Hi everyone,
Something has been bugging me and this subreddit might not be the best place to put this, but I'm looking for some work related advice.
I am an account director at a digital marketing agency and manage several account managers (who also have teams of execs), and each team has clients they manage. One of my client teams had turnover and so we hired a new Account Manager (around 3 months ago). This new manager was hired from another country and we helped him with his visa process etc, and he is relocating to the UK in a few weeks.
In terms of his work ethic, it is strong in that he tries hard and wants to impress me, which is great, but his work hasn't been 100% up to scratch. It's been around 2+ months in and I am basically doing around 90% of his work (leading basic calls for him, replying to basic emails, completing tasks for him, managing his teams priorities and his own). It has been quite exhausting, but I have been doing this because I thought he is a new account manager and learning and he will learn by seeing how I do things (though I expected him to pick up things quicker by now).
Here's where I am a bit frustrated now. I had to approve his invoices for his salary (prior to him coming to the UK this is how we needed to pay him). I asked my manager how much his salary is to cross-check, and he told me it is £46k. For context, this is senior manager level (senior managers have significantly more experience and manage account managers and more teams, whereas I know that all our existing account managers who have progressed internally are on £40k.
I said to my manager, “what, he's on senior manager salary?” and he said “yup, seems like it”. I asked how I was supposed to move forward knowing this and how I am able to benchmark him against other managers when it comes to progression and pay reviews and I didn't get a clear answer, moreso like “we'll treat him as an account manager and figure out the rest”. This has made me mad because
A) He's not as good as the existing account managers on my team and is paid significantly more
B) I've been doing 90% of his work in good conscious that he's a new Account Manager and he's learning, but now I know that his salary is extremely close to mine and a senior level, it has irked me
C) The new account manager has expressed that he's keen to progress and is motivated to do well (i.e: get increase in pay) but how am I supposed to know what's appropriate when all along I've been told about these “bands” that we're supposed to give in terms of payrises and promotions.
Wonder if I should push my manager to ask him how I possibly move forward as is or just leave it be and try to ignore the pay difference and treat it as a level playing field with the other account managers on my team?