OK so obviously getting a pay rise is great news for me, however the purpose of this post is not to rub everyone’s face in my good fortune* but to tell you about some of the comments made by my boss, and the resulting conversation we had. Some of the topics I thought were pertinent to this blog, some I thought were just quite interesting, and some I found rather strange or amusing. (And some all of the above!)

1. Despite just giving me nearly a 20% raise she still said it was less than I deserved. Obviously I was over the moon with it, so I made the point I’ve made a times few times now that I’m not really too fussed about money and would prefer if anything more free time and less demanding work schedules**. I mention this quite often, in the hope that I am planting a seed that I can successfully negotiate a 4 or maybe even 3 day work week at some point in the future (with corresponding pay cut if necessary, of course), and approach the subject without causing too much of a surprise.

This led on to our usual chat about being understaffed; hence the demanding work schedules (bet you couldn’t see that one coming!). She made a really strange comment which was something along the lines of: “If we employ more people and everyone isn’t working on overdrive, then they’ll have more time to brush up their skills and end up leaving to employers who are paying higher wages.”

Wow… did I really just hear that? She doesn’t want workers improving their skills as then they’ll realise they are being underpaid and jump ship as soon as possible?! It’s just like the proverbial “Lock In” that Jacob talks about in chapter two of his brilliant and enlightening ERE book, or those psychological chains people often talk about which keep them tied to a particular job or position. That seems like serious backwards thinking to me, and I don’t think this is the right way to think about your business and it’s employees. I’d have thought a much more astute way to look at things employee wise would be to:

1. Hire enough people to do the jobs required, so people aren’t overworked and stressed. Greater job satisfaction.
2. Help develop staff as much as possible.
3. Pay them what they are worth!!!***

The final comment which just made me chuckle internally really, was about bonuses. The comment was something along the lines of :

“So next year your bonus should be quite a big chunk, so you can really do something with it like buy a new car, rather than just pay off your credit card bill.”

Oh if only they knew… 😉

 

 

* On the contrary, this site is all about helping others, so I’ll be writing a post or two soon about how to further your career and how to get a good pay rise. In the four years since 2009 I’ve managed to increase my salary  by 85%, in what is supposedly an economic depression, so I’ll be sharing the methods that I think were instrumental in helping me achieve this! Back ↑

**Please note never just say “I don’t really care about money” as I stupidly have done in the past, without making it clear that there is some sort of caveat or alternative you’d like instead (more free time). Many “managers” will hear that and just think, “ok no raise for you for the next few years”. Back ↑

***To put this into context this is not a company that is struggling in any sense of the word, quite the opposite in fact, and has the financial backing from a company in the top 50 of the FTSE 100. So spare cash for a few extra employees and a few raises where deserved should not be hard to come by. Back ↑