I started a new job at the beginning of the year as a manager of a finance institution. I accepted a lower than expected salary offer because my significant other encouraged me to do so and I thought it had to do with my lack of a college degree (I have previous management and finance experience). When I was interviewed they told me the previous manager was removed because he couldn’t product sales numbers and had no community involvement, I had a lot of experience in sales so this didn’t intimidate me. On my first day I realized that employee hadn’t been released, he was just demoted and now under me.
Several months pass and they give my payroll and time cards. As I was processing payroll I noticed that the demoted employee and one other direct report makes the same amount as me, likely even more because they are hourly employees and receive overtime. I felt very discouraged by this because he is known to be very unproductive and doesn’t do very many of his job duties, I’m expected to fix that problem, which is 30 YEARS of bad habits, but I get the same salary. I feel angry and a bit betrayed because numbers have tripled since I started and they say my location is busier than they’ve ever seen it. I go out of my way to network and attend community events and handle a lot of different tasks and recently took on even more job duties that aren’t in my description.
I asked my boss for a salary increase based on merit, performance, and local salaries at competing institutions. I only asked for 8k more and that’s still lower than the trending salaries. I didn’t mention the other employees that make the same as me, because I figured if they gave me payroll they knew I would see the numbers (I guess they expected me to be fine with it?). They offered 4,000 now and 4,000 in January. I’m still upset, supposedly I’m a valued employee that they need, yet they didn’t feel the need to pay me what I’m worth.
Should I look for jobs at competitors or stick it out? I’m glad that they are trying to accommodate my salary request, but I wonder if they tried to pull this one over on me what else they might attempt.