Payment vs Colleague

TBagpuss

numb1 said:

What dis every1 do @work when you have a collage getting paid the sam as u for doing the same job but you are more experienced n older. Appreci8 that some jobs diz wont matter but for office type jobs it does. the difference is about 7 years in age and 10 years in experience. the difference in salary is £1,000 a year. Do you think itz best to mention diz to my emploerz?

IF you feel that you are not being paid the appropriate market rate for the work you are doing, then you can of course ask your employer for a raise. 
However, the fact that you've been doing the job longer isn't automatically a reason why you ought to expect more, while of course there are different levels of experience, usually the benefit of having more experience levels off (e.g. someone with 5 years experience may be better at the job than someone with 6 months experience , but someone with 10 years experience and someone with 2 years experience may actually be at a broadly similar level in terms of  their level of knowledge and ability to do the job. (and sometimes a newer person may have been more flexible about learning new and up to date processes and actually be working more effectively than someone who is more set in their ways!)

If you think your are being underpaid, research market raes for the type of work you are doing, think about thigs you persona l do which you do as well as or better than the people who haven't ben there as long, and then ask for a meeting your manager and ask for a pay rise, setting out why you feel that the job you are doing is worth the higher amount.

The fact that they may be paying a more recent hire £1,000 more is neither here nor there - unless the reason for the difference is a protected characteristic then there is nothing wrong or unlawful in paying different people doing broadly the same job, different amounts, no in someone getting paid more than another employee who has seniority or more skills or experience. 

It may be that your wages haven't kept up with market rates and that your employer will adjust them when you ask.

It's also possible that, while you may have been there longer, you are seen as doing as valuable a job, for instance of the other person is more efficient, easier to get along with, more willing / flexible, and as such they are seen as being a more valuable employee. 

DullGreyGuy

MalMonroe said:

Spam or no spam, how is it that people know what salary their colleagues are receiving?

I never knew what my colleagues were getting and never told them my salary when I was employed. It was just never done.

If I wasn't happy, I left. 

To be honest, its one of the greatest tricks that companies have ever pulled to make people think its inappropriate to discuss your salary thus those that are getting screwed over dont know any better. Life it more complex now with millions of jobsites and salaries listed in lots of places but previously you'd only really find out what a "trainee actuarial analyst" got if you made efforts to go out looking for other jobs whereas if you'd been promoted up from the call centre you may have no clue you are being well underpaid.

There have been various point in time when I've become aware of what others are earning such as:

1) In a senior member of the team said "we should hire some muppet with a bit of experience willing to work for £18/hr to clear the backlog", I was one of the two non-senior members of the team and passed comment to the other that I should apply given I was working on more complex items and didnt earn £18/hr and she said what her income was (also under £18)

2) I've helped hiring peers so in interviews have discussed their salary expectations/ what range we were offering to pay 

3) Running a project I need to account for peoples time so needed to know incomes where companies wanted real numbers rather than blended rates

4) Similar to 3 but I've asked HR for salaries for cost benefit analysis and HR have sent me more data or more granular data than I required (did have the complete salaries for everyone in the company for a multi-national insurer once due to a HR blunder)

5) Company decides to redesign the grading system and remap everyone which triggers conversations of where people are relative to the bands particularly those who are overband (therefore effectively blocked from future payrises) or massively underband (so realise they are underpaid)

6) Someone has come to me and complained how little their money was due to one of the above revealing their relative position (and in each case I was earning less than them)