WWYD - Found out about unfair salaries at my workplace

[HamptonsBasket]

Today my (very credible and trusted) colleague and personal friend told me she discussed salaries openly with a number of our junior colleagues. Turns out we're being royally shafted, with some junior colleagues being paid in her case more than her, in my case (I am more senior than her), nearly the same - despite all of them being lower grade and less experienced.

The profession we're in is hierarchical. The whole thing is frankly a pisstake, the firm decided seemingly to pay juniors more to make sure they don't leave too quickly after their training. Meanwhile, the more senior staff like us are being fucked over.

My dilemma: do I rock the boat and speak to my boss? Tried that previously and he was an arsehole, sent me to the CEO, so I gave up. Meanwhile, the junior colleague in my team who is on nearly exactly the same salary as me is clearly his favourite over me (a separate issue). She is also pretty shit at her job (albeit she has improved a bit) and immature, but he doesn't see through her. Speaking to him will likely take me nowhere.

I have a young DC and work compressed hrs. Do I look for a new job which might be challenging on these hrs and would likely be based in a different city approx. 1-1.5 hrs away (that's where the better paid jobs are in my sector)?

Do I put up and shut up?

I am so passed off right now. WWYD, please?

YABU - Speak to your boss
YANBU - Look for a job further away
Stay silent/otherwise - please post

You may well be worth more. You may be right to ask for it. If you do, you need to decide what you do if they say no.

you’ve already said you’re working the hours you want, in a location you want. The grass isn’t always greener.

be prepared to have to leave to get a rise I’m afraid

Yes, you need to say: my role description is x, I do all those to a high standard plus I do y as well, my impact on the business is this because I deliver that; if I were doing this elsewhere I would get so much, you are under paying me and I want X amount to continue.

Where I work, you won't get a pay rise outside of the annual review, so you would need to choose your time. And you have to be serious - think to yourself, if I don't get it then will I leave or will I just stay but resent it. But if you are willing to walk away then you need to make sure you don't back down past your minimum...

if I were doing this elsewhere I would get so much, you are under paying me and I want X amount to continue.

Suggest an independent salary benchmarking review to identify how much you're being underpaid first then you'll have the evidence to support a pay bump request.

I’ve been in a similar situation but a different job.
I didn’t compare myself with my younger colleagues because I like the people I work with and didn’t want to make that a thing. I looked what other businesses were offering for someone of my experience and asked them why I should stay. I also showed them the salaries of junior roles in other places and said it was similar to what I was on now.
I received a pay rise but I was very ready to go elsewhere.

Were you happy with your salary before you found this out?

If they won't value you you'll have to either accept it for the flexibility or leave

Look for another job if it annoys you so much (it would annoy me BTW)

Years ago, DH had this. His company had this rule where if you got a new job, the maximum raise you could get was 10% of your current salary if you were an internal applicant. He wanted to go for a job advertised at £32k but was on £25k and was told that if he was successful, he would only get £27.5k. Only external people could get the £32k!! He changed companies shortly afterwards as he was so annoyed, plus his new job pays far better and they have an open and fair pay scale.

It isn't a low salary, I can't exactly say I'm struggling like many people are now and I don't want to come across this way.

However, I was feeling undervalued because I know what the market rate is. I am now wound up on top of that since I found out about my colleague.

This sounds very familiar, and I’ve been having similar conversations with my colleagues lately. You need to link your salary with the billing that you’re bringing in and use that to leaverage a better salary for yourself. Ultimately, we won’t be able to replace staff like yourself who are willing to go above and beyond so frequently. The juniors that are coming in under you will be sending in timesheets for any overtime!

Its also a candidates’ market right now. Agencies that I’m in touch with tell me NQ solicitors are walking into £30K salaries, which is insane.

I actually think that as women we’ve been conditioned into thinking we’re not worth it or we shouldn’t rock the boat or make a fuss.
It doesn’t matter if you were happy with your pay before finding out. It’s the fact that they are prepared to shaft you and are banking on you not rocking the boat.
Know your worth OP and be prepared to stand up for it! 🙌

Hi @HamptonsBasket I would look for another job and see what you can negotiate on flexible hours/wfh. If you haven’t moved jobs since before covid what’s possible post covid and with labour shortages may surprise you. Five days compressed into four is not a big ask. Could also consider in house/contracting. If you can get a new job with workable flex then great, if not that is useful info when deciding how to handle your current employer. I have worked for an organisation that did blatantly unfair stuff along these lines, fought it but in the end concluded it was a cultural issue that I couldn’t change. I moved, lost my flex (pre covid) but am much happier.

Can't say that 3 years of extra experience is all that long really to justify such indignation of just getting a few hundred more than a newer colleague. At least she's not a less-experienced man getting several thousands more than you. which is usually where the problem with 'unfair salaries' sits.

For a job that's mostly right for your own situation, I'd sit and grit for now - the ball has started rolling in your organization in terms of 'transparency' and you never know who it might knock out along the way, seems the CEO is too rigid to dodge it entirely, so let him tumble before you do.

@HamptonsBasket I understand you're perspectives and frustration.
I guess appreciate what you have got, and be zzz

I have found a similar discrepancy in my pay this week. I found out a while ago that I was only earning a few hundred a year more than a team leader on a very under preforming team-the difference is about £300k. At the time I wrote it up to our teams being the same grade historically. However I have found the grading sheet-which was near impossible to find and my team is earning two grades up from when I started leading them. I have a new manger and spoke to them about the grading as a way to introduce my pay discrepancy. She gave me some fluff about the grades not being finalised-they are, I have the most recent sheet published on the system last week.
I have started to look for other jobs as I suspect I am going to get shafted, as I am already being underpaid, and my manager has already lied to me.

I knew you’d be a solicitor OP before I even got to your confirmation! And you are, I gather, in a regional firm without the kind of defined pay bands that most big city firms have (although even in those firms, the pay bands often only go up to about 7/8 pqe and after that it’s a mixed bag).

this is partly market forces - city firm salaries have gone insane at the junior end over the last few years and that’s caused (1) a squeeze on more senior salaries, with less of a gap between junior and senior pay, and (2) pressure on regional firms to up their junior salaries to still try and compete.

but it’s also the case that firms will always try and get away with paying the least amount they can to staff. You really do have to play hard ball. Go to the partner in charge of your department with details of salaries being paid to someone of your level at your realistic competitors (speak to a recruiter to get this info) and your billing stats, and a list of all the non-chargeable work you do that justifies more pay. It’s a massive cop out for your department head to have sent you to plead your case to the managing partner directly, it is his/her job to advocate for you. Ultimately you may have to threaten to leave and actually go through with it - chances are you’ll be able to negotiate a better package than you’re currently on even without going to a bigger city.

3 years is significant amongst solicitors, both in terms of experience, grade and (should be) pay. This is when you usually move up a ladder to a more senior grade.

@Airdustmoon Are you in my firm! You are spot on.

Look on glassdoor and elsewhere for salary comparisons, but know that they are not entirely without error. Don't threaten to leave unless you intend to. We would never assume someone who threatened to leave was going to stay - their heart is out the door and once someone said that - we'd be recruiting for their job.

Last year my employer raised the minimum wage across the business- but didn’t do the same for all the salary levels.
it really became tempting to ask to reduce my role for less responsibility as the gap really wasn’t worth the extra hassle

In my firm NQs are walking into mid-forties salaries, when I started it was £10-15k less. They seemingly have a legacy issue whereby the junior salaries are starting higher but are also increased more annually, so they caught up. The issue is they've stalled us, senior lawyers, because they're tight and hoped we wouldn't find out, which is ludicrous. They're squeezing us like lemons and taking for fools at the same time.

I don't personally know the solicitor world, but I would say from many years in HR, you are much more likely to be successful going in with a case for you being underpaid (market rate/an alternative offer you currently have, responsibility, experience, skills etc) vs going in and arguing the bit that juniors are paid more/there's not an adequate gap.

What I would also say though, is that around 90% of people who accept a counteroffer, do end up leaving within the next 1-2 years anyway as the damage is already done.

This happens when your been there a long time, they hire new and pay market rate, so they may have to pay £45k to get someone new in, but person in role for quite a few years was only hired on £35k.

I don’t know if we’re in the same region but it’s the same everywhere! What PQE are you? I’m now a partner so bit different but before that I did play the negotiation game hard for several years, egged on by my DH who is in sales and well used to this sort of thing - it was difficult and went against all my natural female people pleaser instincts to meekly accept whatever they offered me. But it did work. The only way to achieve good pay rises in my experience is to either do this or to move firms every few years - you’re unfortunately exactly the demographic who gets shafted, part time/compressed hours mid-senior mum. It’s been the same in every firm I or any of my friends have ever worked in.

Stop doing it. And ask for the payrise. I don't get the whole keeping salaries secret but my whole adult life in the military was public pay scales according to rank.

Unless your job is niche and under subscribed I don't get it. Pay should be in line in skills and experience imo. Bet the ceos are having a right laugh at how your worth the same as a junior member of staff.

I got offered another job, told employer what they were offering and would leave if I didn’t get the equivalent and they actually paid up! Worth a try and then at least you will know where you stand.