Upset about salary / should I say something

[Bambootrees]

I recently started a job; and because of my role I see everyone’s salaries. Unfortunately my salary is on the lower end considering my experience and role. It is also part time but I think more could be done if I do full time.

Should I mention something?

I am trying no to compare, be grateful for what I have but it keeps bothering.

Very good relationship with LM but he is leaving in a couple of months

if that person has only joined 4 months ago, they negotiated that salary on arrival. It happens a lot with external candidates coming in to jobs. The existing team members remain on the salary they’re on. It’s not malicious, it’s just how the market moves. Their negotiations will likely be based on their prior salary in another company - nobody wants to move for less money. In my company every few years they will do random increases to bring people in to a more level salary but experience and education will impact how much someone is offered in the first instance. You’re not part of the interviewing process, so you can’t possibly judge the ins and outs of someone’s experience and competency they presented at the time of hiring.

My role is being adjusted and this is how I will bring this up re increasing hours and reassessing my salary. If no changes I will look for another job as is not great to work unmotivated.

Does your employer have a salary policy? For example, a previous employer aimed to pay local average + 10% for clerical roles and national average + 10% for professional roles. Current one is between 70% and 130% of national average (which gives them a lot of leeway.)

Do you know what the going rate for your role is on average? What factors affect it? For example, my role usually offers between about £30k and £75K, depending on the company, location, etc. To get the top rates, I'd have to travel into London (and plenty of people do commute from here,) but I don't want to do that. I am paid acceptably for what I do, and despite the moaning from my colleagues, it's several thousand more than a lot of other jobs doing the same thing in the area - and I do know, as I was applying for lots of them 18 months ago, after redundancy.

Armed with those two pieces of knowledge will let you know where you should be in the market, and where your employer is willing to pay on that scale.

Are you direct comparators the same sex as you? There may or may not be an element of sex discrimination at play. Are there any other distinguishing factors, like different qualifications, more experience, etc?

You can't use confidential data accessed for your role to argue you should be paid more. You can use things like you've taken on more responsibilities or market averages. It's difficult to argue you have more experience when you're only new to a role, and you may need to wait. I've worked for employers that won't give payrises in the first year of employment, and it's very usual for them only to do pay rises at a set point in the year, so you need to be in line with that, remembering that negotiations and discussions around it will start months ahead.

Just checking, as you say you moved from a corporate role, have you moved somewhere with salary increments/grading system? You don't say how much the gap is, but yearly grade increments might account for this plus annual increases?

No grading system. Salary increments each year; but it won’t ve until end if next year

I’m sorry, what would oblige them to do that? That’s not true at all.

You might be thinking of equal pay claims - historically a lot of jobs done mostly by women were graded as being easier than the jobs that were mostly done by men (office cleaners vs street sweepers for example), so groups of women were able to launch claims for sex discrimination which led to all of those jobs being regraded.

If the OP has reason to believe she is being discriminated against on the grounds of a protected characteristic (race, sex, belief, disability) then she might have a claim but it’s likely that raising that possibility when she’s only briefly worked there would just lead to them sacking her anyway.

People absolutely can and do negotiate their salaries both when they join new roles and at reviews, so of course some people will be paid more for the same role.

In my last role I was paid £20k a year more than the person I was doing a job share with (we did exactly the same work and hours) - it was literally just because I said that was my minimum to take the role, whereas she accepted their first offer.