Why Your Salary Is Unfair

Dear Evil HR Lady,

I have been chronically underpaid by my company and obviously the way I am going about 

remedying this has not worked. I am hoping you can provide some pointers.

For salary increase guidelines my company has a policy where the industry range for each given position level plotted on a bell curve is used as the basis.

The company professes to pay between the 25th and the 75th percentile range on the bell curve.

I have consistently been outside this range, to the left (past the low range) of this bell curve.

I got a 2% increase last year, made no difference to my relative position on the bell curve, got no increase the year before.

My performance reviews say I do a good job and am performing at or higher than expected level for my position.

Having asked for feedback on why my salary doesn’t reflect this, I am told by the manager–she is new to this position–but feedback from other managers has something to do with it.  What exactly, I am not privy to, but I did have problems with my previous Team Lead, so did others. He got fired last year!

The department gets a lump sum and a roundtable manager discussion ensues on how that pot is divided.

I feel I am being treated very unfairly.

When you start out with a low salary it can be almost impossible to bring it up without changing companies.  Companies have all sorts of policies that prevent high salary increases.  With the bad economy, I can say that a 2% raise is probably a lot more than many of my readers received.  However, that’s little comfort when your salary is still in the toilet.

The pot of money increase is a very common method.  When budgets for the upcoming year are calculated, the powers that be (i.e. not your boss, unless you’re reporting into the CFO) say, “This year we have 3 percent for salary increases.” Your boss then gets a pot of money worth 3 percent of her entire staff’s salary.  She has to divide this up.

To make it more complicated, your performance rating is frequently taken into consideration as well.  But, just because your rating is good, it doesn’t mean that your coworker’s ratings aren’t better.  Then we have to talk about your relative importance to the company.  If you’re a high performing salesperson, your value will be much greater than if you’re an admin.  (Although, interestingly enough, recruiters tell me that finding good administrative staff is far more difficult than finding other types of employees.  Still, many people consider this type of job as one that is easily replaceable.)  So, let’s assume that your boss has 5 direct reports, including you, and the other 4 employees positions are considered more valuable than yours.

She can give you a big raise, and in turn, make the other 4 employees unhappy and more likely to leave.  Or she can give you a 2 percent raise and the others higher raises, thus ensuring their happiness.  And let’s face it, if you’re below the 25th percentile on a bell curve, you’re not the company’s priority.  (Sorry!)

Here’s another crazy thing.  If you quit, your boss can hire someone to replace you smack at the 50th percentile (midpoint of the salary range) with no questions asked. But, to give you a raise that brings you to that level would require sign offs from everyone up to and including the senior team (depending on how big your company is, this may be completely futile).  Does that make sense?  Current, valued employee can’t get a raise up to midpoint, but someone off the street can be hired in straight at that level!  Yeah!

And even to get you a raise that brings you into the range requires money from other departments to be allotted to you.  (Because there’s no way your boss can just give you a big raise and leave your coworkers with nothing.)  Your manager has said other managers are not pleased with your performance (for whatever reason), so she’s not going to waste her political capital on you.  Just not going to happen.

So, what to do, what to do?  First, here are some things to think about.

• Are you the only person doing your job?
  • If not, are you the same race/gender/ethnicity/age as your coworkers in the same (or similar position)?
  • Are the other people paid more than  you are, or are all of you below scale?
• Could you make more money elsewhere?
  • How do you know?  Have you applied for other jobs?
  • Is the salary range for your position even accurate?  Perhaps you are being paid correctly and the scale is just wrong.
• Are you willing to leave this company?
  • Are there reasons other than salary that you want to stay there?  Commute, work life balance, etc?
  • If you are willing to leave, how soon can you go?

If you can show that you’re being paid less than your coworkers and you happen to be a different category than they are, there’s a good chance HR will be all over getting you a raise.

Otherwise, make an appointment with your boss (don’t just pop in her office, you want time for this), to discuss your salary.  If you have a responsible HR person in your company, invite her as well.  If you have one that is not trustworthy, forget it.  Present her with the same chart you spoke about and say, plainly and clearly, “My salary is below the 25th percentile, which is outside of company policy.  What do I need to do to get this rectified?” Then shut up and listen.

She’ll say, “Well, you just got an increase blah, blah, blah.”

You respond, “I understand that.  However, my salary is still outside of company policy.  What do I need to do to get this problem cleared up?”

She’ll either tell you or she’ll be forced to tell you that it’s not possible.  If she tells you what to do, do it, and make sure you follow up regularly to see that she keeps her part.  Document everything.

If she says it’s just not possible, then you need to decide if you want this job or not.  You may decide that it’s better to leave.

If you push this issue and are too obnoxious you could find yourself pushed out the door.  Remember that you are easy to replace and easy to replace at a higher salary than what you’re earning.  It stinks, but it’s reality.

But, you certainly can push–just not obnoxiously. You also need to find out why other managers don’t like you.  This may mean talking to them directly.  It could be a holdover form your former rotten boss, but it could also be something that you are doing.

As I said at the beginning, it’s very difficult to get a large raise.  So, in the future, make so you negotiate your salaries when you are hired in the first place.  It saves a lot of headaches.

Regards,

 Suzanne Lucas

How To Redeem A Disastrous Job Interview

Job interviews are nerve-wracking, sudden-death tournaments where one wrong move can send you tearing off in the wrong direction. You know when it’s going wrong - but few people feel they can then redeem themselves. But once it’s gone wrong, it could be worth taking a big gamble.

That’s clearly what John Scott felt when he interviewed with me for an assistant producer’s job in television. At the time, such positions were few and far between and much coveted since they represented the only path to becoming a fully fledged producer. So any time we advertised for an AP, we knew we’d get a lot of excellent applicants of which, of course, John was just one. And a very nervous one.

Off to a Bad Start

When he came in, he was almost shaking with anxiety. We started talking; it didn’t go well. Then he did something amazing. He stopped talking, stood up and said, “This isn’t going at all well. Do you mind if I leave and come back in to start again?”

It was such a startling request - who could say no? So that’s what he did: left the room, paused, then knocked on the door and started the interview afresh. And he was fine. In the intervening thirty seconds, he’d clearly pulled himself together. He got the job. Why?

Insight

He could tell the interview was going badly and didn’t kid himself that he could somehow talk it into going well. This also showed his awareness that his time was limited and a quick fix was essential. For that insight alone, he won respect.

Courage

Daring to do something so unconventional proved that he could assess a reasonable risk and be prepared to take it. After all, what did he have to lose? Perpetuation of a mundane interview had no chance of success; starting again at least had some.

Resilience

To leave and start again would have gained my attention. But had he re-entered and come out with the same banalities the second time, that would have counted for nothing. That he could so comprehensively re-set himself was remarkable and impressive.

Cumulatively, John’s eccentric performance showed me that, if things started going wrong on a show, he’d know - and have what it took to put it right. Since things always go wrong in TV, I got to see, first hand, how he’d cope. And it proved an entirely reliable predictor of his subsequent career: when he made mistakes, no one had to tell him - and he was fast and adroit at fixing them. Who could ask for more?

Bounce

We all make mistakes in business; they’re how we learn. Being able to bounce back - quickly - is a formidable talent. It’s the ability to recover from them that separates aspirants from achievers.

Regards,

 Margaret Heffernan

Are “Years of Experience” Requirements Fair to Younger Workers?

Dear Evil HR Lady,

I’m about six years into my IT career and like any business person I am always keeping my eye on the market.

I’ve noticed a trend where employers post minimum experience requirements, which is not unusual. However the requirements are a bit overstated. For example, a former employer has posted a minimum requirement of eight years experience for the position I held and excelled at for several years (with only two years experience when I started). Truth be told, a second year undergrad could do that job without difficulty.

This is just one example and it is not uncommon in my observation.

The practice smacks of discrimination against the young and I can only imagine the frustration my newly graduated peers must be experiencing. Do you have any suggestions on how to get a resume in front of a hiring manager or will the “kids” just need to pray for a lucky break?

Years of experience are usually completely arbitrary.  Some people can do a job with one year of experience that would take other people 10 years to learn how to do.  Unfortunately, it’s difficult to tell from the outside what type of person you are.

I think we all agree that you can’t just jump into the role of CEO of a Fortune 100 Company straight out of college. Managing people, projects, learning how to navigate the political parts of companies, learning what problems are likely to appear, and what solutions are actually plausible are also things that you learn in the workforce.  Sorry to say, but universities generally stink at teaching skills that help you survive in the workplace.  So, even though you think that a “second year undergrad” could do the job, chances are that the actual technical part of the job could be done, but all the little “extras” that go along with corporate life would still have to be learned.

Hiring is a very expensive thing.  Terminating someone is also extremely expensive.  Therefore, managers do not want to take the risk that they’ll spend a fortune hiring and training someone only to find out that they are utterly incapable of doing the whole job (which includes all sorts of things that don’t generally end up on a job description), so that they then have to go through the expense of firing the person and then hire someone else.  And keep in mind that the word “expense” doesn’t necessarily mean an actual dollar amount given to a recruiter.  Time and energy and undone work (while the position is vacant) are all expenses of recruiting.

So, when a manager has gobs of time and cash and all that, she’s willing to take the risk of hiring someone without enough experience and train him herself.  When deadlines are tight, finances are tighter, and stress levels are high, she wants to hire someone that someone else has trained.  Therefore, the job posting goes up with “Five years of experience” or my very favorite “One year experience required.”  The one year experience just means flat out that a new grad could do the job just fine, it’s just that the manager doesn’t want to do the basic adjusting to the workforce training.  This is why when college students ask me what they should major in or whatever I always say, “I don’t care what you major in, but you better darn well get internships.”   Your internships (plural on purpose) can count as that “one year” of experience.  (And please don’t tell me that only the rich kids can afford internships.  If you’re not a rich kid you absolutely cannot afford to skip the internships.)

Now, as to your previous employer posting a job you did as now needing 8 years of experience, it’s quite possible that the job description has changed since you left.  It’s also quite likely that they thought you were an exception rather than the rule.  And another possibility is that after you left they hired someone with limited experience who was a total failure and they don’t want to go down that road again.

The reality is, it isn’t an attempt to discriminate against the young, which in most cases is perfectly legal, as you are only in a protected class after you turn 40.  It’s an attempt to decrease turnover and increase the amount of time needed to get someone up to speed.  It’s an employer’s market, so when the post a job as requiring 8 years of experience, they are pretty confident that they’ll find a variety of candidates that meet that requirement and are willing to do the job for that pay.  As the job market improves, that will change and companies will be forced to hire less experienced people.

So, what’s a young worker to do?  Same thing as an old worker: Network.  It’s more difficult on entry level jobs because you don’t have the years of experience and contacts that those of us who’ve been in the workforce for a while have.  This means they need to be extra careful to be on best behavior at all times–even non work situations.  Your parents’ friends are people you can network with, but they better think highly of you before you try it.  Your friends that got jobs can be a networking source.  Your contacts from your internships are also sources.

It’s hard to get a first job.  But the experience requirements aren’t a method to discriminate against the young.  It’s a method to discriminate against the inexperienced.

Regards,

 Suzanne Lucas