Really need some advice about work and salary!

[dinosaure]

Hi all,

I really need some cool, calm, clear-headed advice.

I had my salary review today. For the third year in a row, I am not going to get a payrise.

For the last two years, the reason given is that I was at the top of the payscale that they could pay someone at my level.

This year the reason given is that I only got a 2 in my appraisal, and I needed a 2+ to get any payrise (2+ is the second highest grade available).

However, two years ago, I was graded one down from outstanding, which as far as I can see must be the equivalent of 2+, although they have changed the terminology. So I was very gutted then not to get a pay rise. Last year I wasn't so bothered, as I had only just come back from maternity leave. But I had really expected to get at least an "in line with inflation" payrise this year.

Quite honestly, I am spitting with fury. It just feels like a massive slap in the face. But as I am the sole breadwinner, then much as I'd like to, I can't really march into my boss's office and resign!

So what do I do? As far as I can see I have three options:

1. Knuckle down meekly and try and get a 2+ next year. By which time they may well have moved the goalposts again.

1. Try and persuade them to change their minds.

1. Update my cv and get me to a recruitment consultant. I have been here since 1997, maybe it's time for a change?

I feel so crap about this. I have had to take my children's photos off my desk because I can't look at them without feeling I am letting them down.

I would go for 3... no guarantees that things won't change -- they are showing signs of taking you for granted... I think time for a change...

Thanks mancmum. I find the thought of changing jobs after so long quite daunting, but then again maybe it's just the shot in the arm I need.

Anybody else had similar experience and want to share it?

IT is hard to change jobs but can be quite liberating to be in a new situation... I can only speak from experience I manage a large team of people and I can not give them payrises above a couple of % but am allowed to recruit people to do the same job but on about 20% more than the current team have... makes no sense to me I also know that after you have been in a company for more than 5 years, you are expected to make it a life long job and so they don;tt think there is a risk of losing you -- hence they keep the money back for the high risk of leaving people.. wrong but I have seen it done a lot over the years at different places...

Just see what is out there could be a whole new world and salary!

It is not so much that I want to earn shedloads more money, I just think the principle of not having a salary review even to keep up with inflation for three years sucks!

I did not have one for 4 years... so I know how hard it is... also have been in company for 10 years so probably should practice what I preach and go!

It is hard though if you like the job... as I do mine!

I worked for the same company for a decade and the payrises gradually got worse & worse. We all knew that new staff were coming in on better money than us and eventually I decided I had enough. My new job payed me £3,000 a year more and BOY did I enjoy telling them that at my exit interview!

I think sometimes you get into a rut with work and are scared of change...go for it after all it doesnt hurt to look!

It would be no 3 for me dino - they are treating you like someone who hasn't got options - and there are always options girl:)

Changing jobs is not a bad idea now and again - people seem to value you more when they have recently made a decision to hire you - and parted with a large recruitment fee

IMO sometimes the only way to get on and get increased pay is to move jobs.

1. Knuckle down. But they don't value you, or, if they do, you don't feel they do so some damage is done.
2. You can try but ime these ratings are rarely changed after the event, especially with set in stone pay scales
3. Best option imo. The worst case is that you don't find anything comparable in which case nothign lost OR you get another job and either leave for more money OR use it to re negotiate with your current employer. Good luck.

Are you a lawyer? Sounds like the sort of crap I used to deal with. I would do a combination of 2 and 3- after all if you are going for 3, you have nothing to lose in also trying 2, and if you are successful in 2 you can either call off the recruitment hounds, or end up looking for another job with a higher base salary which is never a bad thing.

I would go and see them, point out that you haven't had a rise for 3 years so are effectively being paid less than you were 3 years ago with 3 years more experience, that the goalposts seem to have changed, that for someone who has always been considered "outstanding" or "at the top of their scale" you consider this strange and wonder if it has anything to do with your maternity leave last year (always good to leave a little bit of doubt in their mind as to whether you think you are being sexually discriminated against), you feel that you are doing excellent work and are an asset to the firm but you have to pay attention to how the firm apparently values you and plan your career accordingly.
The aim is to leave them feeling like you probably have been shortchanged, that they could lose you unless they pay you a bit more, and that they have a horrible feeling you may have a legitimate claim agains tthem for constructive dismissal if they don't.

Go girl!

PS there is NO SUCH THING as a salary scale which is set in stone. Unless you are a government employee.

Oh hon, I am sorry. I had my pay notice today too and while they do creep the numbers up for me each year it is only inflation-based, so I too am at the third year of no recognition for any extra effort put in by me. (I think no pay rise at all, however, is insult to injury, though - so at your mean employers.)

Maybe we should correspond off board about this, because if I am being honest about myself, I have slightly colluded in the situation I'm in, and I wonder if you might be at all the same? Our employers, yours and mine, are pretty hard-nosed and are not going to offer anything out of kindness or feelings of obligation. If they can keep you, doing the very valuable job you do, without paying you any more ... well, says the board, why should we pay her any more?

My reviewers said to me last year that, given that I am now at the top of the ordinary pay scale, a proper rise would have to be something negotiated for, and if I decided to do that they would support me. So I spent a disappointment-fuelled two weeks working out a plan for what more I could do - and then got swamped by daily work, lost momentum and just never pushed it. I have done the more challenging work, put myself forward for it, and so on: but I have not stuck to doing it according to a demonstrable, quantifiable "business plan" sort of strategy. I think that is the problem with where you are in your organisation, and where I am in mine: we are anomalies in a way, and we have to, horrid phrase, Build Our Own Profiles. And I don't.

Maybe we should have a joint pact to write those business plans and push ourselves forward accordingly? - always remembering, as dh keeps telling me, that the comparator is not what other people at our level in the firm are paid, but what it would cost them to replace us.

It sounds like they can't give you a raise unless you have the grade, therefore you need to get the higher grade.

Ask your line manager about how they are going to help you get the higher grade next year - altering your responsibilities etc. so that the higher grade will be achievable.

It's always a good idea to update your CV, even if you don't do anything with it.