Direct report on the same salary

[misssunshine4040]

I have been in my job for a year now in a senior management position.

Aprils pay reviews have been published on the system we use and I had a notification to inform me of my teams new rates of pay,

My colleague was promoted to the level below me and I am their line manager but following the April pay increase they are now on the exact same salary as me despite have a more junior role and less responsibility.

Am I being unreasonable to feel uncomfortable about this?

Use this to negotiate with your manager. And start looking for a new job to give you leverage. Time to play hardball.

So you're saying the company gave this colleague a significant pay rise they didn't ask for despite saying everybody would get 2% and despite wanting to reduce payroll?

Is your direct report a man?

So what did you do?

Because there is really no point in having equal pay laws if women are going to find out that they are paid less than their male peers and just shrug their shoulders and say, "that's the way it is".

Yes he is a man

They never said everyone would get 2% it was there or there about, certainly nothing much.

But ultimately yes this point is correct

My DP is paid quite a lot more than his line manager (also male) because he has an unusual combination of much in demand skills and experience (think something like sustainability and engineering) that they need but find it very hard to recruit to. He was poached from another company.

I do understand this but there isn’t anything you can do aside from ask for your own pay rise?

Why do you think that's more likely than this colleague successfully negotiating a raise?

@misssunshine4040 If I were you I would write to your own manager requesting a pay review.

Say something like this:

"Following the recent pay rises for staff on or close to minimum wage it has now come to my attention that Jeremy, who reports to me, is on the same salary that I am. Whilst I understand the logic that staff on Jeremy's level were given a pay rise to ensure that they didn't all end up on the new minimum wage (i.e. to make sure they were still earning more than their more junior colleagues), this logic has not been applied across the board. This means that I am now earning the same as someone I directly manage, who doesn't have the same responsibilities that I do. I believe that my wages should reflect my experience and level of responsibility, and for this reason I am requesting a pay review."

I would also big up what you've achieved since your last pay rise. Wanting a pay rise just because someone else got one isn't a v compelling reason.

Back in the day, I accidentally (through casual discussion) found out a junior male colleague was getting paid more than me. This was pre-2010 when companies could prohibit employees from discussing pay.

I was utterly devastated. I had to be quite careful as I didn’t want to get my colleague into trouble, but I did let my boss know that I wanted my salary reassessed as I was concerned it didn’t reflect my relative seniority and performance gradings in the department and I wanted it benchmarked against my male colleagues. I was the only woman in the department.

My salary did eventually get adjusted upwards considerably - but it still left me angry and distrustful. I was young & naive and had thought before that employers automatically paid you commensurately based on your skills, qualifications and performance.

Do you have performance related pay?because when I was a line manager, I was actively involved in deciding the pay risese for my team.

No we have bonuses for that and I was awarded that

Do you publish a salary range or expect people to guess and blame them for not guessing well enough?

I get paid a bit more than the ‘supervisors’ who are technically above me.
I don’t know if they know this and I wouldn’t rock the boat by saying anything but it’s because I’m better at my job than they are, have more experience and a longer service with the company. It is my own choosing due to personal circumstances that I do not have a more senior title, although day to day I am the person things are escalated to to rectify, not their supervisors, so I’ll happily take the pay for it.
Bit of a weird set up where I work though, not as black and white as a lot of companies as our roles all vary so much.

It's hardly an irrelevant detail.

Big global company - the ranges are very easy to look up online!

I get paid more than some people who are more senior than me. This is partly because I have been there for a while and started on a good salary. They have changed how they recruit now and offer jobs to less experienced people on lower salaries. My role also brings extra money into the company which not many others do.

I would be careful how you bring it up. There is something in GDPR about not using information you are using in your role for other purposes. I heard of someone being given a warning for complaining about a colleague's salary. Same scenario. Report on same salary.

This isn’t covered by GDPR, and companies can’t get away with, for example, discriminatory remuneration practises simply by telling people they’re not allowed to talk about it 😂

a manager is almost always authorised to see their direct reports salary, as OP has openly seen it on her HR system. She has not done anything with the information that contravenes data laws.

This I outearn my imeadiate boss and my same grade colleagues because I was tenacious when I was recruited.

I had this once. Negotiated a pay rise. Just go and tell them this is not ok and they need to reflect your larger responsibility in your salary.

could you challenge this with HR with equal pay laws?