I’m on mobile, so apologies for formatting.
I used to love the agency I worked for. I was so proud to tell people I worked for them and what we did. When an internal position I REALLY wanted opened up, I applied and was ecstatic to hear I received it. Then I noticed my pay rate was the starting rate for this position.
This was an issue because we all had received two agency wide raises last year, totaling a little over $1/hour. These went to everyone in the agency, and I thought that since they weren’t specific to any position they’d carry over.
Apparently not. To note, it’s not written anywhere in the employee manual or contract that agency wide raises aren’t portable. This is just “how they’ve always done it.”
I argued back and forth with them for four months about this, even up to the CEO, and still nothing changed despite the fact that they had no argument against raise portability. Just, “that’s how we’ve always done it.”
They were actually surprised when I resigned. I’d been making less than my team members for FOUR MONTHS (and as far as I’ve heard they still haven’t fixed the issue). When I left the team, there were only 2 people left working, and one only did weekends. They were hosed.
I found a much better job, with better pay and benefits. AND we just got a much more substantial agency wide raise here, about $3/hour more.
Thanks to this sub, I realized that liking where I worked wasn’t enough if I wasn’t making a livable wage or being valued for my work.