Should I stay at current job or find a new one?

[catccc]

I took on some additional work in Jan/Feb of this year. I've basically been doing 2 people's jobs. Last month I asked for a raise based on this, and was told "We agree with all the reasons you said you should have a raise, you have been doing a ton of high level work and doing it well. But we rarely do off-cycle increases, so the answer is no, sorry."

I'm not the most self-advocating person, so it was out of character for me to even ask, but I felt it was so plain that the answer should be yes. I thought there was no way they'd deny me! I may have been too polite and reassuring about it. (I really am happy here and I don't plan on leaving, but a raise would be nice for all that I'm doing... that kind of attitude was conveyed.) By the way, I work in finance, I know the company has plenty of money to do a 10% raise for me. That is all I asked for and I don't think that is unreasonable for 100% more value I'm providing by doing 2 jobs! There's no way they could hire someone to do one of the jobs for 10% of my salary!

At any rate, this employer already has some other strikes against it because there's been drama (between others) in the past, and they generally don't do a good job of managing their staff. Case in point, turnover here is absolutely atrocious- 12 departures in under 2.5 years I've been here. 5 fired, 7 quit. Bad news. Do I really want to work for people that won't recognize a job well done, even after someone asks for it outright? That fire people for random personal reasons? That nobody else wants to work for?

So what's the verdict? Continue to bust my butt and stick around till March 2013 and see what my reward is? Or start looking now?

[iris lily]

I don't see this as an either/or proposition: look around now, and if there's a clearly better opportunity, explore it. Meanwhile, continue to hang out in your current job.

[fidgiegirl]

I agree with Iris Lily. Plus, if you get an offer, who knows if their tune will change then.

However, if all the other drama is more of a factor, you have to weigh if ANYTHING would be worth it to keep you there. Note that I don't advocate quitting without having something else, though.

[Float On]

Look around.

They will never appreciate you...until you are gone.

[redfox]

And, once you have an offer, let your manager know that to keep you, they need to get that raise on the table asap if they want you to stay!

[SteveinMN]

we rarely do off-cycle increases, so the answer is no
Interesting wording. When are "on-cycle" raises given? Are we talking a few weeks from now or 2013? And including the word "rarely" tells me they do provide off-cycle increases; they just don't want to give one to you.

It would help you to know if you are being paid competitively for what you do. Your company doesn't sound like the type which would make available to employees grade/pay scales, but some companies do. Where do you fall in the pay scale for your grade? What would you likely make at other (preferably similar) companies performing essentially the same tasks? If you're below average pay for what does not seem to you to be a good reason (newbie, lack of degree, etc.), that's more ammunition for you. Bonus points if you can learn what the person you're replacing was paid. If you're at the top of what they pay people in your job, you still can negotiate, but it looks different.

Second, I would ask TPTB to outline the circumstances under which they do grant off-cycle increases (since they admitting to that). Then, privately, see how closely you meet those requirements now. If you're short one or two achievable ones, you might negotiate a date to meet them and then be given the raise. Or angle to have them call it a promotion so they can justify the extra pay for the extra work.

Third, how much is this raise worth to you? If TPTB believe you're happy enough and won't leave even if you don't get it, it's easy and entirely in their own interest to tell you 'no raise'. What would change for them and for you do if you don't get this raise? Would you quit doing the other person's job entirely? Cut back on both jobs to 40-50 hours a week? Leave the company? You have to make them believe they're losing more than just a few bucks if they don't give you the raise you expect. Given their turnover, that may be a hard sell.

I would go back, tell TPTB you were quite disappointed with their answer, you've thought about it some more, and you believe your situation warrants an off-cycle increase -- and spell it out using the additional information you have.

HOWEVER ... if it's not just the raise -- it sounds like there are plenty of other staff issues -- then you'll have to decide if the $$ alone will be enough for you to want to stay. Especially if you can easily find the same income elsewhere, it may not be worth going through all this just to skip town in a few months anyway because some other element of the job is driving you bats. And I would not line up another offer just to eke a counteroffer out of your current company. By the time most companies make you an offer, they've invested considerable time and effort on your behalf. To suggest to them that you're just "testing the waters" or were never serious about leaving anyway is, IMHO, not good for your career.

[fidgiegirl]

Ah! The Powers That Be!!

[ApatheticNoMore]

And I would not line up another offer just to eke a counteroffer out of your current company. By the time most companies make you an offer, they've invested considerable time and effort on your behalf. To suggest to them that you're just "testing the waters" or were never serious about leaving anyway is, IMHO, not good for your career.

By the time they have made you an offer *YOU* have invested substantial effort on your behalf! At the least a phone interview and an interview. But could be a phone interview with a recruiter, an in person interview with a recruiter, a phone interview with the employer, and then up to 1-3 in person interviews with the employer (many employers go the multiple interview route). All while you are working full time. Your effort and sacrifice depending on these factors may be far greater than the hiring company. A lot of effort if you don't actually find and take a better job out of it.

[SteveinMN]

By the time they have made you an offer *YOU* have invested substantial effort on your behalf! [snip] A lot of effort if you don't actually find and take a better job out of it.
That's true, you have invested time and energy into getting to the offer. My point, though, was that if you receive an offer for a better job, why even bother trying to get your current employer to counteroffer? Why not just take the new job?

And, speaking as someone who has actually had offers declined after all the work of interviewing, comparing, and the bureaucracy of getting an offer through Legal and HR, it's not often that there's another candidate that's similarly qualified and it often means starting over. I would be very disappointed to have been dealing with someone who was never serious about leaving their current employer. Despite the few million people who live in this metro area, within a lot of businesses, it's a surprisingly small world and people talk.

[catccc]

Thanks for all the advice. I will start looking. I was being paid competitively/well for my job before I took on the additional work. My title hasn't changed, so I didn't think a 10% increase was an unreasonable request for the additional work I am doing. I think you are right in that they will do off-cycle increases, they just said no to me. In fact, I heard thru the grapevine that their were "efforts made" to retain the last two people that left the department, that might have been an off-cycle increase. Next annual "on-cycle" is March 2013. I think it has been too long since my request (about a month) to go back and negotiate now. I don't know if this makes things better or worse, but they just named me employee of the month. I feel like it is in direct response to my compensation increase request. I don't know, maybe I'm being too negative, but I thought "Thanks for nothing, employee of the month doesn't help get me to FI3, which I believe is the point of all of this." Of course, what I said was "Thank you, I appreciate the recognition."

I would never accept a counter offer. After going thru with asking for the raise and being denied, I'm not going to give a second chance. Really I feel like they already had 2 chances. They could have chosen to recognize my work and give me an increase without asking. When they didn't after 5-6 months, I asked. And, I think after I interviewed, I'd be excited about the new job, and already be mentally checked out of the old one.

At previous job the same type of thing happened- they wanted me to move up to higher level work, but for a time I did 2 jobs. About a month into doing both jobs, they informed me they increased my salary, retroactive to when I started doing the additional work. My boss' boss went to HR and they thought I didn't need it b/c I wasn't complaining about my workload at all. She insisted that I am not one to complain, but knew I was doing extra work. That is the kind of employer I want to work for. (I left that job because I married and relocated. I would have stayed a while, it was great there.)

[SteveinMN]

cat, it's not too late to reopen negotiations -- if you want to stay. Being named Employee of the Month is nice recognition, but it's not as nice as monetary compensation for working two jobs. It does, however, prime the pump for "Y'know, I appreciate being named EotM, but that got me thinking about my contribution here and I believe the work I'm doing deserves higher compensation. Here's why...". But if you've decided you're done (been there, done that), there's no point in putting the work into that -- better to put it into finding a new position elsewhere.

[catccc]

Steve, you may be right that it isn't too late, but honestly my ego will not let them say no to me again. I know this is silly of me.

I'm going to try to move to doing only one of the jobs since they will not compensate me for both, and look outside of the company. But I feel like I have to wait a while, maybe a couple months. I feel like I can't follow "look, I'm doing 2 jobs, compensate me..." with "Hey, 2 jobs is too much, cut me some slack."

Sometimes I think I could get over it all and stay, and sometimes I think it is ridiculous to stay w/ what has been going on. A year ago I thought I could stay with the company for a long time despite the drama around. I stayed out of it and it didn't really affect me. Everyone around me was unhappy and wanted out. I was the one saying "who cares? I'm fine. I do my thing and go home!" And after this additional work and the raise fiasco, I'm just upset with it all...

[iris lily]

I'm sorry that you are experiencing this, but I have to ask: how can you be doing two full time jobs and not be working 80 hours a week? Are you working regularly more than 40?

The drama you describe is one thing and is separate from your workload issue (although certainly the environment is a factor.) You may work for a company that sees employees as just cogs in the wheels with plenty of other cogs out there to step in, I don't know.

But I do wonder about your work. Can you get the work done in a timely way and do a good job with quality output?

Recently, on a couple of fronts, I've encountered employees (not necessarily mine) who are quite certain that when someone leaves that position needs to be filled exactly in the same way and the work be performed in exactly the same way. Sometimes that's not the goal of management. In these cases management is deliberately letting some work go, accepting a standard of "less" in some other areas, allowing fallout to see what of those tasks really are necessary. Some version of this may be happening with you.

[catccc]

About how I'm doing 2 jobs... I work maybe 45-50. And I'm really stressed out about getting it all done. I cram it in by finding efficiencies. I've built automation into previously manual processes. Some of the expectations have changed on how much of my original job I am doing. So I am getting 2 jobs done by the skin of my teeth, and not able to do "extra" I usually like to do. You are also right about what tasks are really necessary. I've determined that some of the work from one job or another is not providing value and cut out those items so I'm not burning calories on useless stuff. We are definitely not an "exactly the same way" kind of place, to a fault, probably...

[SteveinMN]

Steve, you may be right that it isn't too late, but honestly my ego will not let them say no to me again. I know this is silly of me.
Not atl all, cat. It's all tied in with concepts of respect and fairness. I'm not even suggesting that you stay. I simply read in your OP that you were happy there, so it might have been worth trying for. Personally, I'm wary of places that have a revolving door in the Personnel Department. There typically are much bigger issues than pay levels.


I'm going to try to move to doing only one of the jobs since they will not compensate me for both, and look outside of the company. But I feel like I have to wait a while, maybe a couple months. I feel like I can't follow "look, I'm doing 2 jobs, compensate me..." with "Hey, 2 jobs is too much, cut me some slack."
I agree totally with Iris Lily on this. In my now-former day job, they'd been getting rid of people for years through attrition, retirement, and some outsourcing. Hardly anyone was responsible for just their old job anymore; there always was some departed co-worker they were picking up for, and not temporarily, either. Management did that with the explicit goal of letting the lower-priority stuff get lost by the wayside. Unfortunately, low priority does not equal no priority, and there were some good-sized messes to clean up (at top priority:doh: ) when too many corners were cut.

Your compensation is one of the few tangible ways that the company at which you work can demonstrate your value to them. If they aren't willing to compensate you even 10% more for doing almost 100% of two jobs, it's should be obvious that all that work isn't that important to them. So why bust your butt? I realize that may sound like a cr@ppy work ethic, but I've been in Corporate America for too long and seen too little money spent on value-producing employees and too much money spent on frippery like redecorating Mahogany Row or buying companies later sold at a big loss because some Ego thought they needed to do it.

[herbgeek]

I'm right with you there Steve on having a crappy work ethic. :laff:. Whenever I'm asked to add more to my plate, my first question is always "what would you like to have slide?" so that managers know it doesn't come for free. There have been sometimes when I still had to do it all temporarily, but often asking this simple question gets people to stop and think about it instead of going on auto pilot. Sometimes I couch it as "I want to make sure I am working on the things that are of highest priority to the company", which happens to be true but the real reason I do it is self preservation. I see so many people who work all kinds of crazy hours on tasks that no one really considers important or even reads the output of. People working on things not considered important are often the first to be laid off, despite the extra hours they've put in. If I'm going to work long hours, it'd better be for something important.

I had a co-worker who would be working til midnight-2am pretty much every night on top of the 9+ hours she worked in the office. Often no one even read the minutes she'd worked so hard on. Because she was always tired, she sometimes missed the important issues. What did she get out of this? High blood pressure and type 2 diabetes from the stress and eating fast food at her desk because she didn't feel she could get away for lunch.

[catccc]

I so appreciate your thoughts, Steve & herbgeek. I have always been in the business of saying "yes, I can do that, too." I know I need to learn to say no.

And about inequitable spending, yeah, you can find that here. I used to review some expense reports (just for correct coding, not to approve) and saw some ridiculous things. In the meantime, I went to a training that the company paid for, but they would not reimburse me for mileage or parking expenses. When people are blowing away much bigger bucks on entertainment and such, and they know I know it.

[fidgiegirl]

Ooh, that'd be hard, to see what others are getting and know there is the $$ to pay you for a basic courtesy like mileage but being told no. I know we shouldn't compare ourselves but I'd be right with ya on that one.

[lhamo]

what about putting it in terms of "I understand that off-cycle raises are not generally possible here -- when would be the appropriate time to start discussing a raise for the next budget cycle? Could we discuss it now and agree upon a date that it will be implemented, so that we all are prepared? Or agree upon what targets need to be hit for me to be assured raises of 10/15/20% in the next budget cycle?" (give yourself some room to really knock it out of the park!)

I work for an organization that can only give raises once a year -- that is just the way the budget works (positions are budgeted for in advance of the fiscal year, and there simply isn't the option of giving anyone a raise outside of that). But we also have performance objectives, and I just completed my performance review with my boss, and know that I will be getting SOME kind of raise (how much depends on what people higher than him approve), effective with the start of our next fiscal year.

If they aren't willing to discuss performance objectives and raise targets with you in advance, with the understanding that the actual implementation may need to wait for the budget to catch up, then I would indeed consider looking for alternative employment. YOu are clearly a skilled employee who can contribute strongly to any organization. Find one that will value that.


lhamo

[catccc]

Thanks again for all the feedback, everyone. Well, wish me luck, I'm looking...

[iris lily]

I'm right with you there Steve on having a crappy work ethic. :laff:. Whenever I'm asked to add more to my plate, my first question is always "what would you like to have slide?" so that managers know it doesn't come for free. There have been sometimes when I still had to do it all temporarily, but often asking this simple question gets people to stop and think about it instead of going on auto pilot. Sometimes I couch it as "I want to make sure I am working on the things that are of highest priority to the company", which happens to be true but the real reason I do it is self preservation. ...

And yet, this is a most business-like and practical approach that in the long run serves your employer very well. Your self preservation instinct also requires your employer to prioritize tasks because you have clearly communicated their need to do so. Constantly assessing work priorities is important and it gives them real life experience in the daily/weekly running of their work unit. When employees just take work dumps, don't communicate overloads, don't ask for help in prioritizing, that's as much of a problem as lack of downward communication. I see it all of the time.

[catccc]

Right, great perspective, Iris Lily. I have in the past had some great supervisors that did this for me, pushing off work from their superiors to regulate my workload. I need to learn to do it for myself.