Employees Who Stay in Companies Longer Than Two Years Get Paid 50% Less • Hacker News Board

Re: Employees Who Stay in Companies Longer Than Two Years Get Paid 50% Less

#131

Post by watwut » Mon, Jul 17, 2017, 9:47 AM UTC

scaryclam wrote: post #112

elnygren wrote: post #107

Best way to increase salary at current workplace? Get offers from other companies & ask for a meeting with your boss (or whoever decides your pay, so HR etc.). Bring up the offers, discuss what you'd get from there and also go through the potential career you could build at those companies. For example: Consultancy X would pay me $k/mo and every 6months it will go up the ladder if I perform well. With this kind of di…

I imagine this is good advice in some places, but as a line manager, if you pull this on me I'm more than likely to shake your hand and wish you luck in your new job. In a lot of places, having a talk with your manager about your salary before going off and actively looking for other offers is going to go down a lot better. Most line managers worth working for, value their teams and will fight for them if they are un…

> I imagine this is good advice in some places, but as a line manager, if you pull this on me I'm more than likely to shake your hand and wish you luck in your new job. In a lot of places, having a talk with your manager about your salary before going off and actively looking for other offers is going to go down a lot better. Most line managers worth working for, value their teams and will fight for them if they are unhappy, without the threats.

That is not my experience at all. Saying that I am leaving brings salary pay raise offer immediately, asking for pay raise brings vague promise for pay raise if this or that, yadda yadda. I cant recall manager raising salary proactively to anyone, ever.

It is not that they would not value their teams, but they do see world in a business negotiation way and see it as their job to manage expenses too.

The threat of disloyalty being punished if there are cutbacks does not seem like all that much threat to me. There are so many factors in the decision, including who likes who and who drinks with who, that this is just a tiny drop in the bucket. Nevertheless, when there are cutbacks, having recent experience with job search and idea about how much money you can get elsewhere helps way more then theoretical sympathy - it reduces stress even if you are one of those who stay.

Re: Employees Who Stay in Companies Longer Than Two Years Get Paid 50% Less

#132

Post by auserperson » Mon, Jul 17, 2017, 9:54 AM UTC

scaryclam wrote: post #112

elnygren wrote: post #107

Best way to increase salary at current workplace? Get offers from other companies & ask for a meeting with your boss (or whoever decides your pay, so HR etc.). Bring up the offers, discuss what you'd get from there and also go through the potential career you could build at those companies. For example: Consultancy X would pay me $k/mo and every 6months it will go up the ladder if I perform well. With this kind of di…

I imagine this is good advice in some places, but as a line manager, if you pull this on me I'm more than likely to shake your hand and wish you luck in your new job. In a lot of places, having a talk with your manager about your salary before going off and actively looking for other offers is going to go down a lot better. Most line managers worth working for, value their teams and will fight for them if they are un…

If the person that can be easily employed for more money gets in the redundancy package, they get money from redundancy and a new job. You clearly underestimate the potential of your employees. I'm not fucking scared of getting fired, I know how good I am.

Re: Employees Who Stay in Companies Longer Than Two Years Get Paid 50% Less

#133

Post by auserperson » Mon, Jul 17, 2017, 9:55 AM UTC

werber wrote: post #129

scaryclam wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I imagine this is good advice in some places, but as a line manager, if you pull this on me I'm more than likely to shake your hand and wish you luck in your new job. In a lot of places, having a talk with your manager about your salary before going off and actively looking for other offers is going to go down a lot better. Most line managers worth working for, value their teams and will fight for them if they are un…

I agree with telling your manager and hr you want to discuss your salary before dropping other offers on the table, but have the offers.

Yeah, their offers will be shit if you don't have something else to show. It's just the way it is.

Re: Employees Who Stay in Companies Longer Than Two Years Get Paid 50% Less

#134

Post by baruch » Mon, Jul 17, 2017, 9:57 AM UTC

scaryclam wrote: post #112

elnygren wrote: post #107

Best way to increase salary at current workplace? Get offers from other companies & ask for a meeting with your boss (or whoever decides your pay, so HR etc.). Bring up the offers, discuss what you'd get from there and also go through the potential career you could build at those companies. For example: Consultancy X would pay me $k/mo and every 6months it will go up the ladder if I perform well. With this kind of di…

I imagine this is good advice in some places, but as a line manager, if you pull this on me I'm more than likely to shake your hand and wish you luck in your new job. In a lot of places, having a talk with your manager about your salary before going off and actively looking for other offers is going to go down a lot better. Most line managers worth working for, value their teams and will fight for them if they are un…

To counter that, as a former line manager if an employee just came to me and said he wanted a raise I could only give him so much consideration (big company). If he wanted to get more he'd need to have leverage like a competing offer so that I can go in to the HR team and be able to push them to give me approval to give him more and they would need to go their own managers to get that approval.

Of course, said employee better be good at his job to get this treatment. If you are obnoxious or merely just barely good enough it will be an easier way to get rid of you than go through the hassle of big company firing procedure.

Though I have to admit I never was in this situation as a manager, I did give fair share raises out of the pocket money I got to distribute as raises between my employees.

Re: Employees Who Stay in Companies Longer Than Two Years Get Paid 50% Less

#135

Post by watwut » Mon, Jul 17, 2017, 9:57 AM UTC

sidlls wrote: post #34

There is a plateau as one reaches senior positions. As I went from "no" experience to my current position my job switches (every ~2 years) always were for 10%-25% (in one case, 100%, but that was Midwest to Bay Area so other factors are at play). I never got more than 5% merit increases otherwise. Most of my friends who have been at the same place for >10 years in engineering (not software) are just now reaching pari…

Coding the same thing over and over may mean stagnation, but projects that change tech leads that often are usually mess. It takes time to get up to speed to that position, it takes time to people around to adjust (handle related turf wars and what not), create relationships and all that political stuff. Nor does it allows you to see long term consequences of your decisions.

Re: Employees Who Stay in Companies Longer Than Two Years Get Paid 50% Less

#136

Post by statictype » Mon, Jul 17, 2017, 9:59 AM UTC

boomboomsubban wrote: post #125

scaryclam wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I imagine this is good advice in some places, but as a line manager, if you pull this on me I'm more than likely to shake your hand and wish you luck in your new job. In a lot of places, having a talk with your manager about your salary before going off and actively looking for other offers is going to go down a lot better. Most line managers worth working for, value their teams and will fight for them if they are un…

>In a lot of places, having a talk with your manager about your salary before going off and actively looking for other offers is going to go down a lot better. Most line managers worth working for, value their teams and will fight for them if they are unhappy, without the threats. This doesn't agree with the research here, and your first statement doesn't agree with your second. If you value your team, they shouldn't…

You can value your team and still be running on fumes and not be able to currently pay them what you think they should get.

There's no contradiction in that.

Re: Employees Who Stay in Companies Longer Than Two Years Get Paid 50% Less

#137

Post by gutnor » Mon, Jul 17, 2017, 10:02 AM UTC

scaryclam wrote: post #112

elnygren wrote: post #107

Best way to increase salary at current workplace? Get offers from other companies & ask for a meeting with your boss (or whoever decides your pay, so HR etc.). Bring up the offers, discuss what you'd get from there and also go through the potential career you could build at those companies. For example: Consultancy X would pay me $k/mo and every 6months it will go up the ladder if I perform well. With this kind of di…

I imagine this is good advice in some places, but as a line manager, if you pull this on me I'm more than likely to shake your hand and wish you luck in your new job. In a lot of places, having a talk with your manager about your salary before going off and actively looking for other offers is going to go down a lot better. Most line managers worth working for, value their teams and will fight for them if they are un…

> you're name's likely to get further up the redundancy list than you'd probably like.

Sure but at the same time, that's only going to be one of the many elements that influence your position on the list. Actually, as far as redundancies go, being treated as an individual instead of being handled in bulk with specific project/team means that you are already rather higher up or a key employee for some reason meaning either your are a political animal or with a very good negotiation position.

Re: Employees Who Stay in Companies Longer Than Two Years Get Paid 50% Less

#138

Post by johnnyfaehell » Mon, Jul 17, 2017, 10:07 AM UTC

elnygren wrote: post #107

Best way to increase salary at current workplace? Get offers from other companies & ask for a meeting with your boss (or whoever decides your pay, so HR etc.). Bring up the offers, discuss what you'd get from there and also go through the potential career you could build at those companies. For example: Consultancy X would pay me $k/mo and every 6months it will go up the ladder if I perform well. With this kind of di…

I think this is considered bad advice. Nearly every HR article about this subject states that doing this will on average results in being let go after a year.

Re: Employees Who Stay in Companies Longer Than Two Years Get Paid 50% Less

#139

Post by richardknop » Mon, Jul 17, 2017, 10:10 AM UTC

This is unfortunately true in our industry, from my experience. The only way to make substantial raise for top performers is to have a new job offer with +20-30%. Otherwise the HR department will give you X reasons why you asking for such big raise is inappropriate.

This is part of free market economy, companies are trying to minimize their costs and maximize profits so it makes sense not to waste money giving big raises. This is why you need to play the free market game and force their hand.

Once you get a much better competing offer, your current employer will probably offer to match it. But at that time why stay anyways if you had to force them to consider a substantial raise by going for interviews and getting a better offer?

Also, there is an old advice which says to never accept a counter offer.

I do think there is a ceiling for this approach. You can probably do it 4-5 times and get to quite high salary (150-200k). After that this tactic does not work as well anymore so staying at one place for a long time and earning an internal promotion becomes better option.

Re: Employees Who Stay in Companies Longer Than Two Years Get Paid 50% Less

#140

Post by humanrebar » Mon, Jul 17, 2017, 10:11 AM UTC

statictype wrote: post #136

boomboomsubban wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>In a lot of places, having a talk with your manager about your salary before going off and actively looking for other offers is going to go down a lot better. Most line managers worth working for, value their teams and will fight for them if they are unhappy, without the threats. This doesn't agree with the research here, and your first statement doesn't agree with your second. If you value your team, they shouldn't…

You can value your team and still be running on fumes and not be able to currently pay them what you think they should get. There's no contradiction in that.

You can also value your employer and expect your compensation to grow at a certain rate.

Most line employees don't have enough influence over the business plan to point out that, say, it only works if the company can live with a high turnover rate or with keeping salaries low.

None of this is personal. It's actually a big ask for someone to get paid under market rate or work on horrible legacy systems for years. Managers shouldn't take it personally if they ask for something big and don't get a yes.