My spouse and I work in the same small/medium sized company.
I got her the job after she was made redundant due to the pandemic when her company was making mass redundancy.
I am a manager of a separate department and she is now the companies credit controller and runs her own operations, no staff under her, she doesn’t need them.
When she joined her role was minimum wage, as it was a small job, doing data entry. She powered through this work,
and when another colleague left, she took on her role, no pay rise – despite the previous employee being on 6k more.
Another employee left, she took on that role too. Got a small pay rise of 3k. This employee was also on more than my spouse at the time.
These were both large roles in a lot of mess. I’ve watched the operations go from a complete shambles with no organisation, to a job she completes in 3 days a week. Our bad debt is halved, all customers are on payment plans. It’s never been better in the 7 years I’ve worked here.
We had our year end meeting last month and she was hoping for a significant pay rise after being able to finally show the amount of work she’s done and the level of organisation she’s created.
Got a “well done” and nothing.
She doesn’t feel like she should have to talk to our Directors, they should pay her the wage she’s hoping for – £27kpa (just over half what they paid the previous two employees together).
She does both these roles in 3 days, they were 5 days and not organised.
The rest of the time she walks around the office offering to help anybody who needs it – just to fill her days.
So, I today warned them.
My wife has been coming home in tears feeling under appreciated and under paid.
“She walks around asking for work. How can I give a pay rise to somebody who can’t fill their week with the work they have?”
I am in line for a large promotion soon, and I was told it would be a mistake for her to leave now when in 18 months, I’ll likely be running the company and able to make these decisions. But to me, we can barely scrape by monthly as it is, my wage isn’t much higher than what she’s wanting.
Why should she stay for a year and a half on a crap wage, when she could leave and do the same thing elsewhere for £28,000?
It is not my wife’s fault that she is good at her job and able to do it in a smaller period of time than your previous hires.
She should be paid a decent wage to do the job, at least the average for our area (26k).
If she finished her working week when she ran out of work, she would be docked 2/5ths of her wages because she’s paid hourly. She is being penalised for her productivity and ability to work hard. I even suggested they let her work every week until she completes her tasks, but not dock her for time not worked – no.
She’s handing her notice in on Monday and I’m right behind her.
I’m waiting to see all the work she’s done crash and burn when they bring in somebody else, who can’t keep up with the job.
Pay people for the job they do, not the hours they do it in.