To have got a bigger payrise

[Willthisworknow]

I got a 1.28% payrise and 17.75% bonus! I am really fuming as I really need the money in my take home pay. We had redundancies last year and I had to take on extra work and responsibilities ie a team of line reports. We had to make a gross margin of 30% which we smashes. This is the least I ever got and my pay rise last year when on mat leave was 2.25% and I was off for 9 months of that year. I've really pushed myself, did over and above, I am one of the main contributors to the dept . My line reports even got more in relative terms but just cos my salary is more, they seem to think its acceptable to give me a lower percentage. The truth is my manager does not really appear to be pushing management for me because I am applying for jobs as we speak. When I asked head of dept all she could say was that the pay rises were less and the money that should have gone into the merit was given as a bonus instead. But I got less than the recommended pay band for my appraisal rating which was 1.5 to 2.5%. How can I challenge professionally to say I'm worth more? The head of dept said they not set the budgets but I believe they will pay you more if they think you are worth it.

It's hardly uncommon for employers to seek to give as much financial reward as possible in the form of non-consolidated payments (ie bonuses), and as little as possible as consolidated payments (salary). The latter sets them up for greater financial liability long-term (they have to carry on paying it to you - or, ok, it's more difficult for them to get out of paying it to you), may increase their employer NI contributions, pension liability (if you have a pension with them) etc. Whereas a one-off bonus is pretty much no strings attached.

I don't understand pay issues perfectly so sorry if I've got any of that wrong, but I believe the fundamentals are correct.

I had a pay freeze. A lot of people where I work have been made redundant so I'm fairly lucky to have a job. As are you. YABU.

If your pay rise was less than the bottom of a band stipulated by a formal appraisal process then you should take it up with your manager- reallocating pay rise to bonus is irrelevant.

I used to work for a company which had very structured pay increases, so they had a pot of 2% overall and the A rated got 3%, B got 2%, C got 1% and D got 0%. It was very transparent as you knew what rating you got from your annual appraisal.

However, I was confused about this -

The truth is my manager does not really appear to be pushing management for me because I am applying for jobs as we speak.

If your manager knows you're applying for other jobs, I'm amazed you got a rise at all.

YABU. In this climate, moaning about "only" getting a small pay rise and bonus is going to get a lot of backs up.
You're lucky to have a job.
I'm sure you're not as entitled as you're coming across but please stfu.

And be prepared to have some come on who are more vocal than me.

"More for less" is the mantra at my work. No bonuses at all. We have been given a 1% pay rise this year bit that's the first rise for 4 years. 850 redundancies. Given others are losing their jobs, I'm certainly not going to moan about my pay.

Actually I call bullshit. This must be a reverse?
Perhaps by a colleague who was made redundant?

I'm a teacher and have not had a pay rise for almost 4 years now. We don't get bonuses and thanks to god Gove we have an inordinately large amount of work. Oh and everyone thinks we generally do a shit job.

I'd be happy with 1.25 and a bonus!

Well if you're sensible about it, it's a 1.17 rise for the rest of your career but 2.65 for this year - 17.75/12 is 1.48, so if you put the bonus in a separate bank account and pay yourself 1/12th each month your pay will be boosted.

I don't get all the bitching about the odd 0.5% pay rise, it's peanuts in the scheme of things. There is being paid market rate for your skills, and there is not being paid market rate. If you are not being paid market rate you should be upset, regardless of whether you got 1% or 10%.

Companies however are not obligated to give you a pay rise, so sometimes you have to get a new job if you want to be paid market rate (if indeed you are worth what you think you are).

Posts like "I only got 1% yabu" are stupid for the same reason.

If you genuinely believe that your pay rise is inappropriate, then you need to take it up formally.

However, I think complaining about a 17.5% bonus is a teeny bit much. This is a very difficult economic climate and a lot of people are facing very difficult times - including your colleagues who were made redundant recently. I know that other people's situation doesn't affect yours, but a 17.5% bonus will generate an increase this year, and you can work towards being able to argue your position in the next salary review.

If it makes you feel any better, those of us working in the criminal justice system have had years of pay-freezes/cuts - our rates haven't increased since the 90s and have been sliced away regularly. In about 3 months my colleagues and I will be hit with a 10% pay cut which is going to mean that several people will be reassessing whether they can continue to work in the profession that some of them have been in for nearly 30 years. I will only be able to stay by some very careful renegotiation of hours to take maximum advantage of childcare vouchers/free hours.

Times aren't great for anyone right now, and it may be a case of accepting that for now, and working to put yourself in the strongest possible position in the future - make sure everything you do, beyond the basic job requirements, is logged, so that you aren't thrown into a spin if things don't go as you expected in the pay review - you need to go into those sort of meetings ready with answers.

Oh and I forgot the holiday cuts back down to a minimum flat rate, regardless of service time. Which is probably not lawful, but I expect they're gambling on us being grateful to keep our jobs, when others will lose theirs.

Unfortunately, they're probably right.