Getting promoted but getting a pay cut?

[ScandiGirl10]

Sorry this is a long one...

Colleague in a role slightly more senior than mine is leaving so I was offered the job straight away after putting my hand up. New role is in the same team but requires broader range of knowledge/ responsibilities to my current role, for which I am undertaking a qualification. Company are supporting this but it is being funded by a government scheme so no extra cost apart from the fact I will need a day out of the business for training approx once every 6 weeks (that being said I always work well over my contracted hours every week).

I am due a pay rise soon anyway and after enquiring if anything is changing in regards to my pay for new role, I have found out I will be getting the same rise to my base pay as expected in old role, but my bonus will be stopping as person currently in role does not get a bonus. Effectively dropping my overall earnings by £1.5k against my current earnings and £2.5k against what I would be earning if I stayed in the same role!

Essentially I am earning over the normal 'banding' (I say this loosely as very discretionary, private sector) in my current role due to high performance so now have to take a step back in my earnings to take a step up the hierarchy and broaden experience. They will need to invest some time in me to get me up to speed and allow some time out of business for me to do my qualification, but I got the role based on my high performance in same team. The only thing is I know they could go externally and easily get someone 'off the shelf' to do this role where they wouldn't need to give the development so I don't know if I should challenge.

Is this fair or are they BU?

If you're earning above normal banding you've put them in a difficult spot. Ask them if the job can be reclassified somehow to put you in the next band up. Sometimes just jazzing up the title can do it.

Definitely ask - at least ask them to maintain your current pay, ideally to give you more to recognise the additional responsibility. If you don't ask you won't get. they think enough of you to give you the role (and to have increased your pay in the previous role) so keep in mind you are a good employee and worth it.

I had this with my last job.

I had so much more responsibility and a harder role. For pretty much the same money I was on. My manager lied to me so was stuck in this role. To add insult to injury, even more I didn’t get paid this poultry sum until I did all the courses, but was good enough day to day.

I’ve left that job now. I’ve moved on, and have a better role now.

Thanks all for your advice - it's a hard to come by opportunity for my area of work (in terms of being supported for the qualification) and I love the company so would prefer to stay with them for the foreseeable future but maybe this is colouring my judgement. I may put the facts in front of them in terms of what I will be losing financially as I'm not even sure if they've thought it through.

They have likely thought it through, but it can't hurt to talk to them about it.

The banding is a necessary evil. There's a woman where I work who was gutted when she didn't get a pay increase this year. And her job performance had been fine. The problem was that she had been doing the same job for the last 15 years or so and her normal annual increases put her at the absolute top of her band.

If they just ignore the bands they eventually wind up with employees making hugely more than they could doing the same job someplace else, which isn't good for the organization. It means that there's less money available to hire additional staff or reward the ones they have or to do projects like software upgrades which help the whole organization work better.

Creative brainstorming to get you (the new position) put up to the next band is the simplest solution all around in my experience.

Good luck and do let us know how it all worked out.

I sat at the top of my band until my job title was changed to include the word manager, then I moved up to the next band.

However, I had been getting a retention bonus in the lower grade, so mine effectively went down too.