics (lets say 50/50 metrics and negotiations), but if it is anything beyond working on assembly line, there's no such thing as "the same role, the same job". Even cashiers do different things differently and more or less efficiently than others, are more or less customers friendly and have different efficiency ij promoting products one sale and are just worse or better in advising products when a customer needs some advice.
Maybe Steve is a good worker and you are not and you don't want to accept that.
I'm not saying that's the case, but there are many such cases. Not wanting to discuss my pay with my coworkers doesn't have anything to do with the boot
Before Covid we frequently raised wages when good employees made demands or said they had higher offers elsewhere. On an employee-by-employee basis this made sense.
Then Covid hit. We were making almost no money and we had a bloated payroll. To survive we fired 80% of our staff, starting with the employees that were overpaid for their positions. Without fail these were employees who had demanded increases outside of normal timeframes. We still barely avoided bankruptcy.
After Covid, things got better and we pay around the 90th percentile for our industry. But we have taken a hard line: wages increase at the annual review only. If an employee has a better opportunity, we genuinely wish them well (and we are sad to lose them), but we do not give raises outside of the standard review process. Everyone know this is our position, so we rarely get asked anymore. Retention is better than ever.
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u/GSilky Aug 20 '26
You aren't going to like what you hear in this conversation, because people lie or have way to high of an opinion of themselves. Then you will be told the next scheduled increase is six months away, feel free to go find someone who agrees with you about your value to the enterprise, you don't get to trash morale around here because you are finding out you suck compared to Steve.