But I shared the example because you can never know perfectly from interviews how a person will execute on the job.
So an employer might target a little lower pay until seeing the performance on the job, and adjust up if warranted. You can easily increase pay. It isn’t so easy to cut someone’s pay to reflect their performance compared to others for internal equity, due to the long list of employee relations concerns that would follow.
AAM also addressed someone who wanted to cut a new employee's salary because they overstated their qualifications:
But I shared the example because you can never know perfectly from interviews how a person will execute on the job.
So an employer might target a little lower pay until seeing the performance on the job, and adjust up if warranted. You can easily increase pay. It isn’t so easy to cut someone’s pay to reflect their performance compared to others for internal equity, due to the long list of employee relations concerns that would follow.
Wat. Again, there is a logical mistake in your thinking.
Your example of a pay cut due to performance as well as inequity is hard bc it should NEVER happen.
You give the other people raises based on their own performances 🤔
You..the employer TRAIN the employee so they stop underperforming and truly understand the job.
I definitely feel like AAM was right lol.
In a vacuum, sure that sounds fine.
In reality, if you use strict grids to maintain internal equity and someone's experience/performance combination should put them at, say 110% of the midpoint of the job, and the whole department is properly indexed, but someone overstates their qualifications, you can't then just inflate everyone else's pay in the department to ensure equity.
You have to live with the inequity, and yes try to train the person up.
In my situation I spent 2 years trying to train the person up to earn her pay and she just didn't get there. I had to manage to my mistake and think that over the 3.5 years the person was in the role, I did a fair job. For example, when compensation initiated market adjustments, others got pay increases and she didn't. She was already being paid above market for her work. On performance evaluations when she got a 3 and her peers got a 4, they got bigger raises. By the time she self-selected out of the job by resigning, things had almost leveled out. But it took several years to get there and I had the inequity on my conscience. I managed it the best way I could and it was a lesson learned for me.
Again - i shared the example only to illustrate why another hiring manager might offer a smaller salary and adjust upward after seeing someone's work on the job. There is no perfect solution. One underpays a person on the front end. The other creates an inequity that takes years to level out. The first is certainly fairer for the majority.
But I shared the example because you can never know perfectly from interviews how a person will execute on the job.
So an employer might target a little lower pay until seeing the performance on the job, and adjust up if warranted. You can easily increase pay. It isn’t so easy to cut someone’s pay to reflect their performance compared to others for internal equity, due to the long list of employee relations concerns that would follow.
So because one person was a bad hire, it’s justified to underpay everyone?
And I know that you work for a company that is doing a seemingly good job at salary analysis, but I think it’s a little laughable to just go with the idea that most companies would just raise everyone’s salaries when they meet expectations of a role.
You're assuming the rest of the team was underpaid. That wasn't the situation. And the "fair" thing wouldn't be to inflate everyone above market, because then employees outside the department in similar roles/grades would then be comparatively underpaid.
Anecdotal, but: I've been unemployed for more than a year now, and in all that time looking, I have never found a job posting in my field and location that names a salary. Not even a range. I have *never* applied to a job and known what it pays. I am, frankly, astonished that so many people in the comments on AAM said that they wouldn't apply for a job posting unless it gives a number. If I set that as my bar, I wouldn't have applied to a single job in a year.
Federal sector employees maybe?
No; communications professional in the Midwest. And during phone interviews I've had several places tell me they were unable to disclose their pay range at that stage in the process, too.
No; communications professional in the Midwest. And during phone interviews I've had several places tell me they were unable to disclose their pay range at that stage in the process, too.
She was saying that feds are used to knowing their range up front. It's literally public information. Same for teachers, most state agency employees, etc. And then by extension, it's not hard to find out a reasonable range for any govt contractors because our contracts are usually at least partially public info and it's not complicated to extrapolate take home from a billing rate. Whole sectors of the economy operate just fine without so much secrecy.
So because one person was a bad hire, it’s justified to underpay everyone?
And I know that you work for a company that is doing a seemingly good job at salary analysis, but I think it’s a little laughable to just go with the idea that most companies would just raise everyone’s salaries when they meet expectations of a role.
You're assuming the rest of the team was underpaid. That wasn't the situation. And the "fair" thing wouldn't be to inflate everyone above market, because then employees outside the department in similar roles/grades would then be comparatively underpaid.
I only assumed that from when you said the employer would target lower pay until seeing how the employee performed on the job
You're assuming the rest of the team was underpaid. That wasn't the situation. And the "fair" thing wouldn't be to inflate everyone above market, because then employees outside the department in similar roles/grades would then be comparatively underpaid.
I only assumed that from when you said the employer would target lower pay until seeing how the employee performed on the job
Oh i read that you were referring to the rest of the team.
But i think i addressed that in a different paragraph - there is no perfect solution when there are unknowns about a candidate. You can pay for what you are sure they bring to the table and increase their pay once you have seen them on the job, to make sure you aren't overpaying them compared to others, or you can take a shot in the dark and risk years of overpaying them until you can level out internal equity the way that is fair to the first person, meanwhile creating internal inequity among others in a like job.
One hurts an individual for a short period of time and the other hurts multiple individuals and the organizational budget for a longer period of time.
So... depending on whether you are a collectivist or an individualist, you may decide one way or the other.
I reflected on Alison’s response and many of the comments, and have to admit that the letter I wrote was pretty obnoxious! For that I apologize. It unfortunately also quite reasonably gave people the impression that our office is an awful place to work, and I wish I could convince you how far from the truth that is, but I don’t think there is much point in trying.
With regard the substance of the issues, I have thought about it a lot, and will seriously consider changing how we do things in the future with regard to stating/asking about salary. I do have partners who would need to be consulted, so I make no guarantees about that. (Also, I hope to not actually be hiring for a very long time, given how terrific our current employees are!)
Oh i read that you were referring to the rest of the team.
But i think i addressed that in a different paragraph - there is no perfect solution when there are unknowns about a candidate. You can pay for what you are sure they bring to the table and increase their pay once you have seen them on the job, to make sure you aren't overpaying them compared to others, or you can take a shot in the dark and risk years of overpaying them until you can level out internal equity the way that is fair to the first person, meanwhile creating internal inequity among others in a like job.
One hurts an individual for a short period of time and the other hurts multiple individuals and the organizational budget for a longer period of time.
So... depending on whether you are a collectivist or an individualist, you may decide one way or the other.
How often does it ever happen that a person receives a raise in that way though? I have never worked somewhere that didn’t follow a very structured and systematic way of when and how much is given for raises. I’m not taking a job at a lower rate, to sit on that for an entire year while I wait for review time to come up and get a raise then.
I imagine your question is rhetorical... it happened to me when hired for my company and I have seen it several times in my tenure there. Also happened to me when I took a job for a large national company in a different industry years ago. Took an offer for a certain rate and got a $3k adjustment a few months later - both situations.