To never want to work in a job with fixed payscales

[Middlelanehogger]

I read threads on here about (mostly government/civil service/adjacent) jobs with fixed payscales, like teachers, nurses, NHS admins, civil service etc.

I work in the private sector where you get paid depending on what you personally do in your role. (And yes, a bit based on what you personally asked your boss for in the negotiations, but at least it's marginally in your control.)

I just can't comprehend how people can deal with it. Just read a post about how Band Whatever senior teachers only get £10k more than juniors, why, "because that's the banding". So you either suck it up or quit, there's no "ask for a £10k pay rise" or however much would make it worth it to you?! This isn't how you get to market clearing rates!

This is the primary reason I left primary teaching. I loved my job, did lots of extra qualifications, had a TON of extra responsibilities that technically I didn’t have to do, 20 year’s experience (internationally and UK) ….,yet because I was top of the pay scale I was earning the same as someone with 5 years experience and no extra qualifications/responsibilities!

I prefer it. I know that I am being paid the same as an employee in an equal role to me, regardless of gender, race etc. I’d hate to be in a sector with any potential for pay disparity, particularly as it tends to disadvantage women and minority groups.

OP, I think I am one of the few that agrees with you!
I am also private sector (biotech) and while the sector itself has 'expected ranges', they are quite broad. For example, Director might be 60-100k.
What you can actually get is dependent on what skills need to be brought in - sometimes you can find yourself in a good negotiating position.

And to add, any disparity is skills related, nothing to do with gender or other. Highly skilled people get paid more than lower skilled.

People in these kind of roles are kind of institutionalised.

Which is why I think things must really be bad if they're actually striking because usually these people go along with whatever

Except that when you step back and analyse the results of this ‘skills focus’, turns out that middle, aged, able bodied, married, white men get paid more than other people.

And around them are often a lot of more skilled and capable people being paid a lot less.

An approach where everybody was left to negotiate what they considered to be their worth would leave a lot of people in the doldrums.

Those of you defending pay scales…..

Do you really think it’s fair that a teacher with 20+ years experience and various additional qualifications (subject specialisms at post graduate university level, SEN qualifications etc) should earn the same as another teacher with just five years experience and no additional qualifications?

I don’t. Which is why I got out. I now work less hours m, have less responsibilities, finish on time every day and get paid more.

Would a teacher with 20+ years experience and numerous qualifications not chase promotion into leadership roles/ head of year/ deputy head/ headteacher positions?

No - because ultimately it takes you away from the core fun of being a teacher - actually teaching!

I did do a couple of years in management and hated the levels of utter BS (particularly surrounding dealing with lunatic parents).

Many excellent teachers have no interest in management positions. However they have a wealth of experience and skills that are not recognised financially.

They are paid by the taxpayer. Tax revenue is not infinite. I assume you’d be OK with tax increases everything a teacher of civil servant feels they’ve done well and deserve more money than those with similar experience?

On the other hand, they have a lot more job security. That’s the trade off. You’re not going home from work each day wondering what you’ll do if the company goes bust or is sold tomorrow.

I'm in a role where you can be employed in the public sector or freelance. In my second job (in which I freelance) I work with others at the same level as me doing the same thing. They are also freelancers.

We hadn't had a payrise in this role for 8 years so I rounded up the others and said we needed to approach the company as a collective to ask for a payrise.

You would not believe the push back I got from my peers. The comments were "oh no, don't ask for too much". "We need to be grateful for what we've got".

I had no support and tbh if I didn't have those losers holding me back we would have got much more than what I finally managed to negotiate, which was a 28% increase

After we were awarded this I vented my annoyance with how the rest of them had conducted themselves and one of them apologised and said 'tbh we are institutionalised so negotiating is alien to us'. FFS

To clarify, the company pay all freelancers the same, which is why I had to negotiate as a collective. I wish I was allowed to set my own rate but it's public sector and so even though it's outside of IR35 they basically decide the rate 🤔🙄

To clarify again the person felt they were all institutionalised because in their day jobs they are public sector employees on set pay bands.

@BigChesterDraws tbh I pay so much tax and don't see a way out of it, that at least I'd prefer those tax dollars to go to a smaller number of competent people - the productivity gap between strong and useless workers is like 10x

@Gemstar2 do it! Private sector jobs vary so much depending on the company but it's a huge huge joy to work with competent and hardworking people if you can find the right spot

@PerfectYear321 congratulations! Good on you for pushing through!

Thanks, but it doesn't feel like a win because we secured the payrise, for which I was very happy, and then the inflation crisis happened and we're back to square one! 😂 We need another 10% payrise really.

When negotiating I said " we've not asked for a payrise in 8 years so we wouldn't be expecting to ask for another I'm a good while" or something like that 🙄. FML

*in a good while

I think PRP is so open to discrimination, and I don’t just mean race, sex and age. It rewards those with the same personality traits as the appraisers, often to the detriment of those solid, unflashy workers who are just getting on with their jobs rather than shmoozing and promoting themselves.

Are you in America?

Nah, I love the public sector and it’s paybands.
I’ve been almost exclusively in HE since uni, it works for me. My pension is great. It’s all good. The private sector is not my bag.

No, London, although I've been told I'm brash ;)

This sums it up for me.

It's cos you said 'tax dollars'

Fixed pay scales are awful and mean you can have years of experience at a grade and then be paid the same as someone recently promoted with half your experience. It made sense when you moved upwards through the grade, but that stopped in much of the CS in 2009