Money Moral Dilemma: My colleague is paid more to do the same job - what should I do?

This is definitely not a moral dilemma but yes, I would ask for a raise.

What I would NOT do is to mention, under any circumstances, that you know or think that your colleague is paid more.
For starters, are you 100 % sure? As in, have seen a number of pay slips or salary bank deposits to confirm it? I very much doubt you have.
Or is it just something which you either been told directly, or even just overheard?
Revealing pay to a colleague is often against an employee code of conduct so "grassing up" somebody for doing so is, I think, highly unlikely to work in anybody's favour.

Putting all else aside, if you've shown loyalty and hard work over a consistent period and especially if you know that you have made yourself indispensable to them (something I aim to do early on in any job), then there should be no harm in your asking for a raise.
I recently did this for the first time after more than 20 years of working, across only 2 jobs, and I got what I wanted. I was inspired to do it after so long by (amongst other things) a few podcasts which I listen to.
You should be prepared for both answers, "yes" or "no". Be very sure of what you will do in either case, even if it's nothing. Personally I am naturally pessimistic so planned for the worst, even though I put forward a very strong case for myself.

People - everybody - should ask for a raise or ask that girl out or whatever else it may be that they want, more often in life.
There's a reason why Donald Trump has had the success in business & got where he is, and I don't believe it has much at all to do with intelligence & it sure as hell isn't his looks :-)

If there's no obvious reason why they're paid more, the inequality should be addressed. How is another matter..


Alas in this country we have employment laws but no professional body to actually enforce them, so it's always up to the employee themselves to take the employer to court or whatever, and not everyone has the means to do that, or even wants to go down that route.

Rubik wrote: »

I would suggest you take the approach of why you deserve to be paid the same, and focus on your contributions, skills and work ethic etc, rather than any perceived unfairness in the pay deficit.

I totally agree with Rubik.


YES, SPEAK UP!


But ask for your pay to be re-assessed based on YOUR value and only refer to the comparison deficit if all your positives are agreed but no pay adjustment is forthcoming.

There can be a whole host of reasons why someone gets paid more! For example:

Your jobs are probably not absolutely identical, they could have extra responsibilities that you're not aware of.

They could be more willing to stay later and work extra hours, or be on call when needed.

They might have been at the job longer or are more experienced.

They might be more productive (ie they work faster and more efficiently than you)

They're more crucial to the company (ie they'd be harder to replace than you)

They've simply negotiated a higher wage


I'm paid significantly more (>£15k) than my nearest colleague with the same job description. On the face of it it seems like we do similar jobs, however behind the scenes I'm responsible for all our network, technical infrastructure and backups, regularly work weekends when out-of-hours upgrades/modifications have to be done, almost never leave before 6pm (all my colleagues leave at 5 on the dot), have by far the best technical knowledge and experience (despite being the youngest!) and am the only one willing to visit customer sites.

You are just getting by doing the job, they outperform you in everything they do including going beyond just what needs to be done for the job. If anything their contribution is undervalued and they should really be looking for a far wider pay difference.