Former manager paid much more

[500fiatclub]

6 months ago I took on a managerial position.
I love my job and do it well, have a lot of job satisfaction and bring in good results consistently.
Today, I was going over old payroll whilst looking into a wage query.
This was on spreadsheets showing the entire teams salaries.
My predecessor was taking home over £1k more than me per month!
I take 2, she took 3!
I'm stunned how this can be correct, is it frowned upon to raise this issue?
I am her direct replacement, she did not have extra long service (maybe 4 years), was younger than me also.
Although I'm happy with my lot and in the job, I'd be lying if I said it hadn't hacked me off!

You can ask for a raise and put your case forward but it should be more focused on why you deserve it and why you're worth being paid that amount rather than what your predecessor was paid more.

You also need to know all the facts about her before asking (If you're going to mention her when you ask) , maybe she was on more due to her experience, or she had a certain qualification or she earned more previously and didn't want to drop and they agreed, theres so many reasons she could've been on more...

You can't however walk in and say "I deserve a 1k a month pay rise because X was on that."

^what she said.

She could be paid more for all kinds of legitimate reasons. Including that she asked for it and you didn't.

You need to go in with a realistic idea of the market rate for someone in your job with your skills. "I'm paid way under market, pay me what I'm worth or replace me" is a lot more credible and likely to move a company to action than "you used to pay someone else more".

Fair play, I think I was just shocked as we are doing the exact same job, came as a bit of a shock

Be really careful here, you looked at a confidential file in which all the team's salaries were listed and now you are acting on information you found in there to your own personal benefit.

I would steer well clear of linking what you know to the data you gained access to. Your employer may decide to take issue with you over that and it spirals into unintended consequences.

The fact is, you now know what you know, so if you do decide to try to influence a pay adjustment, then it shouldn't be because the previous incumbent was paid at the level they were, as that could be a historic situation, that you will have no visibility of.

One issue to consider is has the business been affected by Covid? A lot of companies have had to cut costs; people have lost their jobs. Salary reductions have been a fact of life over the last year. What is turnover like now compared to when the other manager was employed.
A request for more pay may be better timed when things get back to some kind of normality.

The only hope you could possibly have would be to benchmark to other similar roles in your sector. Focus less on the person and more on the role. I managed to get an old job post regraded by collecting adverts for similar jobs in my sector; but that is much more complicated in the private sector.

In salary terms, you’re on about £40k and she was on about £60k, right? Or thereabouts? Just trying to benchmark the take home against salaries in our family. It’s a fairly substantial difference.

Totally take all comments on board
I am on 29k
Previous manager on more like 48k!!
The file isn't confidential, I was able to access it in my position, and did so to resolve a totally unrelated issue
I'm happy with my job, and happy with my salary
I was just shocked to find such a difference
No advanced qualifications, nothing to say that this type of pay could be justified
My first thought was to wonder if she was pulling some sort of fiddle!!
It's a huge discrepancy, totally took me by surprise

@500fiatclub

Totally take all comments on board I am on 29k Previous manager on more like 48k!! The file isn't confidential, I was able to access it in my position, and did so to resolve a totally unrelated issue I'm happy with my job, and happy with my salary I was just shocked to find such a difference No advanced qualifications, nothing to say that this type of pay could be justified My first thought was to wonder if she was pulling some sort of fiddle!! It's a huge discrepancy, totally took me by surprise

Of course it is confidential information! A limited number of people will have access to confidential information, that doesn’t mean it Is not confidential.

The other point being made is that even if you have access to confidential information, you may only use it for legitimate business reasons and using it to raise a query over salary would not be one and would therefore be a breach.

Sorry, what I meant was that I have access to view these figures.
Thanks for answers, I will keep it to myself
I am happy with my pay, and my job, so don't want to rock the boat at all, I'll forget I saw it and get on with my own business
Thanks all

Are you sure that the figures you saw were the actual figures that she got paid rather than the overall cost of her post (i.e. including NI costs, pension contributions etc)?

Yes actual figures
Net pay
Pension deduction
NI and tax

Actually that’s a really good point - it could be the employers costs. Which would make sense at around £3k on a £2k