Advice Needed - New starter salary considerably more than other staff

john5001

This is up to the company albeit sounds unfair. Certainly if jobs are scarce you may just have to put up with this....18500 might have been offered for some special skill or experience...you don't know but are reacting as we all would human nature....but thats life!!

Fluffi

There isn't a lot you can do in this situation - a lot of companies will pay long term staff as little as they can get away with without the staff resigning and going elsewhere for a higher salary.

Bobl

It is pretty well known that to get a decent pay rise you need to move to a new job; even in these challenged times.

You need to gather evidence to prove that you are worth the extra, not compare yourself or others with the new person, all employees are different.

And I personally do not advocate joining a union, all that does is guarantee that everyone will earn a pittance. Look after yourself and be happy if you are paid what you are worth, not what other people earn.

BligBlag

The bottom line is, you weren't supposed to know this new starters salary, and the person who found the fax shouldn't have told anyone and should have taken it straight to HR... that's who it was intended for. It was bound to cause anger and uproar and it has between those who currently know... in hindsight would you have rather not known about this?

BUT you do know, so you could complain as a whole group to the Boss/HR. It may go down well, or like a led balloon. I personally wouldn't like to be told I'm not worth as much as someone else. Ignorance is bliss.

Maybe she has a specific Degree which will help the role? Maybe they're hoping to move her into a Senior role? Maybe she has a lot more experience than anyone else who works there? You don't know, and as others said, it's not anyone's business but the new starter and the Boss/HR.

In a job I had about 5 years ago I went to the fax machine just as I heard the Boss duck out of the room to go into the toilet. He'd just faxed something which was still going through the machine and when I picked it up to put it aside to use the fax machine myself, it was the salary details of ALL the staff in the department he was faxing to the accountants (after the April salary review).

Needless to say I was shocked at my findings. Some people getting way more/less doing the exact same job, regardless of time spent in the company. I quickly left the area and never told my colleagues my findings. Although did tell them (once I'd left) that I'd found out how much the Boss was earning... which was a ridiculously high amount for what he actually did (nothing).

Snakeeyes21

I think you should be ashamed of yourselves for getting a clique together against somebody who isn't even working there yet.

How would you feel if it was you starting a new job and people already had it in for you?

If they are on a higher salary, its for a reason, whether thats experience, contacts or they simply pushed for more at the interview, and to be honest its not really any of your business.

Id think yourself lucky that your getting what you get, and keep it to yourselves, in some companies its considered gross misconduct to even discuss salaries

Dustangle

Bring in a trade union. That means make contact with the relevant union - probably Unite - and meet an organiser who will explain the realities and what would be involved. It will be hard work but worth it. The only way to stand up against divide and rule from company owners is to unite and organise.

rachelj121

Snakeeyes21 wrote: »

I think you should be ashamed of yourselves for getting a clique together against somebody who isn't even working there yet.

How would you feel if it was you starting a new job and people already had it in for you?

If they are on a higher salary, its for a reason, whether thats experience, contacts or they simply pushed for more at the interview, and to be honest its not really any of your business.

Id think yourself lucky that your getting what you get, and keep it to yourselves, in some companies its considered gross misconduct to even discuss salaries

Hi,

Just to be clear...

At no point have I said we are 'against' this person and we would NEVER treat this person differently, we are not that sort of people.

We have not been discussing salaries, all we have said to each other is that that is much more than we are on - no figures have been disclosed.

We really are not being ungrateful - most of the team are being paid considerably lower for the exactly the same job but are stuggling families so for that reason why should we just carry on as normal, continuing to be told there is nothing in the pot...

I think this has got out of hand, maybe it was not explained well enough, I don't know. Maybe its the fact that you can't get a feeling for tone of voice, expression etc in written text. I was merely trying to establish if as a group this was something we were able to discuss with our HR Dept and if anyone had a similar experiance.

Thanks anyway.

mikey72

Every company I've worked for has done it. There was one where people actually left, didn't like the new job, then came back to their old job for several thousand more on a regular basis.

jessicamb

Is there a defined HR process that looks at salary benchmarking within the industry? At work we have a policy to pay something like market median rate withing three years of entering role. Its also quite clear that salary progression is based on strong performance. If there is anything like that in place you could ask your HR department to see where your role lives within that. Normally though I keep an eye on the job market and see what rates are advertised for similar jobs in similar locations to mine.

As most employers dont have to pay over the top salaries at present to attract staff then I think that they might be paying for some special skills that the new person has (or they think she has). Either way I dont think your boss is going to easily give £4k payrises to the other people in the team to benchmark salaries. If the job evaluation route above was not open to you then I think the only way I could see of raising the issue would be to individually ask my manager how to get from current salary to the higher salary within your job role. Perhaps they are bringing this person in to take on extra responsibilities that havent been announced yet (eg getting ready to take on a team leader role or similar). If they say that there is nothing you can do then you either have to put up with it or find a new job that pays more, if that is what you want.

It sucks though - generally if you want a higher salary you do have to change jobs to get it.

valos_mummy

jessicamb wrote: »

Perhaps they are bringing this person in to take on extra responsibilities that havent been announced yet (eg getting ready to take on a team leader role or similar).

That's what I was thinking. Maybe hold tight and see what the newbie does when she arrives, if there is anything different to what everyone else is doing? Or whether she is given additional tasks to do?