Pay Rises - How Do They Work Where You Are?

Elliott.T123

Having predominantly worked for small private sector firms (largest company I have ever worked for had 50 staff), my experience is very different from all the pay grades and spine points.

Simple version is you negotiate an offer when you join, the company usually has very rough outlines for each role but it is down to the individual to negotiate what they can get. 

For pay rises the industry is heavily commission driven so you rarely get a pay rise unless you get a promotion, this does mean there is a lot of jumping around every few years to join a competitor and get a pay rise that way.

anotheruser

Undervalued said:

anotheruser said:

I work in an industry that if everyone gets a pay rise, it's the role that gets it rather than the person.
That means if the role pays £20k and gets a £5k pay rise, everyone currently working in that role is now on £25k.  However, if someone new starts 4 weeks after the pay rise, they will also get the £25k salary.

However, I was chatting to someone the other day who said everyone at their place of work (in their role) gets £20k.  Then, when a pay rise happens, everyone gets an extra £5k.  However someone starting 4 weeks after the pay rise would start on the £20K salary.

I find that a little strange as surely how long you've worked for a company shouldn't dictate how much of a salary you get?
Isn't it based on the role being carried out rather than the person, as everyone who is in that role should be capable of carrying out the same tasks?

Why not?

It has been long established practice in huge organisations (e.g civil service) that jobs have a salary "band" (scale) and that you move up that band with years of service. There may be some room for negotiation about where you start in that band if you are appointed from outside. If you get promoted to the next grade, the lowest point on its salary band is often only a very small amount above the top band of the grade below. You then progress in increments up that band until after maybe seven years you are at the top.

Because you're doing the same job?
An airline pilot for example, is trained to fly a plane.  Whether that person has flown a plane for 20 years or 2, the role is still the same.
Because we could start saying that if you smoke, you should get slightly less because you may take more breaks.  Like tea / coffee?  Less money because you will spend more time at the coffee machine than someone who doesn't visit it at all.  Hell, why not just say if you're a woman you should get paid less too!  See where it goes?

I guess because I have never known it like that, then it's quite alien to me.

Equality after all.

Soot2006

We have bands with annual progression based on satisfactory performance review. All incoming employees will be based on the band most aligned with their current experience, but in practice it means that loyalty is rewarded and people doing the same job with similar experience may well be paid quite differently. Recruitment is time and personnel costly, so the progression system is an incentive to stay with the organization.

comeandgo

What industry are you working in?  When I first started working 40 odd years ago it was more normal for all in the same job to be paid the same but my last job, which was for 20 odd years, there was 21 of us all doing the same job but not two were paid the same.  The percentage of our increase depended on our work during the year.

 Your example of pilots getting the same salary, how would you reward the one who goes the extra mile against the one who does absolute minimum?  

Sandtree

I've worked in places with a massive range of approaches from the one extreme that everyone in rank & file roles got the same pay to the other extreme of every single salary being 100% individually negotiated.

In many companies they've had the concept of grades and job families (customer service, finance, projects, DevOps). Pay bands existed based on grade and family so someone who is a Manager 1 in Actuarial probably has a higher band than someone who is an M1 in Customer Service. 

In the most prescriptive of all the places I worked your annual performance was rated on a scale of 0-5, you then worked out your salary as a percentage of the maximum for your band and an annual table was published with salary % -v- performance grade and it would give you what increase you'd get... so at 110% of your pay grade and get a 3 or 4 performance review would be no increase whereas if you were 70% of your pay grade that same performance could get you a 5% increase. 

In principle it seemed fairly fair but could result in lots of arguments over if you were a grade 3 or 4 which could make a notable difference in your salary increase. In particular if its just been one of those years where there simply hasn't been the opportunity to go significantly over expectations due to work being cancelled etc. 

JJG

anotheruser said:

Undervalued said:

anotheruser said:

I work in an industry that if everyone gets a pay rise, it's the role that gets it rather than the person.
That means if the role pays £20k and gets a £5k pay rise, everyone currently working in that role is now on £25k.  However, if someone new starts 4 weeks after the pay rise, they will also get the £25k salary.

However, I was chatting to someone the other day who said everyone at their place of work (in their role) gets £20k.  Then, when a pay rise happens, everyone gets an extra £5k.  However someone starting 4 weeks after the pay rise would start on the £20K salary.

I find that a little strange as surely how long you've worked for a company shouldn't dictate how much of a salary you get?
Isn't it based on the role being carried out rather than the person, as everyone who is in that role should be capable of carrying out the same tasks?

Why not?

It has been long established practice in huge organisations (e.g civil service) that jobs have a salary "band" (scale) and that you move up that band with years of service. There may be some room for negotiation about where you start in that band if you are appointed from outside. If you get promoted to the next grade, the lowest point on its salary band is often only a very small amount above the top band of the grade below. You then progress in increments up that band until after maybe seven years you are at the top.

Because you're doing the same job?
An airline pilot for example, is trained to fly a plane.  Whether that person has flown a plane for 20 years or 2, the role is still the same.
Because we could start saying that if you smoke, you should get slightly less because you may take more breaks.  Like tea / coffee?  Less money because you will spend more time at the coffee machine than someone who doesn't visit it at all.  Hell, why not just say if you're a woman you should get paid less too!  See where it goes?

I guess because I have never known it like that, then it's quite alien to me.

Equality after all.

A pilot is a poor example to the point you’re trying to make. A pilot with 20 years experience gets paid way more than a pilot with only 2. 

lincroft1710

comeandgo said:

 Your example of pilots getting the same salary, how would you reward the one who goes the extra mile 

Wouldn't they overshoot the runway?

Ath_Wat

anotheruser said:

Undervalued said:

anotheruser said:

I work in an industry that if everyone gets a pay rise, it's the role that gets it rather than the person.
That means if the role pays £20k and gets a £5k pay rise, everyone currently working in that role is now on £25k.  However, if someone new starts 4 weeks after the pay rise, they will also get the £25k salary.

However, I was chatting to someone the other day who said everyone at their place of work (in their role) gets £20k.  Then, when a pay rise happens, everyone gets an extra £5k.  However someone starting 4 weeks after the pay rise would start on the £20K salary.

I find that a little strange as surely how long you've worked for a company shouldn't dictate how much of a salary you get?
Isn't it based on the role being carried out rather than the person, as everyone who is in that role should be capable of carrying out the same tasks?

Why not?

It has been long established practice in huge organisations (e.g civil service) that jobs have a salary "band" (scale) and that you move up that band with years of service. There may be some room for negotiation about where you start in that band if you are appointed from outside. If you get promoted to the next grade, the lowest point on its salary band is often only a very small amount above the top band of the grade below. You then progress in increments up that band until after maybe seven years you are at the top.

Because you're doing the same job?
An airline pilot for example, is trained to fly a plane.  Whether that person has flown a plane for 20 years or 2, the role is still the same.
Because we could start saying that if you smoke, you should get slightly less because you may take more breaks.  Like tea / coffee?  Less money because you will spend more time at the coffee machine than someone who doesn't visit it at all.  Hell, why not just say if you're a woman you should get paid less too!  See where it goes?

I guess because I have never known it like that, then it's quite alien to me.

Equality after all.

Equality don't enter into it.  Some jobs may just get done, or not get done, but in most they can be done well or done badly and still be done. 

In many businesses salaries are determined by how much individuals are willing to work for and worth.  There's no effort or inclination to ensure people doing the same role are paid the same, and nobody expects that to be the case.  If you are doing the same job as Fred but are better at it, they'll pay you more than they are willing to pay Fred, and they'll let Fred leave if he asks for the same because they can hire someone better if they are going to pay that.

Discrimination in pay based on ability to do the job is not illegal.

Brie

I've seen it done both ways.  Frankly I think fairest is to have a salary range and that you start near the bottom and work your way up.

The worst was when we were all on the same salary no matter how long we'd worked there.  The only way to get a raise was to be promoted.  They raised the base salary and hired new people who went on that wage and were being paid more than the experienced people that were training them.  There nearly was a riot.  The company changed the way it paid after that.  But strangely even 20+ years on if you look at their recruitment page there's absolutely no salary info - just pay bands with nothing to reference.

JReacher1

Just because you’re doing the same job doesn’t mean you’re doing it at the same level of ability. A more experienced person in the same role could well be doing the job at a higher quality level and require less support from the manager. Or they could do it quicker. 

In my opinion it would be fine to pay a more experienced person more money than a new hire even though they do the same role. 

However in my experience it will be the new hire who gets paid more as the job market has moved on. I find companies will pay the minimum they can get away with to keep someone happy so won’t retrospectively increase salaries of all staff if a new member earns more. This is why they say “competitive” on job adverts as they don’t want to rock the boat with current staff.