Guidance on transferring to another division with large pay gap.

Calydyce36

I realise this post may not elicit much sympathy considering the stories of grinding hardship on these forums, but then nor am I looking for it. If this triggers you for some reason, then keep in mind that one day this may be you asking, but here we go anyway!

In the new year I'm being transferred to another division after being given absolutely zero choice in the matter. With a high degree of certainty, I believe I will be the highest paid person in the whole team (inc. managers) by some margin. This coupled with the fact that the new management privately don't appear to want the reorganisation either.

I consider myself to be very experienced in my field, having twice dug the old department out of self-inflicted messes during my 11 years with them. I'm also the only one left from my original department, itself the result of a botched and misunderstood acquisition. My pay and benefits are admittedly well above average vs even our competition, so I'm minded to dig in and fight tooth and claw if it comes to that.

So anyway, what statutory protections exist for this and how can I leverage them in the event I need to swiftly silence a disgruntled manager?

Brie

My first thought is "few".  They can't fire you without good reason but they can give you a new contract.  If you don't like what the contract says and refuse to sign it then that in itself may be reason for dismissal.  You could then (as I understand it) sue them for unlawful dismissal but I've not idea how successful that might be.

All that said I suspect what will happen, assuming they understand your value to them, is to whittle away at your advantage slowly.  So they will announce a policy of "pay for each role must be within this band of £X to £Y and those above that range won't be getting payrises or very limited ones."   Likewise if you have other benefits such as more holidays, pension etc.  It's very common for companies to stop contributions to a particular pension scheme all together and offer employees something much cheaper for them.  (my last employer closed the scheme I was in where they contributed 17% and offered a new one at 10%)

Do be sure to have a copy (paper or pdf) of all your T&Cs kept safe so you have something to refer back to when they tell you that no you don't have 40 days holiday but only the statutory allotment or whatever.

DullGreyGuy

Calydyce36 said:

I realise this post may not elicit much sympathy considering the stories of grinding hardship on these forums, but then nor am I looking for it. If this triggers you for some reason, then keep in mind that one day this may be you asking, but here we go anyway!

In the new year I'm being transferred to another division after being given absolutely zero choice in the matter. With a high degree of certainty, I believe I will be the highest paid person in the whole team (inc. managers) by some margin. This coupled with the fact that the new management privately don't appear to want the reorganisation either.

I consider myself to be very experienced in my field, having twice dug the old department out of self-inflicted messes during my 11 years with them. I'm also the only one left from my original department, itself the result of a botched and misunderstood acquisition. My pay and benefits are admittedly well above average vs even our competition, so I'm minded to dig in and fight tooth and claw if it comes to that.

So anyway, what statutory protections exist for this and how can I leverage them in the event I need to swiftly silence a disgruntled manager?

Firstly, is your legal employer changing with the change of division? No idea the size of your employer nor if they use service companies to act as the employer

Secondly, is your role actually changing or just doing the same job for a different bit of the business?

Your main protection is you've been an employee over 2 years with them so they cannot simply get rid of you because they think you're over paid. Either you have to be involved in gross misconduct to get fired or they have to go through a redundancy process. Obviously outside of those two any two parties can mutually agree to something such as a golden handshake to move on without the troubles. 

They can't get rid of you but they can, as explained above, ultimate freeze you to enable others to catch up. My last employer had rigid paybands and gradings so before the annual review process everyone got a chart showing % of median salary and grades 1-5 with a percentage against each. For those over the pay banding max by a little bit you could still get a token below inflation pay increase by getting a grade 5 (exceeding expectations in every area) but those materially over wouldn't get a pay increase no matter the grade. On the converse a grade 2 (not achieving the expected level in some areas) would get someone below the minimum pay a reasonable uplift. 

There is no need to "silence" the manager but it may be sensible to have an early conversation with them about your transition into the team. I've managed people that earn more than me, in one case £150,000 more than me, it wasn't a problem as we had different skill sets and qualifications; I couldn't do their job and they couldnt/didnt want to do mine. 

Marcon

Calydyce36 said:

My pay and benefits are admittedly well above average vs even our competition, so I'm minded to dig in and fight tooth and claw if it comes to that.

So anyway, what statutory protections exist for this and how can I leverage them in the event I need to swiftly silence a disgruntled manager?

As for 'silencing a disgruntled manager', if they're junior to you it's none of their business and that's all you need to say. If they're senior to you, that attitude might generate more problems than it solves, and the optimistic idea that you can 'swiftly silence' them is unlikely to match reality, not least because any statutory protections are few and far between.

Best way by far is to ensure you do such an outstanding job that the question never gets asks.

Calydyce36

DullGreyGuy said:

Firstly, is your legal employer changing with the change of division? No idea the size of your employer nor if they use service companies to act as the employer

Secondly, is your role actually changing or just doing the same job for a different bit of the business?

It's entirely an internal reorg, so no change to employer/entity. The title is changing to be aligned with the rest of the org, otherwise the job will be 100% the same.

It's to a department with several management personalities that are recognised as the 'old guard' of the company, but more in the manner of those with little appetite for any of the last decade of the companies acquisitions. Furthermore the former exec board members who drove said acquisitions are long gone now with the rest of the org not having a clue what to do with us.

TELLIT01

As long as your pay isn't being reduced I don't think there is much you can do, other than start looking for another job.  If your current salary is above the band for the new role you will almost certainly have to 'mark time' and have no pay rises until the band increases to above your current salary.

I had something similar happen to me, although it didn't bother me unduly as the new role was overtime paid and my previous one wasn't.  The overtime payments more than made up for lack of annual increases.

Calydyce36

Marcon said:

Best way by far is to ensure you do such an outstanding job that the question never gets asks.

Haha fair!

Calydyce36

TELLIT01 said:

As long as your pay isn't being reduced I don't think there is much you can do, other than start looking for another job.  If your current salary is above the band for the new role you will almost certainly have to 'mark time' and have no pay rises until the band increases to above your current salary.

I had something similar happen to me, although it didn't bother me unduly as the new role was overtime paid and my previous one wasn't.  The overtime payments more than made up for lack of annual increases.

This is an unknown currently, my expectation is less of pretty much everything but I should find out in January.

There is a chance the bonus structure may be meatier, which would make up for a year or two of potential stasis, at least until the company decides to either efficiently utilise us (beyond my own efforts to mitigate and educate), or else divest/spin out to someone who does.

Grumpy_chap

The most common thing (in my experience) in this type of situation is that those that have been re-mapped and above the new pay-band are on frozen pay until the pay-band catches up.  If that is going to mean an extended period of frozen pay, those affected typically chose to move along of their own accord.

EnPointe

Grumpy_chap said:

The most common thing (in my experience) in this type of situation is that those that have been re-mapped and above the new pay-band are on frozen pay until the pay-band catches up.  If that is going to mean an extended period of frozen pay, those affected typically chose to move along of their own accord.

Yup or if there is a grading or  pay band  system / pay spine in place  they  get a certain period  of  preferential access to  roles at  their old grade / spine point