Pay Query.

NickyLou84

27 year old female with 9 years experience of working within an office environment.
I attended an interview for an office job back in May and I was hired. The salary was set at £14,000-£16,000. I asked for £16,000 and they offered me £15,800 which I accepted.

A month ago I asked if it was possible to have a small payrise as I was being given more responsibility and I felt I was carrying out the role of a Senior Administrator or even Office Manager rather than just Operations Executive. (Administrator). This payrise was declined. It wasn't massive. I wanted a payrise of £2,200. After looking at other jobs online more like mine I thought 18k was acceptable.

not even 2 months ago we had a new member of staff join the company. She was hired as an Ops Exec also, but for a smaller part of the business. (the company is split into 4 sections, I am the Ops Exec for the other 3 sections).

She is 5 years younger and has spent the last 3 years working in a small coffee shop as a Manager, so no real office experience and she has admitted to me that her days are never busy and she gets "bored". Shes used to being on her feet 8 hours a day. She is still being trained up on certain aspects of her job role.
I rarely have my full lunch hour and come in early and leave late on some occasions just to get all my work done. Our hours are both the same. 8am-5pm Monday to Friday.

I have since found out she is paid more. Possibly in excess of 4k a year.
This came about as she knows the Marketing Manager of our company on a personal level, which makes me think she had more of an imput.This girl told me the Marketing Manager had told her to go for the Telesales Role we had (16-20k) and she would get 20k. I said this didnt sound right as she had no experience and even the person who had got the role who was experienced had started on the lower salary. This set alarm bells ringing that if she had been "offered" 20k for a telesales job and turned it down (I would love to get paid 20k for just making 300 calls a day!) what has she been offered as Ops Exec?

I have read other threads regarding similar things but they always seem to be that the more experienced worker is on more...My issue is the opposite.

Is it right that someone with more experience and a bigger work load is paid less than someone with less experience and much smaller work load?

I did bring it up with HR that I believed they were on more and I was told they could not discuss the other persons rate of pay which I fully understand but was also told her pay refletc her workload...

It clearly doesnt if shes sat their twiddling her thumbs on possibley 20k and Im working through my lunch on less than 16k :S and its not a case of me being slow at my job either.

I don't quite know who to ask if HR have dismissed what I have said.

Jarndyce

You've only been there six months - I would keep your head down. You can be sacked at any time in the next 18 months for any reason and have no protection. In six months I would have thought it unlikely you are yet up to full effectiveness, nor have a true feel for what you are worth compared to others. An employer can pay people whatever they wish providing they do not discriminate unlawfully.

SarEl

Provided that no discrimination on the grounds of a protected characteristic (race, gender etc) is involved, and employer can pay what they want. You agree your pay, she agreed hers. You have asked for a payrise and been refused. And I am afraid that is an end to the matter.

19lottie82

I spent a while working in admin and £15,800 seems pretty low, if you have 9 years experience? Could you not get more elsewhere?

ultrarunner

Surely the fact that the other person has management experience would command a premium?

SHIPSHAPE

NickyLou84 wrote: »

I rarely have my full lunch hour and come in early and leave late on some occasions just to get all my work done. Our hours are both the same. 8am-5pm Monday to Friday.

Why do you regularly offer your labour as if you are a charity?

Why not raise a grievance based on your situation where the workload is too much for what you are paid?

You can also detail your concerns about your higher paid colleague, officially, and then you will know where you stand regarding their reasoning for paying you less but overloading you.

heretolearn_2

OP, you don't even know for sure that she is earning more than you.

1) you don't know what she said about being paid the top of the range for the telesales job is true
2) she didn't take/didn't get that job so it's got nothing to do with her salary for this job
3) you are only assuming she is at the top of the range for the job she does. There's no actual evidence of this from anywhere.

It's possible she is. It's possible she isn't. You will never know. So don't drive yourself nuts over it.

DVardysShadow

SarEl wrote: »

And I am afraid that is an end to the matter.

And endorsed by Forum Team 3.

Because no one can countenance mentioning what the OP is up against. And they all get upset because they read what they want to read rather than what I wrote.

Fluffi

NickyLou84 wrote: »

She is 5 years younger and has spent the last 3 years working in a small coffee shop as a Manager, so no real office experience and she has admitted to me that her days are never busy and she gets "bored". Shes used to being on her feet 8 hours a day. She is still being trained up on certain aspects of her job role.
I rarely have my full lunch hour and come in early and leave late on some occasions just to get all my work done. Our hours are both the same. 8am-5pm Monday to Friday.
I have since found out she is paid more. Possibly in excess of 4k a year.

If she had previous management experience its quite possible she is "bored" even if she's working non-stop all day because compared to her previous responsibilities this may not be as mentally challenging or as high-pressured for her as running a coffee shop.

NickyLou84 wrote: »

This came about as she knows the Marketing Manager of our company on a personal level, which makes me think she had more of an imput.This girl told me the Marketing Manager had told her to go for the Telesales Role we had (16-20k) and she would get 20k. I said this didnt sound right as she had no experience and even the person who had got the role who was experienced had started on the lower salary. This set alarm bells ringing that if she had been "offered" 20k for a telesales job and turned it down (I would love to get paid 20k for just making 300 calls a day!) what has she been offered as Ops Exec?

I have read other threads regarding similar things but they always seem to be that the more experienced worker is on more...My issue is the opposite.

Is it right that someone with more experience and a bigger work load is paid less than someone with less experience and much smaller work load?

I did bring it up with HR that I believed they were on more and I was told they could not discuss the other persons rate of pay which I fully understand but was also told her pay refletc her workload...

It clearly doesnt if shes sat their twiddling her thumbs on possibley 20k and Im working through my lunch on less than 16k :S and its not a case of me being slow at my job either.

And just because she implies shes not busy doesn't mean shes twidding her thumbs either - you might have different definitions of busy. For example I have a friend who has moved from stressful management role to a non-management role in a new company and her idea of "busy" is having a completely unachievable workload (even many extra hours of evening and weekend working) whereas her new colleagues complain about being "busy" if they have to work half an hour extra in the evening.

Your younger colleague may still have a bigger workload than you but just be faster at getting through it. Just because you aren't slow doesn't prevent her being more productive than you even if she's not worked in an office before.

NickyLou84 wrote: »

I don't quite know who to ask if HR have dismissed what I have said.

No one - its none of your business. There is nothing wrong here - its certainly not discriminatory or illegal. Its unlikely a business would pay someone significantly more than they were worth just because they knew "someone".

If you aren't happy with your pay then its down to you to prove you are worth more money by securing a formal job offer that pays more and using this to your advantage negotiate with your current bosses or resign go to the higher-paying company.

You won't get more money by complaining that another employee gets more money (unless it was sex/race or other legally recognised forms of discrimination). Business [STRIKE]never[/STRIKE] rarely seems fair.

SarEl

DVardysShadow wrote: »

And endorsed by Forum Team 3.

Because no one can countenance mentioning what the OP is up against. And they all get upset because they read what they want to read rather than what I wrote.

Pardon? I have no idea what you are talking about.

SandC

I agree with the others, you can't bring up another person's earnings to negotiate yours. Well, you can, but it won't go down well. Especially if it's just guess work, you don't know what this person is earning.

I do understand where you are coming from as I've been in the situation where I've found out what others are earning and found myself in a similar place to you. What I had to do was find a way of promoting myself, my work, my job to the pay rise I thought I should get to bring me up to the level that the work reflects. I had to remind myself that it was up to me to negotiate my pay when I got the job and to keep on doing so if I thought the role had changed. I did successfuly negotiate something but I had been in the job 4 years before I got to that point. I think you are being a bit too hasty myself and should leave it a while, prove yourself more.

Believe me, a Marketing Manager won't have had the clout for the MD or whoever they report to, to award a salary of more than she could conceivably be worth, but they could recommend them on a professional and personal basis. Remember, unless you run the business, nobody in their right minds would recommend a friend for a position if they didn't trust them implicitly to be able to do it and do it well.

I agree with what's been said above. Don't dismiss the fact that she could be very efficient at what she does.

Concentrate on you and your job role and forget what anyone else does.