My employer is advertising my role for 25% higher salary

[Febmom24]

Hi I’m due to go on MAT leave soon and my employer is offering my role as a FTC for 25% higher than I am currently paid, I was told it would be slightly higher because of the difficulties of hiring a shorter term contract (it’s a 12 month role) however part of my responsibilities have been given out within my department to people who are already experienced so the role is in fact smaller,

should I be as annoyed as I am?

It is standard practice to try and make sure the person covering stays for the whole of the mat leave, especially as the notice period is usually very short and the person covering has no job stability in a temporary role. It's a business decision, nothing more.

They're right. FTC are very hard to recruit for regardless of how much responsibility there is.

Is your salary in line with the going rate for your role as a permanent contract? Have you asked for payrises?

When I did FTC to cover mat leave I was often paid 2-3 x the person whose job I was doing - as it’s a short term contract. If you decided not to return and they are offered the role permanently the salary would reduce down to the usual threshold for your role

I work in an industry where we use a lot of contractors for short term projects (usually 6m- 1yr) and our contractors are paid significantly more than full time employees (often around double if you looked on a daily rate basis). As PP said it’s to compensate for the lack of job security and dictated by the market to get people to actually do these short time roles. 25% more isn’t a lot more so I wouldn’t get stressed about it. If you resigned and they advertise for your role at 25% more for the full time role then I’d be annoyed I was being underpaid!

Contractor rates > employee salary

I have a paye role p/t and sometimes do contract work for the same organisation. I am paid nearly 400% more for the contract work which is almost the same as my other job! Short term contracts are usually paid much higher as hard to recruit and less.benefits (in this case job security).

Completely standard, in fact I would have expected more than 25%.

I did contract and consulting work.
It's always paid at a premium. It's compensation for the short term nature of the work and the very real risk you could have a month or two between engagements without pay.

One of the contracts I was offered was a mat leave cover and there was a lump sum bonus for staying until the end.

I just finished what would have been a 7 week FTC with the potential to go perm.

I didn’t get any of the staff benefits like birthday day off, no car parking, no paid sickness cover if needed etc.

Written into the job description was to do any other duties asked of me.

The wage was just above minimum for a 30 hr week. It needed to be to get someone to work into a job that could have been manning the phones and doing something else a little more physical and I have to agree in ernest the attractive pay slightly above the minimum payable based on the usual 40 hours, that is what kind of what made the job a luxury.

It's absolutely standard and a reasonable why some people seek out FTC. Otherwise there would be no benefit.

Of course it should be higher to cover all the benefits you would normally get. If you announce you are coming back early they will get the boot.