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Ask HN: Why corporate culture never increment your salary?

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Re: Ask HN: Why corporate culture never increment your salary?

#31

Post by otikik »

> No single mention of pay and salary improvement.

But you have not mentioned them either, I take.

I get that talking about money is uncomfortable in some cultures - makes people uncomfortable. Companies absolutely use this against their employees. They put people who are good at talking about money in charge of hiring people, and they train their managers in negotiation tactics.

Your options: wise up and start talking about money, and/or leave.

For the first one, you should aim to do it at least once per year - ideally one or 2 months before evaluations and raises are done in your company. Watch videos about negotiating, or get a coach if needed. If it costs you 500 bucks and you get a 10% salary increase it will probably be worth it.

For the second one, yeah, update your LinkedIn, ask for some days off and do some interviews. But you will face the same problem: you will have to talk about money on the initial interview, and you will be the one responsible for asking for raises in the new job as well. So you might as well start working on point number 1.

Re: Ask HN: Why corporate culture never increment your salary?

#32

Post by midoridensha »

koenvdb wrote: post #12
throwaway576652 wrote: post #8

What do you mean? It's well-known fact that if you want to increase your salary, you need to change employer.

This really depends on the company you work for, I've had several increases of salary at the same employer, just because I asked for it and had some good arguments. It costs way more money to get a new employee than it will cost to give an existing employee a pay raise.

For a single employee, yes. But across the organization, it saves money to not give any significant raises, and just suffer the attrition. For every malcontent that leaves because they want more money, there's 9 others who just stay and put up with it year after year. Besides, hiring doesn't cost much: they already have HR staff on the payroll to handle that, so it gives them something to keep them busy.

Finally, many companies like to have a certain amount of churn. Bringing in fresh people helps keep the skillsets up-to-date since new employees bring the stuff they learned from their previous employers. If you just have the same staff for decades, they get stagnant.

Re: Ask HN: Why corporate culture never increment your salary?

#35

Post by pmx »

philpem wrote: post #28

Because they know you'll do the work you're doing -- and the tenfold increase -- for what they're paying you. They exist to make money, not to enrich their workers. The optimisation strategy is to pay as little as possible for as much productivity and labour as possible, then charge as much as possible for it to customers as a package item. Everything trickles up to the top of the pyramid. Sadly the only way to relia…

I don't agree that the only way to increase pay is to move jobs. I've had a lot of success simply asking for more money while explaining why I feel I provide value enough to justify it. I got a 20% increase this year just by asking for it.

Re: Ask HN: Why corporate culture never increment your salary?

#37

Post by yodsanklai »

> For last 2 years, my compensation has remained the same. Not a 0.1% increase

You can't generalize this to all companies. In some companies, raises are automatic if expectations are met.

It's a free market. If you're unhappy with how your corporation works and if you can find better, it's your responsibility to change.

Re: Ask HN: Why corporate culture never increment your salary?

#38

Post by cee_el123 »

stavros wrote: post #15

You've been doing it wrong: I practice shrinkflation principles, and work one less minute every month. That way, I effectively get a 2% raise at the end of every year. If the company isn't satisfied with my performance, they can give me a raise to work more again.

No post body was provided.

Re: Ask HN: Why corporate culture never increment your salary?

#39

Post by jylam »

There is an easy fix for this, but many people are uncomfortable with it: give them your [whatever weeks] notice, and tell them you are not paid enough.

Finding a job is easy for us those times, you don't risk much. Finding good workers is hard for them, the balance of power is on our side.

Re: Ask HN: Why corporate culture never increment your salary?

#40

Post by amelius »

onion2k wrote: post #3

Look at the 'problem' from the company's perspective. They're making bank. They're not losing staff. They might not even know you're unhappy. Why would they change anything? If you want things to change you have to act.

How accepted is it to tell your boss that you can make $X more at another company?
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