Colleague doing same job has double my pay..

[edscdk]

Issues of confidentiality aren't here nor there, employees have the legal right to discuss salary for the purposes of determining whether "unfair pay" (gender discrimination etc) is occurring, which basically renders clauses relating to the discussion of salary moot.

I think I said this previously but NEVER tell anyone at work what you get paid, if you believe you are not paid enough build a case ask for a raise or leave and get another job.... two very simple options... if those two options are not on the table then I would expect the person involved knows full well they cannot get another higher paid job... or there are other benefits at the current job they are not willing to loose (close to home, flexible working etc)

You don't need to know what the company pays other people, you can look at the job market to see what the going rate is...

 

[dowie]

While you don't need to know what the company pays other people it is certainly useful information just as looking at the job market for similar roles in general is. If you're going to build a case for being paid more (lets assume you're a good employee, you've exceeded your targets etc..) then getting some data points or a data point from within the company for someone doing the same or a very similar job is harder to dismiss. There is the obvious (and likely quite correct) explanation that in this situation in fact this guy who has been in that same role for a couple of decades is actually overpaid which makes it less useful.

The rather more awkward conversation for a manager can occur if someone of a similar level of experience has only recently joined the company in the same role and is earring a fair chunk more, that information is rather useful as it demonstrates that the existing employee is paid both below market rates and below what the company is prepared to pay. I've seen that happen a few times and it can be a complete car crash - external hires can really skew things.

In one instance at a previous firm it was solved very quickly as the existing hire , female PM who joined on a grad scheme and had a few years experience (who was incidentally well liked and excellent at her job) found out that a new male PM of similar age/experience albeit who had been at a rival firm for a similar number of years was being paid substantially more than her. I suspect the potential gender issue and some warnings from HR caused senior management to swiftly react to that one.

In another instance it wasn't solved and we lost an excellent techie, similar situation but perhaps slightly worse as he was training the new guy and the new guy was not only earning substantially more but was rather bad at the job too.

When jobs are advertised bother internally and externally you can get some huge discrepancies, especially with regards to promotions for internal candidates and there can be restrictive HR rules capping internal pay rises too.

 

[Energize]

I think I said this previously but NEVER tell anyone at work what you get paid, if you believe you are not paid enough build a case ask for a raise or leave and get another job.... two very simple options... if those two options are not on the table then I would expect the person involved knows full well they cannot get another higher paid job... or there are other benefits at the current job they are not willing to loose (close to home, flexible working etc)

You don't need to know what the company pays other people, you can look at the job market to see what the going rate is...

Knowing what other people in the company are paid is very valuable information when going into a negotiation. There is simply no reason not inform yourself of the company pay structure, every bit of information you can get helps, as they say, knowledge is power.

If your employer is paying above market rate to other employees for example then using the market rate is going to potentially cost you a lot of money as you could have negotiated higher.

 

[jaybee]

I've experienced this first hand. Obviously it can happen to the extreme when you work alongside contractors, but that's fair game and to be expected. When it happens with full time employees it can be frustrating.

Back when I used to work for a company in a support role we were a team of 4. One guy had been in the team for years "from the start" as he transferred across during an office move. He was on some "special" pay grade which basically meant he did not fall in to any normal pay structure and was protected. He'd been inheriting pay rises for years and was earning way more than everyone else on the team but did the worst job. He sat there doing the minimum required and was rude to customers. He was also a grass and pointed out to management whenever anyone was late or did something that annoyed him. He felt he was above all of us.

After I had been there just under a year, I went for a promotion as did all 4 of us. I got it and it made him even more bitter. He remained in that role for a further year then went on long term sick for like 6 months. When he got back they finally saw sense and paid him off making him "redundant". They replaced him with 2 juniors who's total salary probably added up to his single one. With the redundancy on top, the company wasted thousands on him. After he was made redundant he never got back into IT. He was a classic example of someone that fell into a roll that he was not qualified to do. He had no interest in evolving or moving with the times. "Not my job". Well that attitude ended his IT career in the end.


The other one was a more recent one. I left a company and during negotiations and talks with other staff, I happened to find out how much one of my team were earning (I was team lead and he worked under me). It was significantly more than myself. He had been there again years, quietly plodding along in the same role (redefined and renamed several times over 10 years or so). He was competent enough (ish), but was very much a work from written procedures guy. Could never think outside the box. Took the mick with time off and "work from home". He'd not had a promo in 10 years. Again he watched me come into the job and get promoted within 12 months whilst watching and not even bothering to apply.


Moral of the story? Some people are just content to get by and do as little as possible with minimal stress. Nothing wrong with milking it I guess and taking those pay rises gradually.
The problem with this approach is you tend to fade away and leave yourself with a lack of skills when you finally end up needing a new job.

 

[Haze]

I worked in retail for 14 years and some of the dept managers that had been in a manager position for a good 10 years, would be on 5/10k more than a new manager to a department, even though they could be running a dept 4x the size, it is just how it goes. Would be different if you were both employed as managers at the same time though

 

[the_worrier]

I headed up a dept with about 80-85 people in it. I was forever being ‘challenged’ over pay including ‘x earns more than me and we do the same job’.

As discussed, it happens because companies base annual increases on a percentage increase for all. If your colleague has been there a long time these same percentage increases will have caused their pay to stretch ahead.