#UnfairPayScale: Found out today that the new hire gets paid more than I do. 😳
Hey everyone! So, picture this: I’ve been busting my butt at my job for 8 months, right? And then this new person comes in last week, fresh off the street with no experience in our position, and they’re making $2/hr MORE than me! 😲 To make matters worse, I only got a lousy $0.50 raise last month. And get this – another person who has been here for 3 years is only making $0.50 more than me too! It’s madness, I tell you!
We’re all fed up and planning to bring this up with management during our meeting this week. Fair pay for all, am I right? 🙌🏽 But before we storm into that meeting, I wanted to ask – has anyone else experienced this kind of unfair pay scale at their job? And if so, how did you handle it? Let’s chat! 💬 #EqualPayForEqualWork
Would love to hear your thoughts and experiences on this topic! 💭🤔
I would advise taking a conciliatory approach. Point out why this might just be bad for the business if everyone learns about the issue.
I few year ago a buddy and I learned that the new hire was making about $5 an hour more than us yet we were looked at as the SMEs for our jobs. We went into the bosses office together, pointed out the facts, said we really liked working for him, but if he didn’t fix the issue both of us would be looking for a new job. Six weeks later both of us had $7.50 an hour raises. It helped that we really were the SMEs.
Sometimes honey is better than fire.
Sometimes, You just have to ask.
I changed industries and took a major pay cut to do so, but I had a bare minimum wage I could make work in my life, which was at the top of the range for my current position.
Come to find out, there are people with years of experience that make less than me, but they never negotiated. You just have to ask.
I did a graduate scheme after uni and in one of my placements I found out that I was earning more money than the guy managing me. A few months later he left the company for a rival.
I’ve been at my new job for a little over a month, now.
A couple of days ago, my coworker—who’s been there for a year and a half—and I were talking about how the managers were not adjusting her schedule to her new availability, which she submitted 3 months ago. Come to find out, I make $2.23/hr more than her doing the same job. As a new hire.
I gladly hand-wrote her 2-week notice, per her request, 10 minutes later.
For those who don’t know this already, the goal of any company is to get the most value for the least amount of pay.
jobs need inflation adjusted pay clause to keep older employees happy and ahead of new employee compensation which is required to attract help in this inflationary environment. by government numbers which are skewed to begin with the dollar has lost 28% of it’s value since 2019. in other words if you’ve not received a cumulative 28% or higher wage increase since 2019, you are working for less value in conjured paper receipts.
That’s been a running gag in my career. They’ll put more money into the new hire budget than the retention budget and then make the Pikachu face when you quit over wage
Quit, reapply.
Happened to me too. I hate my job because of it. I don’t understand why they pay newbies way more and don’t increase the wage for people who’ve been there a long time.
This is why compensation negotiation skills are so critical to have these days, and also being able to understand what leverage you have at any given time. For example, there might be a boatload of available candidates for a specific skill on the market looking for open positions, which gives the employer leverage to get one of them at a lower cost. When there are fewer available and their need is high, they can justify the elevated cost to hire you to management.
You have to know the market density when you go into a salary negotiation, whether it’s when you’re first signing on with the company or asking for a pay rise. While you might’ve not had much leverage when you were hired, there will be a time when you do have leverage when the cost of finding someone to replace you plus the loss of institutional knowledge is higher than paying you more money to retain you.
It’s risky, though, because more often than not managers are terrible at quantifying the value of institutional knowledge and the overall cost of acquiring a new employee. This is why many people are forced to job hop to get ahead.
The best way to get a raise is to find a new job. Company loyalty doesn’t pay the worker. New hires often make more than people who have been there.
That’s why every employee deserves a union.
Yep that’s what every employer I’ve ever worked for does. After they tell “you sorry can give any raises for bullshit reason A or garbage excuse B” they always hire the new guys for more . And no experience necessary! That’s what our debt 💸 slavery system get you! Everyone is replaceable even if the employer is worse off for it. Just need quite little slaves.
The cost for loyalty is a lower compensation. Change jobs every year, definitely once every 2 years
Start putting out resumes immediately.
Sames. The person has about 5y less industry experience than me. Also, when they go on vacation I have to stand in for them but they can’t stand in for me when I go bc they can’t do my job. However, I’m not saying anything and instead selecting days where I literally do nothing at all. And I’m purposely slow, which very occasionally makes me wonder what would happen if I actually put in full days and full effort since I am getting good reviews as is. Then I remember… nothing will happen. I am just as likely to be let go doing so much than doing so little. Anyway good luck.
How can anyone get a 50-cent raise with a straight face.
“Here. Enjoy this $4 a day you pleb.”
I worked as a manager for a popular tax office that sounds similar to “Ate a Hard Cock.” Originally I wasn’t supposed to be a manager because I “didn’t have the right experience”, so I was supposed to be the “Lead CSP” (a CSP is essentially a receptionist). But at the first office meeting, I was introduced to the whole team as the manager.
I was making $13/hr. When I was training a CSP, she told me “I thought I was going to make $12/hr but I’m actually getting $13.”
I brought this up to my supervisor, saying that if I’m going to be making the same as the lowest paid employee, I’d rather not be a manager who has significantly more responsibilities and just be a CSP. They gave me a $1 raise and acted like they really went to bat for me.
I quit a couple months later because of wage theft. We were so short staffed that I had to cover the front desk all day every day, and didn’t have an opportunity to take a lunch break. Even though I didn’t clock out, they deducted 30 minutes from my time card any time I didn’t clock out for a lunch.
If you go as a group, it is a protected action. If any of you are fired for any dubious means, then you will have a very good chance for civil action. Always discuss pay unless your job privileges you to know what others make (i.e. Hiring manager, accounting, payroll, owner) then it is ethically and legally wrong to do so.
This includes you knowing what the new hire makes. You can discuss it with anyone, and you are protected from retaliation. I would advise waiting until your collective action to do so openly tho. And please assure new hire that you (as a group) won’t stand for their pay to be lowered either.
This has happened at every company I have ever worked for. We have collective bargaining where I’m at now so it’s much more fair but the place I was at before I was hired at several dollars more than all the current staff, walked in the door making more than one lady who had been there 12 years and several who had been there for 6+ who also made more than her. Basically, the longer you had worked there the less you were making. I was transparent about this with them and told them all that they deserved better and encouraged them to fight for substantial raises. The company had tried to keep all this hush hush but it blew up. But the company refused to budge on anyone’s pay. My boss basically told me they viewed all of us as completely replaceable bcs we were hourly employees. We’re nothing to these people, we aren’t part of their special high earners club which means we’re almost less than human to them.
I had this exact situation 8 weeks ago, new hire that I was expected to train up was being paid more than me that had been with the company almost since inception ~3years, I lost my shit, my manager begged me not to put my notice in for whilst pay bands were correctly aligned. I gave them the 2 weeks to sort it, all in, it took them 6 weeks to come back with a 6% raise, this put me now 0.2% above the new hire. Needless to say, I thanked them for the last few years but unfortunately I could no longer afford to work for them. Took them a further week to find another 5% however had to give me a senior position to justify it, my notice period also has now jumped from 4 weeks to 8 weeks, I accepted for now
This happened to me at my pervious job, I didn’t say anything to anyone internally about it and promptly left.
That’s why you gotta always be the new guy, always looking for the better paying opportunity. Management knows that the people who stick around longer are easier to exploit
Start looking for a new job if you don’t have a support system to quit when they don’t match everyone’s pay.
And don’t worry about the Two Week Notice rule, either, because they wouldn’t give you two weeks’ notice when they fire you. A week, if you’re feeling generous, or as you leave for your scheduled weekend off.
On the plus side, if you get punished for discussing pay you can probably file a lawsuit as well. Kind of a win-win.
Ok Karen. Go ahead and demand something from a person who has no power to make the change.
Or, you could go and enlist the support of your manager, as your leaving will hurt them. But demanding change from a powerless individual will make you feel better.
They are just going to get mad about you discussing wages with coworkers.
This will lead to you and the person there before you getting shit for knowing what noob makes. They will say you should both know the rules about not sharing salaries. It won’t benefit you. It’s happened to me too. A new girl showed me and another coworker her paystub. Before we even knew what she was going to show us, we both saw her pay rate. We both got in shit when we brought it up. We didn’t get raises. The new one quit shortly after. I assume she got is shit for violating the rule.
This happened to my wife.
A new hire was brought on with significantly higher pay while being my wifes subordinate. When she brought it up with her boss and even showed the numbers because she ran the books, he said “you agreed to be paid this much”
She applied to another place and got the job and is now paid almost double what she was before because that’s how valuable her skill set is. The old company is struggling without her.
If your boss doesn’t immediately see your value and try to work with you, try and find something and move on. If raises and whatnot aren’t factored into your job from the beginning, they are never happening.
Well, the new hire did a good job negotiating. Just tell your boss that you will not pick up any work he does not manage to do due to inexperience because he gets paid better so should perform better.
The best time to find a new job is when you’re still getting a paycheck.
This is a good thing and why we should all talk about our pay. Now you have leverage. I wouldn’t be upset, I’d be pumped.
o/’ Tale as old as time… o/’
I was working in the food and beverage department of a resort, running one of their outlets and thought I was being paid decently. Then I saw an ad online for a basically janitorial job, no experience needed that paid more than me. I went to my boss and said I need a raise today or I’m out. I got it and then they stopped listing wages on their online ads
Look for another job.
Happened to me, he was owner’s nephew. Took my vacation, thought about it, returned and quit. Owner begged me to stay on with more pay to train the nephew. Nope. He couldn’t believe that I quit without having a job to go to but I was that pissed.
The difference between $2 and 0.50 is a wopping $60 a week. If you’re only getting a $20/week raise after 8 Mos you really should move onto something better.
The difference between $2 and 0.50 is a wopping $60 a week. If you’re only getting a $20/week raise after 3 years you really should move onto something better.
Deal with it or find a new job. This kind of shit happens all the time. The new hire likely did a better job at negotiating for more pay or your employer realized that they couldn’t fill the role at the wage you were hired at and increased the offer for a new hire. This isn’t a new thing. You could try and talk to your employer about a raise to get you to at least where your new coworker is, and it may work or it may not. There is a reason people job hop.
Leave bro lol