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07-16-2016, 10:47 AM
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#41
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Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
Join Date: Feb 2007
Location: Upstate
Posts: 2,950
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Quote:
Originally Posted by younginvestor2013
Hi ER Community!
However, I am starting to become really down based on the pay discrepancies I am learning about in my company. Some background: I have 5 years of progressive Finance and Accounting experience. I currently make $73k base, and just found out that our Admin makes $60k base. Additionally, a coworker who is two "titles" higher than me, makes $130k base. I have basically been told that I will be promoted this year by my bosses, which is great. However, I am starting to feel that, since I started at such a low base, I will never catch up to my coworker making the $130k that is only two "titles" higher than me. When I get promoted, at which point I will be one "title" lower than her, in theory, I would expect to be bumped up to about $100k base. That would be around a 40% raise, and you and I know that both won't happen.
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As others have mentioned, you should always know your worth in the job market place. Otherwise, you are flying blind and subject to your own emotions.
A wise man once told his practice as a mid level manager in a mega corp was to always try to have those working for him with higher pay than himself whenever possible.
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07-16-2016, 12:51 PM
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#42
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Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
Join Date: Sep 2005
Location: Northern IL
Posts: 26,888
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Quote:
Originally Posted by dallas27
Current economic theory, i.e. MBA dogma, teaches that employees are value competitors of the firm, not value creators. Their costs are to be managed and minimized because employees very existence reduces profits, until we can replace them with machines.
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I don't think this 'dogma' is any different for a machine than a human. And I would find it hard to believe it is actually a common viewpoint.
Employees (and machines) are most certainly value creators (or maybe value protectors, depending on the job), or they would not be employed (or purchased).
Yes, the salary, benefits and all other elements of total compensation for employees is a cost, and a reduction in value. The same for machines, just a different set of costs.
For a profitable company, all costs are to be managed and minimized because costs reduce profits. Machines have costs too. A machine will only replace a human when the total cost of the machine is lower (and that can include some hard to quantify costs, like a machine won't go to HR and file a grievance against their sup).
-ERD50
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07-16-2016, 12:52 PM
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#43
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Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
Join Date: Jul 2005
Posts: 2,223
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Bamaman
You're certainly not going to see any 40% raise with a promotion in most companies..
I know my old MegaCorp had a cap of 10% to 12% max. when someone went to one pay grade higher. No more.
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I would agree with this view. I was at a megacorp employer for 19 years and a megacity civil serv. job for 14 years. At megacorp, it would take at least 5 years to get to the mid/upper pay levels after a promotion.
Totally different at megacity. Promotions were treated like a new employee , 2 years max time to top scale , and previous pay in the city was irrevelent.
As others have suggested, talk with a headhunter.
Are your skills something transferrable to a civil sevice job ?
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07-17-2016, 07:11 AM
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#44
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Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
Join Date: Apr 2010
Posts: 5,911
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This is not difficult.
Understand the compensation in your field. If you feel that you are underpaid, underappreciated, or overworked then get your resume up to date and start looking around AND be prepared to make the change.
There is no use moaning and complaining about your situation. Decide to do something about it or make peace with yourself.
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07-17-2016, 06:02 PM
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#45
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Full time employment: Posting here.
Join Date: Jun 2016
Posts: 889
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My own experience with 25 plus years at mega Corp was that at times I suffered from new employees from outside being overpaid relative to me in terms of comp. But over time that was muted and in the end my own comp was actually better than had I left. Plus I got the benefit of having a great network in mega Corp to position myself well for advancement.
One point in here that does ring true. You have to have your facts on value and tell them you expect to be paid what you are worth.
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07-18-2016, 11:16 AM
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#46
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Recycles dryer sheets
Join Date: Mar 2016
Posts: 84
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As easy as it sounds to manage salaries, it isn’t easy and there are more factors involved than position and years of service. I am the Controller of a small company and I do HR. You need to be happy with your salary for your role. Are you going above and beyond? Do you have your CPA? Even our junior staff are encouraged for bench strength and rewarded for increased education. I have my CPA and went back for my MBA to better myself.
I see everyone’s salary. It doesn’t matter what someone else earns. Your salary is about what you bring to the table. Do not bring in the discussion of what you need to survive or what someone else earns. Learn about your market and fight for the salary deserved for all of your accomplishments. Also explain you want to know the goals and challenges to move to the next level in XX number of years and XX salary.
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07-18-2016, 01:09 PM
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#47
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Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
Join Date: Apr 2010
Posts: 5,911
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^+1
Great advice.
Leave emotion at the door. The past has gone. Move forward with your future. It is entirely up to you.
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07-19-2016, 02:07 PM
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#48
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Dryer sheet aficionado
Join Date: Jan 2011
Location: Raleigh, NC
Posts: 37
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I worked for a mega company (IT field) for 30 years and then left and have worked for two other companies since then. I held many different jobs in the first company. I've worked in upper management and seen how salaries are handled.
My advise is to stay where you are through the promotion cycle to see what that does for you. It wouldn't hurt to also softly job hunt to see what you an find about your value in the market. Typically, (and this is from both a managers perspective and an employees perspective), if you are way below your value, you are going to much more easily get parity by going to a different company. It is difficult for a manager to give an employee a huge percentage raise at one time, because it would likely set off alarms and or exceed their annual budget increase, and most managers don't want to deal with that. When hiring someone, there is usually more latitude and a target range that is market aligned.
I had a situation years ago where we were discussing hiring someone that was to work for me, and be two levels below me. While discussing the offer being made with my boss, he shared with me the salary he wanted to offer. We talked about it and agreed on a plan. At the end of the meeting, I pulled him aside and simply said, "you realize we are offering him more than I make, right?". That's all I said. A week later during a 1:1, he told me he had reviewed my salary and I was way below where I should be. He told me he would fix it, but it would take a couple of years to get me where I needed to be. He honored his word, and I eventually caught up. Its unfortunate that it happened that way, but I had been promoted twice in a short time and even with 10% raises each time I was still about 30-40% below my peers. Once I got to parity, I also was fairly flat for the next 10 years or so at that company. In fact, my net went down over a period of years. That is when I decided to look elsewhere and I did very well with the move to a different company.
From the management side, I had employees in my department that were fresh out of college and others that had been with the company for over 10 years. The compensation was about double for the more experienced folks. The productivity in some cases was double in the reverse. One of the newer employees got to talking to his buddies and found that he could go to work for another company and get a raise of about 40%. He then shared this with a lot of his coworkers. So we had a "situation" to say the least. As a management team, we sat down and determined which of the "fresh out of college" workers we really wanted to keep. It was about 5-6 of them out of about twice that many. We came up with a very aggressive raise for each of them. None of them left, and they were much happier. We did have a couple of the ones that didn't get the raise that left, but that was OK with us. In the end it worked out. Thankfully the first guy had the relationship with management to say, "hey, I wasn't looking but this company is offering me this salary. I want to stay here, but I also have to think about my family and this is too much for me to ignore. Is there anything you can do to help me stay.".
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07-19-2016, 02:58 PM
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#49
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Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
Join Date: May 2013
Location: Les Bois
Posts: 5,761
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"hey, I wasn't looking but this company is offering me this salary. I want to stay here, but I also have to think about my family and this is too much for me to ignore. Is there anything you can do to help me stay.".
The problem with saying that is the relationship between you and the employer will never change. Everyone I've ever talked out of quitting (and there were several) eventually quit, usually within a year. The ship has sailed; that's why I've always just submitted my resignation and let it be.
I never understood why a full court press is put on when someone quits or threatens to leave. The last job I quit, 5 years ago, it was a hard full court press.
__________________
You can't be a retirement plan actuary without a retirement plan, otherwise you lose all credibility...
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07-19-2016, 03:07 PM
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#50
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Dryer sheet aficionado
Join Date: Jan 2011
Location: Raleigh, NC
Posts: 37
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Big_Hitter
"hey, I wasn't looking but this company is offering me this salary. I want to stay here, but I also have to think about my family and this is too much for me to ignore. Is there anything you can do to help me stay.".
The problem with saying that is the relationship between you and the employer will never change. Everyone I've ever talked out of quitting (and there were several) eventually quit, usually within a year. The ship has sailed; that's why I've always just submitted my resignation and let it be.
I never understood why a full court press is put on when someone quits or threatens to leave. The last job I quit, 5 years ago, it was a hard full court press.
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In just depends. In this case, the guy was genuine about wanting to keep working for us. From management's perspective, we were in the middle of a $45M contract and if we lost a half dozen of our top developers, we'd have been in big trouble. By him bringing this up, we realized that we hadn't properly valued these employees and were going to lose them. Our recruiter told us that there were over 800 open positions in the area for this role we were competing with, and we had heavy security requirements that made it more difficult to hire. These folks were the future of the company and it would have literally taken a minimum of 6-9 months to replace them (recruiting, hiring, training).
But often, it is like you say and if someone is going to leave they are going to leave. When I left both jobs I've left in recent years, my mind was made up. The big difference here was in my case the reason I was leaving wasn't money. In the case of the example I gave from management's perspective, this guy was leaving solely because the money was so far off. I believe this has a correlation with the OP's situation which is why I posted it.
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07-19-2016, 03:09 PM
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#51
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Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
Join Date: May 2013
Location: Les Bois
Posts: 5,761
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How long did he last after you matched the offer?
But yes, I agree, finding a market value is the first step for the OP.
__________________
You can't be a retirement plan actuary without a retirement plan, otherwise you lose all credibility...
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07-19-2016, 03:39 PM
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#52
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gone traveling
Join Date: Sep 2003
Location: DFW
Posts: 7,586
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I think one thing that can be disconcerting to younger employees is when they see older employees with time in grade who are making quite a bit more, but are dead wood/slackers. That didn't happen much at my former mega-corp as we made annual staff reductions a best practice, but unfortunately that affected some pretty good performers as well.
Any how, I agree with several of the comments big hitter made throughout this thread.
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07-20-2016, 02:40 AM
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#53
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Recycles dryer sheets
Join Date: Jul 2012
Posts: 407
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Quote:
Originally Posted by DFW_M5
I think one thing that can be disconcerting to younger employees is when they see older employees with time in grade who are making quite a bit more, but are dead wood/slackers.
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^This. I think none of us young'uns are jealous of more senior staff who have earned, and are still earning, their high salaries. What's killing me is those old bastards who make twice as much as me for doing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. I mean literally coming in at 10:30, reading the paper until lunch, then taking a nap in their private offices (new folks are assigned a desk in an open space office) before googling themselves until it's time to go home.
__________________
I am willing to perform services in exchange for currency. For now.
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07-20-2016, 04:56 AM
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#54
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Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: North Oregon Coast
Posts: 16,483
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Quote:
Originally Posted by DFW_M5
I think one thing that can be disconcerting to younger employees is when they see older employees with time in grade who are making quite a bit more, but are dead wood/slackers. That didn't happen much at my former mega-corp as we made annual staff reductions a best practice, but unfortunately that affected some pretty good performers as well.
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Well, IMO it's not even that they are usually "dead wood" but that so many workplaces now have multiple tiers for their workers, where newer employees pretty much always get the shaft compared to the old-timers. They are often on a considerably lower pay scale for the same amount of qualifications, they get 401Ks instead of DB pensions, they don't get retiree health insurance, et cetera.
And this is when the younger workers realize that no matter how good they are, no matter how long they stay with their current employer, they will *never* come close to getting the financial security deal the older folks got. And that can lead to resentment in the workplace.
__________________
"Hey, for every ten dollars, that's another hour that I have to be in the work place. That's an hour of my life. And my life is a very finite thing. I have only 'x' number of hours left before I'm dead. So how do I want to use these hours of my life? Do I want to use them just spending it on more crap and more stuff, or do I want to start getting a handle on it and using my life more intelligently?" -- Joe Dominguez (1938 - 1997)
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07-20-2016, 06:49 AM
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#55
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gone traveling
Join Date: Sep 2003
Location: DFW
Posts: 7,586
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ziggy29
Well, IMO it's not even that they are usually "dead wood" but that so many workplaces now have multiple tiers for their workers, where newer employees pretty much always get the shaft compared to the old-timers. They are often on a considerably lower pay scale for the same amount of qualifications, they get 401Ks instead of DB pensions, they don't get retiree health insurance, et cetera.
And this is when the younger workers realize that no matter how good they are, no matter how long they stay with their current employer, they will *never* come close to getting the financial security deal the older folks got. And that can lead to resentment in the workplace.
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Unfortunately, that is quite true. Times have changed and will most likely not revert back to the past environment. You cannot let that negatively affect you, as there is not much you can do about it other than work your way up or leave for another opportunity if you don't like it. There are probably many older workers as well that lament on how it used to be. Change is tough, but the sooner you get over it the better. A good read on this subject is a book called "Who Stole my Cheese."
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07-20-2016, 07:28 AM
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#56
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Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
Join Date: Dec 2009
Location: Alberta/Ontario/ Arizona
Posts: 3,393
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Quote:
Originally Posted by aggie76
reading this make me sooooooooo damn glad that I am no longer part of the insanity.
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Likewise. Although in my case it was really worth it. By reading these types of threads, I realize again how lucky I was/am.
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07-20-2016, 07:29 AM
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#57
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Dryer sheet aficionado
Join Date: Jan 2011
Location: Raleigh, NC
Posts: 37
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Big_Hitter
How long did he last after you matched the offer?
But yes, I agree, finding a market value is the first step for the OP.
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As far as I know, he's still there.... so longer than me! I left about a year and a half ago. But keep in mind we didn't just match an offer. We gave a half dozen people in the department a huge raise. That guy was probably viewed as a hero among his immediate co-workers, and they were a close knit group. There was no feeling from management of negativity against this guy.
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07-20-2016, 07:47 AM
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#58
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Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
Join Date: May 2013
Location: Les Bois
Posts: 5,761
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__________________
You can't be a retirement plan actuary without a retirement plan, otherwise you lose all credibility...
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07-20-2016, 07:50 AM
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#59
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Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
Join Date: May 2013
Location: Les Bois
Posts: 5,761
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Quote:
Originally Posted by DFW_M5
Any how, I agree with several of the comments big hitter made throughout this thread.
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well I guess I've been in "mgt" for about 20 years or so, and I've been at both ends of this, mostly smaller practices - some as small as 5, some as large as 30
__________________
You can't be a retirement plan actuary without a retirement plan, otherwise you lose all credibility...
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07-20-2016, 08:07 AM
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#60
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Full time employment: Posting here.
Join Date: Mar 2013
Location: Sugar Land
Posts: 587
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Hey! I resent that remark! I'm not doing "ABSOLUTELY NOTHING". I'm checking my retirement account balances, running FIRECalc, checking how the market's doing, and making plans on what I'm going to do once I finally decide to pull the plug. That's a lot of hard work!!
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