salary rant 1

[AsphaltArchitect]

feel free to ignore if you don't like to see a rant ...

Recently a coworker and I just found out that our company hired a person for a higher pay than the both of us.

We have our PEs and >5 YOE as EI & PE. This person has >5 YOE as a construction inspector and does not even have his/her EI. He/her was hired to do design work for which he/she has 0$ experience in. We were both saddened and frustrated and knew that our loyalty came at a price. We both love where we work, but ultimately if this is the path the company goes, we might have to start to play the game too.

 

[jhnblgr]

Have you ever negotiated for a raise? What value do you bring to the company? What are their qualifications? Most design engineers without field experience lack practical understanding of structures. Most likely your manger feels that you aren’t reaching your potential. You must be driven and show growth in knowledge and capacity to merit raises. You pass judgment on a new hire without any real basis.

 

[Snickster]

I had the same experience early in my career as a mechanical design engineer for process piping and equipment systems. My company was hiring engineers my age and experience for 50 to 100 % more than I was making. This is because they had 5 years experience working for our client companies such as Exxon Mobil, Shell and other big oil companies, but had no real design engineering experience so were not as good in design. I had 5 years of design experience working for my company only. My experience working for them was less valued than the experience of people working for our clients where they got more practical field experience and it looked good on their resume that they worked for very well know clients, being that our resumes would be submitted to potential clients for work which listed all of our experience and previous jobs. Therefore for whatever reason your company values the particular past experience of the new hire.

I always stayed at a lower salary than most but looked at it as the price of getting good experience since I worked for a very good design engineering company that had major clients, and were always busy with very good projects. Another thing is I escaped all of layoffs for 22 years when every 4 to 6 years or so there was a turndown and major layoffs occurred. I volunteered for overseas assignment where I got my salary up and gained more experience. Then after 22 years with the company I left and went with an up and coming design company where I immediately got a salary increase of 50% and over 12 years there my salary was one of the highest in the area for a mechanical design engineer. I always had the goal of learning as much as I could so one day I could get top pay and good work because of my knowledge and experience I have gained, which goal I did achieved.

But yes I noticed in my career that those who made the most were those who moved around a lot and if a company thinks you are not going anywhere they are not motivate to pay you more. I guess it comes down to whether you think the low pay is worth the experience you are getting and that experience will set you up for higher pay in the future, and if you can never get your salary up to typical for your level, when is it time to move on.

Note also the more you make the more is expected of you. When I was paid the least I had the most freedom to take my time on things and really do a good job and take my time learning too. When I was paid the most, every hour I spent was scrutinized and I had to justify. I also was given the most difficult and stressful projects to lead and had to work with the biggest a-hole project managers in the company being continuously harassed. I use to dream of the my days as a junior engineer where there was very little stress, all the time I needed to do a good job and learn at a reasonable pace.

 

[swazimatt]

This is exactly why companies try to encourage you to keep remuneration confidential. I have tried to encourage open discussion around this amongst peers as it does provide insight into your own value to the company.

I also enjoy working in the company i am at, and while i know i could push for more $$, after 30 years i have realised that and % increase is only noticed for the first few months, after that you find it becomes normal and you feel as underpaid as you used to. BUT it did really bug me when i discovered that there was someone else paid more than me who was not as good as me nor did they ever put in any additional effort (strictly 8-5 with a decent amount of time chatting at the coffee machine) so i understand the feeling. If you don't resolve it, it will fester and grow.

As you want to remain at the company I would suggest you chat with your manager about this, if they value you the same way they will probably adjust it and if not it will change your attitude to your company (or yourself and your actual requirements at work). Some companies try to save pennies by paying people less and some managers are bad at communicating poor performance / expectations with staff (engineers are generally bad communicators!)

 

[IRstuff]

As a general rule, in-house salary increases typically do not keep pace with salary increases from switching jobs. Just a single switch could put someone 15% ahead of you, and that salary baseline gets baked into the next raise and next job offer.

If this is something that's going to eat at you, then staying put is not the thing to do, or you need to do some serious self-reflection.

Personally, it's not something I think or worry about; I've even taken a 25% cut to get to a job that I wanted. Of course, I'm now retired, so machts nichts, now. I've also never subscribed the notion that my worth as person is tied to my salary, since it means that other people control how I see myself, which seems silly to allow to happen. I probably lived a charmed life, so take preceding with a grain of salt.

 

[GregLocock]

Bumps I got from changing jobs were 50% 0% 30% 25%, the equivalent of another 2% raise per year over my career. So, not insignificant.

 

[LittleInch]

We were both saddened and frustrated and knew that our loyalty came at a price.

I'm with Snickster here and that is how a lot of companies work, I.e. pay the last you can unless you need to pay more to recruit, but don't tell the others.....

If this is your first job then at 5 yrs plus you're rope for moving and getting maybe 30% more.

One thing that rarely works is to get an offer from someone else then go and demand a pay rise. Most HR know that even if they give in, that person usually moves anyway in 6 months' time, so often they call your bluff.

I stayed with one company for 20+ yrs and undoubtedly lost out somewhat, but the job and company were good, it was very local so no commute and the work was varied and interesting. Jumped ship eventually for+20% which reset me and then was asked back after 9 months for another 9 yrs before leaving again then going contract still with the same company mainly.

So your options are probably wait until your annual review and make the point about your experience and pay and see what they do. If your not happy or even before then, check out the market. It is a bit sad, but that's my experience for sure and a lot of others.

 

[Gr8blu]

Another factor that plays into the issue is inflation.
The OP was hired at some point in the past (5 years or so). The purchasing power of $1 then was about equivalent to $1.25 today - so what should be happening is that a new hire should be receiving $1.25 for every $1 the OP got on his first paycheck. And that's WITHOUT considering any additional experience or accreditation.

If the OP's employer values work experience obtained elsewhere over experience within the company - do they believe they have an inferior product? Or are they looking for specific niche experience - which might just mean a personal relationship with a prospective client. For example -new hire comes from Company B - do they have a good reputation in Company B that can be leveraged to obtain more business with Company B?

OP has "design experience", as does the new hire. How did the OP's projects perform in terms of profit, timetable, and overall customer satisfaction? If there were always overruns and/or additional "fixes" required after the completion, it wasn't all that successful, was it? On the other hand, the new hire may have better experience at managing projects in general or is at least better at reading between the lines on a customer specification (e.g. identifying "intent").

My own experience? Employer 1 was 5 years (while obtaining my degree, so this was the "EI" period). Employer 2 was 17 years (with PE obtained at Year 4), continually moving up in responsibility. Employer 3 was initially a sideways move, then 17 years of gradually increasing responsibility. Now on Employer 4 (for last 5 years) and expecting to continue for at least next 5-8 years. The only significant improvements in salary occurred when changing employers - minimum 25% step. However, the learning experience at #2 and #3 far outweighed a sharp salary increase - as evidenced by the step change when moving to the next one.

 

[swazimatt]

somewhat related. How many of you get bonuses on top of your salary?
I have always felt that with our feast-famine cycle of the industry the salary should be maintained at a sustainable rate throughout and hard work (over and above) or good company performance should warrant an appropriate bonus.

Our company recently paid a blanket $1000 to everyone as we had gone through a tough year and still managed to make a profit. Once taxed this meant that part-time and grads basically got more in the bank than seniors, but that is not the point. There are some employees who have put in long hours and worked hard pulling in new clients but they get the same reward as someone who is strictly 40 hrs a week (max) who will stop a job with 30 minutes to complete at 5pm rather than do an additional 30 minutes (even if they took it back the next day).

I really think this is a way to loose key staff and feel the token bonus may be more detrimental to those hard workers than if nothing had been given

 

[IRstuff]

My previous company had a mathematical formula based on salary and personal performance for bonuses, and they were only given out to senior employees, as a retention incentive.