Colleagues found out my salary

[BluSea1]

NC as this is outing

I'm fairly new in my job. Fairly quickly I realised I must be getting paid more then some of my colleagues. My job is different to theirs, and most of them are early 20s with no previous work experience.

One of my colleagues is the daughter of a woman in the Admin department who handles payroll. Over the past week she (the daughter) has been less friendly towards me. I've since found out she has discovered my salary somehow from her mother, and has told my other colleagues. These colleagues are very unhappy I'm paid more than them and taking it out on me with general frostiness. One of going is out of their way to point out my mistakes, and telling the management team about petty errors at every chance they get.

What can I do about this? It's so awkward, I feel guilty for earning the salary I do, and wondering if I'm worth the expense

[KatherineJaneway]

Do you have a whistle blowing policy at work? If so report her. I worked in HR and access to any electronic file is logged so they could trace who looks at someone's file.

[Caucho]

How big is the firm and is there even a dedicated HR role. Whilst I agree that it’s very poor for someone to have ‘leaked’ such info I’m not sure whether going all guns blazing is the best course of action as a newbie.

You do have the ability to embarrass someone if you know for sure that they’ve found out something they shouldn’t but how you’d then get on going forwards fuck knows. Some people actually advocate fully transparency on earnings. I don’t as it causes these issues but some people are sympathetic when they find out there’s a huge discrepancy between people doing similar roles

[Darkbloom]

Her mum shouldn't be discussing your pay. Totally out of order. Report it to HR I would

[FairyJuice]

Op how do you know that she knows your salary? And are you certain it came from her mum? If so it is a HUGE breach of confidentiality.

I would be going to management and hr (if there is one). Your 'colleagues' sound like a bunch of immature twats

[TeachesOfPeaches]

You do a different job and have more experience - why wouldn't you get paid more than them? Not sure why they would be angry about this. Do they know that their boss earn more than them?

[Xenia]

WQe do not know for sure the mother leaked. it. The daughter might have sneaked in the office to check. So don't blame the mother without evidence of it.

It is a common sigtuation (not the leak but the pay differences) and new joiners are ooften paid more anyway. In fact women often don't move jobs enough - moving jobs is often the way to higher and higher pay. Women can be too cautious. Good for you to earn a lot. Don't feel you don't deserve it! you deserve every penny.

However if these people are trying to damage your reputation and you think there was a pay leak perhaps just put in a discreet word to your line manager in passing about the possibility your pay might have been leaked or you could start a conversationw ith colleagues I suppose about why some people are paid more than others. Eg in my field law if you are the lawyer in a company you are often on more than someone else your age but that's beacuse it's very hard to pass the exams to be a lawyer and qualify and you spend at least 6, often 7 years training (including) before you are qualified which school leavers don't have and the same applies to many other specialised roles.

[HollowTalk]

Do you know if they know your exact salary, or just that you earn more than they do?

[strawberry2017]

Pretty sure that would be classed as gross misconduct. They had breached the data protection act by sharing your information without your consent.
You need to report this. An investigation needs to happen and there needs to be consequences.
Someone who does this cannot be trusted with such important information
Good luck op x

[VenusTiger]

@BluSea1 this happened to me once, and I was new, and I was on a few grand more than equivalents because of my experience - what I did, was tell the colleagues, why on earth would I turn down my salary because others were being paid less? why was I being blamed for that when it was not my decision to be paid more. I told them they were barking up the wrong tree and how was I to know they were all being paid less than me! I said if they had a problem, to take it up with the manager, who decides salaries, and not me.
If they were offered a pay rise, would they turn it down because of what their colleagues earn, no of course they wouldn’t.
Stick up for yourself.

[boomboom1234]

How do you know this ha happened? Did someone tell you? You 100% need to go to your boss and tell them about it and seek out advice from HR.

[newmomof1]

They'll be pissed that OP is earning more because they've done that specific job longer than she has. Obviously we all know that's irrelevant, but just thought I'd clarify for those questioning it.

OP definitely highlight it to your manager. That's grossly inappropriate!

[bluebury]

Are you 100% sure her mum told her your salary?

If so that's a huge breach of privacy and I'd be raising it was management. Also mentioning that you feel people are being petty because of it. It'd try not to get to engaged in the issues/discussion with your colleagues and just leave it with management to deal with.

[theunrivalledjoysofparenting]

Go to HR and tell them their staff have been leaking salaries. How unprofessional.

If you are older and have more experience than them, why would they expect to earn as much as you? Are they 12?

[HollowTalk]

Are they new graduates, if they have no experience?

[RandomMess]

Is there a HR dept? I would have a quiet word with your manager that somehow they know what you earn and you're not happy about it...

[DancingintheSpoonlight]

Her mum is a bit bloody cheeky!

Sorry not helpful but very unprofessional!

[HollowTalk]

Straight to HR. That's terrible, both the sneaking/telling and the frostiness.