Ask HN: Why corporate culture never increment your salary?
I work for biggest and soughtafter corporate company in Canada. I have been at the company for 2 years. Since I joined, my manager and team feels productivity, code quality and delivery time of team has improved by 50%. I work extra hard and spend overtime to run this team. Over this time, demands of my manager has increased ten folds. I have received no complaints in my performance review meets. My performance review meets are only about what my manager wants next. No single mention of pay and salary improvement. My clients have put in recommendations to my manager highlighting my quality of work. Those recommendations never helped.
HERE IS THE PROBLEM.
For last 2 years, my compensation has remained the same. Not a 0.1% increase. Over last 2 years, this corporate has exceeded the expectation in quarterly results and gained billions in surplus.
I am deeply hurt and disappointed with way corporate works. I feel cheated.
75 comments
[ 3.8 ms ] story [ 106 ms ] threadIf you want things to change you have to act.
The author of this post says they're working super hard, productivity is up, the company is making money, and they're not complaining. All of the signals that the company is getting are very positive that this person is having fun, enjoying their work, and they're happy with their salary.
Who you are left with are either very naive new kids, high rotation desperate people or people adept at minimizing work done.
If your salary isn't changing for two years you simply need to show them offer from diff company with good bump in pay and see if they want to give a counter offer.
Finally, many companies like to have a certain amount of churn. Bringing in fresh people helps keep the skillsets up-to-date since new employees bring the stuff they learned from their previous employers. If you just have the same staff for decades, they get stagnant.
you may or may not get a raise if you ask for it, you will most assuredly get no raise if you never ask
squeaky door gets the grease..
You have to be prepared to quit. Here in the UK the most effective way to get a raise is to actually find a new employer and ask 15-25% more than at one's current place.
I feel this every day and I’ve been working for over a decade. Work has so little to do with getting things done and being rewarded.
Ask your manager who to talk to about getting a pay rise. Hopefully it won’t be your direct manager because they might get paid less than what you’re asking for. Come prepared with a list of responsibilities that are above your current pay grade. Don’t bring up fairness. Ask for a rise a few k above what you think you can actually get. Ask your coworkers their salary if you’re brave. Be aware that management will probably fob you off and tell you the pay rise is impossible and you don’t deserve it, you’ll come away feeling devalued and stupid, but they’ll probably grant it anyway. Don’t expect regular pay reviews to come to you (my managers have looked flabbergasted when I said it should be the main point of the appraisal/review process), make sure you’re bringing up pay regularly yourself.
e: also, once you get the raise, slack off a bit. It’s not like they can reduce your pay.
If the company isn't satisfied with my performance, they can give me a raise to work more again.
This is a big no! Please don't do that. You are not a charity and this is not your company.
If you want to continue to do that, at very least write down the extra hours you work so that you can calculate your real wage and maybe if you see how much less you actually earn when you do that, then it may compel you to stop.
When my friend accounted for all the "all-nighters" and evenings, she realised that she was actually paid slightly over the minimum wage. It's wrong.
It is hard, but it is like this. Unless you become irreplaceable you are not going to have an easy path to salary increases.
Companies only offer salary increase to people they absolutely want to keep, if you're just a cog in the machine they can afford you to quit and get another cog
- The best just leave, they don't negotiate. When negotiating, management will dangle a carrot 6-9 months away at the next "annual review" or whatever. And by then you'll be just disappointed.
- Those who ask for more, get more. Some cultures don't like talking about money. But make sure it is a point on YOUR agenda, so before the meeting ends,say something "Hey I had some points I wanted to talk about with you".- Only make an ultimatum if you're willing to follow-up on it. When asking for a raise, make a case as you did here: "demands increased ten folds", "clients are happy" etc.. but be prepared for a bullshit response or an insulting 1% raise. Have a fallback plan and start interviewing.
This would be wonderful in an ideal world, but it's not reality. You wouldn't need marketing if your customers just already knew how amazing your product was. You wouldn't need a CV if employers just understood your worth. It's unreasonable to expect people to care about you as deeply as you do. If they happen to care that's an amazing plus to be valued. It's not what you should expect.
I'd most certainly take it up at that conversation, and argue as you do here, that you've felt a significant increase in workload (and the responsibility that entails?) and suggest that you be compensated for this.
I empathize with you in feeling cheated. As so many other commenters suggest, changing jobs for more pay is the only practical and reliable option.
They exist to make money, not to enrich their workers. The optimisation strategy is to pay as little as possible for as much productivity and labour as possible, then charge as much as possible for it to customers as a package item. Everything trickles up to the top of the pyramid.
Sadly the only way to reliably increase your pay is to dust off your CV and change jobs.
You might get a counter-offer from your current employer if they feel you're particularly valuable -- but I'd never accept one. At best, you'll end up being higher paid than some or all of your colleagues, and if they find out or suspect that (they certainly will if you flip from "I'm leaving" to "I'm staying") then you should expect resentment from them.
It's really better to walk away and start with a clean slate in another place. I've never regretted moving jobs -- but I've definitely regretted staying at a bad one, or one which didn't value my input.
If what you said it's true, this is essentially just a matter of renegotiating your contract.
Yes it's disappointing, it should come from the company itself.
However at least you won't need to interview, just the negotiation phase.
The company is also kinda forced to give you at least a salary bump, or they know you will start searching.
Some companies give small yearly rises to keep up with inflation, but others will expect employees to speak themselves. It all depends on how much pressure the shareholders/board exert to keep fixed expenses from growing.
The ruthless capitalist suggests that you should interview at other places on a regular basis, to kind of get another "bid" on your skills. Over a decade ago I worked at an investment bank and this was pretty much the only way to get raises. Entire teams would leave one bank, do the same project at another, then come back a few years later. You'd probably get a pretty big raise with each hop, as well.
This is not for everyone, though. It's time consuming and probably annoying for the people interviewing you if you don't actually choose to jump. My suggestion is to speak with your manager; the value of the dollar has fallen by almost 20% over the last few years. Has the value of your work fallen by the same amount? If not, your compensation should be adjusted.
But you have not mentioned them either, I take.
I get that talking about money is uncomfortable in some cultures - makes people uncomfortable. Companies absolutely use this against their employees. They put people who are good at talking about money in charge of hiring people, and they train their managers in negotiation tactics.
Your options: wise up and start talking about money, and/or leave.
For the first one, you should aim to do it at least once per year - ideally one or 2 months before evaluations and raises are done in your company. Watch videos about negotiating, or get a coach if needed. If it costs you 500 bucks and you get a 10% salary increase it will probably be worth it.
For the second one, yeah, update your LinkedIn, ask for some days off and do some interviews. But you will face the same problem: you will have to talk about money on the initial interview, and you will be the one responsible for asking for raises in the new job as well. So you might as well start working on point number 1.