Promotional Raises?

[rcpratt]

VP is going to direct HR to "figure something out," but what exactly that will be I'm not sure. Feeling super awkward that he's involved.

 

[leeland]

TLDR version, the job requirement for experience is inconsistent and HR is going with the one that will screw me. And is unwilling to bend.

I don't understand why HR gets to make decisions like these. When you have my director telling the HR director that if he were me, he'd find a different job because of this, and there's nothing else he can do, that's just stupid. Not to mention the fact that apparently HR is screwing two of my coworkers on their raises from similar promotions and won't give them as much as our director wants. It's his freaking budget. Don't get it.

I feel your pain...I for the past 3 years have been told I was in line for a promotion...

Last year it was "within 6-12 months"

This year I get the promotion with a "COL" raise...I was total WTF...

When asked directly how do I get to salary level X which is what I thought I should be making...I got the company line of 'just keep doing what you are doing and that gives me ammo for next year'

In my area I think it has to mainly due with the economy and no one willing to move due to being scared...jobs are tight...people are glad to be employed.

Meanwhile while people leave they don't replace them and you absorb more and more responsibilities...

While it is great to finally get a promotion it is pretty lame that it come with nothing but more work lol.

 

[Sheep]

VP is going to direct HR to "figure something out," but what exactly that will be I'm not sure. Feeling super awkward that he's involved.

You shouldn't feel awkward. When HR gets in the way, it's good to have someone on your side.

 

[BurnItDwn]

It depends on their pay-scales and where you are currently on your existing pay grade...

Lets just say this is the example:
Usually pay grades are ranges, not fix dollar amounts.
Theoretically, let's say you're a "junior", and you get promoted 1 grade to "senior".
Let's say that theoretically, the "senior" range is about 10K higher than Junior range.

The question is, where are you now on the "junior" range. Do the Junior and Senior ranges have any sort of overlap?

I've gotten in place promotions of that nature several times (came in at the very bottom level and have worked my way up from essentially entry level Analyst, to Lead Analyst over the years... Usually I've seen around 7-15% increases ... (lately closer to 7%, in the beginning, it was closer to 15%)

 

[hanoverphist]

so i went and looked at the median salary for my job, apparently im in the bottom end 10% after 10 or 12 years. no raises for 4 years now, not even a CoL bump. life sucks.

 

[leeland]

so i went and looked at the median salary for my job, apparently im in the bottom end 10% after 10 or 12 years. no raises for 4 years now, not even a CoL bump. life sucks.

I feel for yah brother...stinks all the way around and we are all taking a big ole bite!

 

[CountZero]

so i went and looked at the median salary for my job, apparently im in the bottom end 10% after 10 or 12 years. no raises for 4 years now, not even a CoL bump. life sucks.

Are there companies near you hiring to do what you do? You could start looking and if you get an offer leverage it for a counter offer or just jump ship. If you are bottom 10% of your salary range it seems like a bump in pay would be easy.

 

[edro]

so i went and looked at the median salary for my job

Where did you look? Did you check pay grades with HR?
Salary.com isn't always accurate.

 

[GotIssues]

TLDR version, the job requirement for experience is inconsistent and HR is going with the one that will screw me. And is unwilling to bend.

I don't understand why HR gets to make decisions like these. When you have my director telling the HR director that if he were me, he'd find a different job because of this, and there's nothing else he can do, that's just stupid. Not to mention the fact that apparently HR is screwing two of my coworkers on their raises from similar promotions and won't give them as much as our director wants. It's his freaking budget. Don't get it.

Because your director doesn't know jack shit about how much the jobs are worth in the job market.

If HR let the directors and hiring managers decide salaries, your company would be broke in less than a year. They have no damn clue what they are doing, and most egotistical dipshits think they know how labor markets work and how much they "should" pay their employees. I've seen many smaller companies drive themselves into the ground because they let their directors set wages - either they are too low and they can'[t keep anyone for more than a few months (because the director doesn't "think they should be paid more") or live in the red because they pay way over what they should be. A growing business can hide these problems, but economic blips create colossus disasters.

When you are paid the median for the non-Sr job, you are being compared to others with similar experience and you have the median amount of experience. When you get to the Sr. Title, you (should) be in a different grade being compared to those who have the Sr. job title, thus you no longer have the median experience of a Sr. level position.The typical promotional increase for a ___ to a Sr ___ runs 5-8%.

If you are getting all pissy because you only got a 8% raise for no additional work or responsibility, you should leave the company. HR doesn't want to deal with your shit anyways, you really are not that hard to replace. You'll just become someone else's problem.

EDIT: I work for a company of Physicians that seem to think money grows on trees and would throw money at every person that walked through their door. Every day seems to be a fight with someone who wants to pay some nose-picker who does nothing but hold up a wall for them to make $100k/year because they want to be viewed as nice. If we gave in on half those requests, we would be filing bankrupcy in 5 years, tops. HR is there to keep the company from eating itself alive and to be the bad guy because your boss doesn't want to be viewed as a mean.

Yes, I'm looking for a new job. A Physician took over as CEO is is currently giving into all demands and already took a profitable company and we'll be in the red next couple of years guaranteed.

 

[hanoverphist]

Are there companies near you hiring to do what you do? You could start looking and if you get an offer leverage it for a counter offer or just jump ship. If you are bottom 10% of your salary range it seems like a bump in pay would be easy.

Where did you look? Did you check pay grades with HR?
Salary.com isn't always accurate.

small company, very specialized industry. they gave me the title of "senior programmer" so they had a way of quantifying a pay scale for me. in truth, i design scada and telemetry systems. not many companies doing that here, i know all of them. while i could probably go to any of the other ones, i work for family so i wouldnt do that. also its a contract/ bid world for this stuff, all of us are pretty much underpaid so we can stay competitive. i deal with it since i do get paid fairly well, the job is interesting most of the time and im learning a lot of stuff that i could take anywhere in the world and get a job with if i wanted to. ive been doing this for about 13 years now, and i still have a ton more i can learn.

 

[rcpratt]

*snip*

If you are getting all pissy because you only got a 8% raise for no additional work or responsibility, you should leave the company. HR doesn't want to deal with your shit anyways, you really are not that hard to replace. You'll just become someone else's problem.

*snip*

Well first of all, that's not my situation at all. It's similar to the position that my coworkers are in, but I have no idea what the numbers are. I seriously doubt that he is trying to get them anything more than 8%. But yes, I understand that HR has a role to play.

 

[rcpratt]

nvm.

 

[rcpratt]

Most delayed necro and update ever, but some recent developments on this. And this isn't for the purpose of a braggy/blog post, it's mostly for the people that just thought that my employer was trying to screw me.

After the failed promotion last fall, the final solution was basically "nothing we can do now, but when bonus/raise season comes in the spring (now) we'll get you the max possible, and when you do meet the HR requirements (September '12), we'll process the promotion ASAP."

So now bonus/raise season has begun. They gave me a 130% individual performance modifier on my bonus, and today I just learned that my director had submitted my name for the company "long term incentive plan," which is normally just for directors+ but are rarely given as individual awards. Long story short, the VP authorized a one-time award of 150 shares of company stock options (~$10k present value) that vest in 3 years and continue to be modified by business unit performance ratings and all that jazz. Raises for this year are still being worked out, but they have said that they're trying to get me at least 8%, which would obviously be fantastic.

TLDR version - pessimists were wrong, not every company is evil.

 

[BurnItDwn]

with a grade promotion, your bump should bring you at a minimum to the bottom of the next tier's pay range.

Best I ever got was over 30%, but it was 2 pay grade bumps... usually I see around 10% during a 1 pay grade bump

 

[SpatiallyAware]

TLDR version, the job requirement for experience is inconsistent and HR is going with the one that will screw me. And is unwilling to bend.

I don't understand why HR gets to make decisions like these. When you have my director telling the HR director that if he were me, he'd find a different job because of this, and there's nothing else he can do, that's just stupid. Not to mention the fact that apparently HR is screwing two of my coworkers on their raises from similar promotions and won't give them as much as our director wants. It's his freaking budget. Don't get it.

HR should NOT be directing salaries like that, your boss needs to grow a pair and go to the president/ceo/owners.

 

[SpatiallyAware]

Most delayed necro and update ever, but some recent developments on this. And this isn't for the purpose of a braggy/blog post, it's mostly for the people that just thought that my employer was trying to screw me.

After the failed promotion last fall, the final solution was basically "nothing we can do now, but when bonus/raise season comes in the spring (now) we'll get you the max possible, and when you do meet the HR requirements (September '12), we'll process the promotion ASAP."

So now bonus/raise season has begun. They gave me a 130% individual performance modifier on my bonus, and today I just learned that my director had submitted my name for the company "long term incentive plan," which is normally just for directors+ but are rarely given as individual awards. Long story short, the VP authorized a one-time award of 150 shares of company stock options (~$10k present value) that vest in 3 years and continue to be modified by business unit performance ratings and all that jazz. Raises for this year are still being worked out, but they have said that they're trying to get me at least 8%, which would obviously be fantastic.

TLDR version - pessimists were wrong, not every company is evil.

Glad it got worked out, but still BS that the HR department has a set-in-stone say over that stuff.

 

[GotIssues]

I find it humorous that everyone in existance thinks they should be making at least median in whatever position they have ever. It's like they don't understand what a median is.

Promotional raises in the companies I have worked at, a typical promotional raise was in the range of 6%-7%. You have to remember that while you are at the median in terms of the combination of experience, current ability, and future prospects in your Junior <Whatever> role, you are being compared to a different set of people in your Senior <Whatever> role, thus no longer in the median by comparison - you are being compared to a different group of people with more experience and just as good/better potential.

If you move up and don't like what you are getting, you always have the option to go looking for another job. The quickest and easiest way to get a raise or promotion is to switch companies. Heck, you don't even have to be any good at what you do.

 

[GotIssues]

Glad it got worked out, but still BS that the HR department has a set-in-stone say over that stuff.

Do you have any idea what the budgets would look like if HR let managers have their way with employee salaries? 95% of departments would overpay pretty much every job they touch because "they really like the guy" and drive the company under.

Managers throw HR under the bus, when HR is, in reality, saving the company from the stupidity of managers.

 

[mvbighead]

Do you have any idea what the budgets would look like if HR let managers have their way with employee salaries? 95% of departments would overpay pretty much every job they touch because "they really like the guy" and drive the company under.

Managers throw HR under the bus, when HR is, in reality, saving the company from the stupidity of managers.

HR shouldn't be making payroll decisions, and managing a budget. That's why you have accountants and a payroll dept.

Overpaying employees may be necessary to keep them around, and if they are bringing value from their position that merits the extra spending, there is little reason not to.

In any case, HR isn't necessarily the budget team. They're simply the ones who aid in the proper hiring/firing process, and manage other personnel affairs. The finance side of things is generally approved by someone other than HR.

In any case, some managers may not have a good idea as to the actual value of their employee. But they tend to have a better idea as to how replaceable that individual is.

 

[rcpratt]

Yay, (hopefully) final update.

Last Thursday was the official date for having enough service time to be eligible for the promotion. Paperwork got finished today. Our raise/bonus period is March-April, so apparently since I'm getting promoted "so close" (really not that close) to then, I'm not eligible for a COL raise next spring. But my director got it worked into this raise - got 6% for the promotion, 4% COL raise, 10% total. I probably would have gotten a bit more had they done it separately (COL next spring), but I'm not complaining about 10%. Very happy with that.

So, in total:
-3.5% COL raise April 2012
-10% promotion/COL raise November 2012
-$10k-$12k worth of stock options (vest 3 yr) received April 2012
-Slightly higher 2012 bonus (not enough to matter)

All in all, pretty happy ending 🙂