Getting Paid Fairly When Job Responsibilities Spiral?

greymond writes "I was originally hired as an Online Content Producer to write articles for a company website as well as start up the company's social media outlets on Facebook and Twitter. With budget cuts and layoffs I ended up also taking over the website facilitation for three of the company's websites (they let go of the current webmaster). During this time the company has been developing a new website and I was handed the role of pseudo project manager to make sure the developer stayed on course with the project's due date. Now that we're closer to launch the company has informed me that they don't have the budget or staff in place to set up the web server and have tasked me with setting up the LAMP and Zend App on an Amazon EC2 setup. While it's been years since I worked this much with Linux I'm picking it up and moving things along. Needless to say I want to ask for more money, as well as more resources (as well as a better title that fits my roles), but what is the best way to go about this? Of course my other thought is that I'd much rather go back to writing and working with marketing than getting back into IT."

Comments

Dear Playboy, it happened to me

[AnAdventurer]

I was in the same spot, hired as a web content person, next thing I knew I was IT manager for the corporation doing PC support, hands-on sever, PBX, twisted pair, web development and CSM rec, integration and more. I was working 60-80 a week and after 6 months I got a "good job" and no raise, another 2 months and I had to ask for a raise. I got a big "why and NO", needless to say my enjoyment of my job went to zero and it showed. I was asked to resign 3 weeks later. They has to hired 2 people to replace me.

Re:Dear Playboy, it happened to me

[williamhb]

I was in the same spot, hired as a web content person, next thing I knew I was IT manager for the corporation doing PC support, hands-on sever, PBX, twisted pair, web development and CSM rec, integration and more. I was working 60-80 a week and after 6 months I got a "good job" and no raise, another 2 months and I had to ask for a raise. I got a big "why and NO", needless to say my enjoyment of my job went to zero and it showed. I was asked to resign 3 weeks later. They has to hired 2 people to replace me.

So this is part of the issue: under those circumstances what you ask for is not a "raise" but an appointment to the position you are doing (which co-incidentally happens to come with a jump in salary). If they see it as "Joe Bloggs wants more money" they'll tend to say no. HR and management are well-practiced in trying to minimise salary creep across their organisations. If they see it as "Joe Bloggs is asking to step up to the next stage of his career, he's clearly been gaining the experience necessary, and if we say no he's likely to take that step up elsewhere" they are more likely to say yes. HR and management are also well-versed in how they are *supposed* to support career-development (even though it takes prodding to get them to do it), and the fact they have given you extra responsibilities suggests you are an employee they don't want to lose. Of course, you also have to be 'not bluffing' -- if they don't move on the appointment, don't be grumpy but just go elsewhere using the experience and skills they have given you. It's a small world, and you may well end up working for them again in a more senior role later.

Re:Dear Playboy, it happened to me

[primerib]

When you ask for a raise or a promotion, you are upping the ante and entering into a haggling situation. You are implicitly saying "Scrutinize me and you'll find that my skills and contributions to the company far exceed my level of compensation, to the point that there's a real chance of another company offering me superior compensation". Remember, the vast majority of companies won't give a raise because it's the fair thing to do, they give a raise because it's a better value to secure that employee's skills in the workplace than to risk having them hired up by another company. That said, the best advice I've been given is to never ask for a raise unless you have a job offer from another company in hand.

Beyond that, all the companies I've worked at as an adult have had an unwritten policy of saying "No, why?" to anyone's first raise request. This makes sense because for a good portion of people requesting raises you will be calling their bluff; they will either back down and take the same pay they had, or show through their actions that they weren't worth a raise at all. A select few will come back with a bargaining chip and an ultimatum ("This is what the market says about my value, and these will be the consequences of you not giving me a raise"), and ask for a second raise... In my experience, these are the people who actually have a real chance of getting a raise. Additionally, some of the companies I worked at had policies in place that required both HR and the employee's direct management to approve a raise, so there was no way they could say 'Yes' the first time someone asked.

As it stands, you asked your company to intensely scrutinize your contributions to the workplace and then immediately showed them that your job at their company isn't important to you.
If I were your manager, I probably would've fired you too. My logic would have been: "Hmm, so he asked for a raise because he must have received a job offer, and after the initial meeting he's no longer doing his work... That would indicate that he has accepted a position at another company and was using the raise question here as leverage for negotiations at his new job. He has no intention of staying, and his continued presence in the workplace is a risk to the company".

Wait until 1 month to launch

[Opportunist]

Then tell them "More money or I go. Yes, I know that I'm basically what the whole thing hangs on. I'm your project manager, your web monkey, your server manager, your everything, basically. So, let's discuss my payment, title and other job perks".

But phrase it nicely. Managers don't like to have a dagger at their throat. Even if they basically handed it to you.

Re:Amnesia an option?

[bbernard]

I'd advise having an exit strategy in the works. Start interviewing because there is no better time to negotiate a new job than when you currently have one. You don't want to work for a company that is willing to "knowingly" take advantage of you. If you're comfortable with your management chain, bring this issue up to them.

Under no circumstances "threaten" to leave, or tell them that you've got a new job and want them to match salaries, etc. Get yourself an offer you like, and then start negotiating with your current employer. If you tell them you're looking at leaving or that you've got a new job offer, their motivation will only be to placate you until they can replace you. If you "work with them" on aligning your salary with your tasks you've got a better job at keeping a long-term relationship with them.

Otherwise, find a better job opportunity and take it.

what not to do

[John_Sauter]

I hope my story will serve as a cautionary tale. In 1995 I was hired as the junior person in a two-person IT department. My boss immediately began training me so I could cover for her during vacations and illnesses, and of course she covered for me.

In 2005 she left abruptly. Because her departure was unexpected I naturally began to do her job in addition to my own, just as I did when she took vacation. I also asked for a temporary salary bump to compensate me for the added responsibility, until either (a) I got a promotion to the senior position and someone was hired into the junion position, or (b) someone was hired to replace her. Because of our longevity we were both at the top of our grade in salary, but the bottom of her grade was above the top of mine, so a bump to the bottom of her grade would have meant an increase for me.

After six months of being rebuffed I concluded that they were happy with the status quo: they were getting what had historically been a two-person job at the price of one junior salary. I felt put upon, because I was no longer able to take vacation.

Here is where I made my mistake: I became obstinate, and declared that I would no longer do the jobs that had historically been the responsibility of the senior person. Within a week I was unemployed.

Be smarter than I was. There is some good advice in this thread, which I wish had been available to me.

Yep

[Sycraft-fu]

I've seen some funny situations like this. Friend of mine was in a similar thing of they kept heaping on more work and refusing to raise his pay. They didn't lay him off, they just wouldn't pay him any more so he left. About 2 weeks later they were calling him, desperate. The new guy couldn't figure something out, the site was down, nothing was working, they were so screwed would he please, PLEASE come in and fix it? He literally laughed and said ok sure, for a couple grand up front. They said no, he hung up. They called him a few more times begging before finally, angrily, agreeing to pay a hefty consulting fee. He went in and fixed their problem and they tried to hand him a bunch more work and he said "Nope, see ya!"

They went out of business around a year later, due to I'm sure many other bad decisions.

It is silly to think employees will just take whatever you tell them to and should be happy for the privilege. No, the good ones will leave and will find other work. You can say "Well nobody is irreplaceable," and while that is a general global truth, it can be false in specific situations. You can find that someone you shuffle out was extremely important to your operation, and you cannot replace them in the time frame that is needed and for the price you can afford. As such part (or all) of your company may suffer performance wise or even fail.

New people are not immediately 100% productive, it takes time to learn systems (the more specialized the longer) and finding good people can be hard. In particular if you need someone who is willing to hit the ground running immediately, do a ton of work, etc you are usually talking a consultant and an expensive one at that, or a consulting firm and several consultants. You can spend a year's salary in a few weeks easy depending on what you need.

Re:Bad, Bad Idea

[Opportunist]

Well, technically, if you have to know, yes, I'm kinda irreplacable. Last time I checked there are about 5 people on this marble we call Earth that have the set of skills I can offer. Granted, there's also only a market for about 500, but you can probably see that there's not always "100 candidates per job". Sometimes, you have 100 jobs per candidate. Or, in other terms... I probably make more money than you. And I don't even have to play golf to get it.

But let's assume I'm replacable. Yes, you can fire me. And hire someone else. Who will need about 1-3 months to get "into" the job, depending on his skill level. If he is one of the few people who can pick up an IT job made for 4 people in just 1 month, expect to pay him WELL. After that time, he could become productive. After that time, though, he usually also finds out that you're essentially underpaying him, because he has the workload of four people to carry on a one person paycheck. So there's two possible outcomes: He's either also asking for more money or he finds something better without first asking for more money. Either way, you're again looking for someone who will, again, need 1-3 months to get into the game.

The idea of hire and fire has NEVER worked well in IT. IT ain't bricklaying or plumbing. It's not "you've done it once, you do the same here". You never do the same job in two different companies. Even if they happen to have essentially the same goals. You will never be able to "plug and play" someone. And you can utterly forget it when it comes to development.

In other words, yes, you can easily hire someone else. If you can handle the lost output of about a quarter. Always provided that you don't fall for someone only claiming to have the skills you want and HR being too stupid to weed out the duds.