After our company was taken over by the corporate overlords, a compensation review was done to determine whether or not the workers were making the right amounts of money. Of course, this was done with a bent toward saving money and resources while retaining the ‘best people’. At the beginning of the year, our leadership team started talking to us, during the dreaded monthly meeting, about the process and how we would be receiving a wealth of knowledge pertaining to our individual positions in the company and the ranges that these positions are set in according to the larger world of tech. In other words, we would finally have data on how they determine our pay scales and raises. Under the previous leadership, we had no idea what the ranges for our jobs were or how we fit into the grand scheme. Our positions currently overlap so it seemed that this would be a difficult process, but I was hopeful to see where it would go. Would we get new job descriptions that gave us very specific job duties, allowing those of us that have picked up the slack for many of those that had left to go back to a more manageable workload? Would we be given pay ranges that were publicly posted within the organization so we could see what we should be made according to our position placement? Would we receive details on skills and qualifications that we would need to move up the proverbial ladder? These all seemed like excellent outcomes.
Fast forward to this week – our compensation analysis review meetings began and it is all downhill from here. Sure, we got raises. I am not certain what everyone else was given, but I received the same raise that I always do. It does not really matter that I did a ton of extra work over the past year – I still got 3%. I was told by my boss, in a very complimentary way, that I was super valuable, I scored high on the scales used to determine my raise, and that I should feel really good about the 3% I was given. I was told I should feel better about this 3% than I did about the 3% I received in previous years because this was a better 3%. I mean, yeah, the dollars it amounts to are higher because I am making more than last year (3% more to be exact) so of course 3% of 103% is going to be more than 3% of 100%, but c’mon, it’s still only 3%. I get it – bosses need to convince the workers to stick around and keep taking on more and more until there is no longer a capacity to take on more but don’t lie to me and make me feel like I did better than other people and tell me I should be super excited about it. At the end of the conversation, I said I was happy because, honestly I didn’t think I was going to get a raise, but I’m not ecstatic.
After a couple of days of letting the conversation sink in, I began to realize a couple of truths that are making me terribly uncomfortable in retrospect.
- My raise and the raises of all of my colleagues were made possible by the company letting two of my colleagues go. This makes me super sad and it is fucked up.
- This may sound a bit paranoid, but the weird circling of the floor that the CEO had been doing over the previous month was most likely done to make us feel uncomfortable in our job security. That way, when we had our compensation analysis meetings and were given a small bump in pay we would feel instantly better. When you are worried about losing your income entirely, a small increase that makes you feel valued is an easy way to ensure retention for at least a few more months.
- After a conversation with another team member (someone that I would have been splitting the bigger pie with because she is in my department and there is one pool of funds budgeted for raises per department) I realized that she was given a much bigger increase than me (and somehow, a higher score) and that my boss actually lied to me when she said that I got one of the highest scores in the company. Well – since she said ‘one of’ I guess she didn’t technically lie, but still – she wasn’t entirely straightforward.
- The fact that I could not get a straight answer on the metrics that were used to determine ranges and scores tells me that my qualifications, tenure, and skills had NOTHING to do with my raise. It was all a ploy to get us into ranges and bring people up to a wage that made them comfortable, but those of us that were already in the range that we should be in didn’t get anything extra, even if we went above and beyond in the previous year.
- The process feels like it was set up specifically to deter workers from trying to negotiate for better raises. If you are told “this is the range you are in” and “this is where you are in the range” and “this is based on data (even though we can’t tell you the metrics we used)” and “this is all the money we have to give out right now”, what are you really going to say in response? Are you going to ask for more? The process allows the bosses to lean on invisible data to place you, as a worker, in a specific slot on a grid that has no meaning to you outside of the process. It discourages conversation or debate. It is perfect from the perspective of management. No muss, no fuss, message conveyed, end of conversation.
I am a highly dedicated employee. I always work 3 times as hard as I should. I don’t get credit, in the form of raises, in the way I should. These facts alone should be the determining factors of why I move forward and away from this employer. As if I didn’t already have enough reasons to leave this company, the compensation analysis was the final straw. Thanks for the 3% but I will continue looking for an escape plan.
After working in corporate jobs or 15+ years, I think I have FINALLY learned that corporate positions are not for me. Corporate tech is the domain of those that want to kiss people’s asses and make friends with people they would NEVER be friends with, in the real world, just to get ahead. It isn’t about intelligence or skill. It’s all about who you know and how far you are willing to go. How much of an asshole are you willing to be? If you are not willing to be an asshole at all, then corporate America is not the spot for you. And that’s me. I am not interested in boosting my bosses egos in order to get ahead. I am also just not that great at working for other people, in general, so we shall see what my future holds. I am still dedicated to finding a position in an Academic Library, but until that day comes I will have to get by with whatever work I can get. I would prefer to not be languishing in corporate tech, but I suppose this is what I have to do until I can find that coveted library gig.
In the meantime, I will do my best to be a good employee, but not excellent. I will do what I need to do to satisfy my personal work ethic, which means I will most likely still be working at the rate of 1.5 people, but I will no longer go above and beyond. No more extra projects or late nights.
