On Obtaining Appropriate Compensation...

wpc4 asks: "I've been working at my current place of employment in California for going on 2.5 years. I work for a rather big HMO providing IT support for over 2000 users. In my time there I have had no negative feedback, I am the "go to" for the department, I have improved our service area's image to other IT departments in our organization, had one promotion, and so forth. I am currently making over $5k less than the minimum for my title, while some new employees just got hired with the same title and lesser skills as myself and were hired on at over 30% more than I make, yet I have 2.5 years of seniority. Since I'm not union I don't appear to have any way of trying to get myself compensated appropriately, is there anything in the California labor laws that I can pull into play? Any suggestions at all before I look for other employment?"

Comments

You are worth what the market will bear

[MerlynEmrys67]

Raises vs. being hired in new is a very sticky point. Especially in an up economy people who stay within a company tend to get screwed. For some reasons companies are psycologically unable to pay their people what they are worth vs. hiring in new people for what the market will bear.

That said, in a down market like we tend to be in now, companies will tend to leave your salary alone and bring in people with lower salaries because that is all it takes to recruit someone into the company.

In my career, the only time I have gotten BIG increases in salary is when I have changed jobs (most of the time reluctantly, but twice because I wanted too) getting over 50% increases when I leave (vs. getting 5-10% raises for staying). This is the bassis for what I was saying above.

How do you deal with this. It depends on your faith in your job skills, and the relationship that you have with your management chain. Do you go to your manager and say... Listen, I fell that my job title deserves this pay, please lets work on how to get it together, or if you think he is going out of his way to screw you on pay (many people think this, when all they have to do is really ask, but it is a posibility) then it might be worth looking for another position within the company, or outside the company. I would however not recomend it with todays economy, wait a year or so for tech jobs to pick back up so you aren't faced with the same problem in 3 years