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Antiwork

What is a viable solution to the issue of external candidates being paid significantly more than their internal peers.

This is a subject that gets me riled. I recently started working as a manager in a company. I am an external hire. I quickly learned that my peers who have been with the company a very long time make a significantly lower salary than I do. Not only that, but some of my assistant managers make more than some of those in my position. I didn’t discuss my wages directly with any peers, but it all came to light when they saw the rate of one of these assistants while I was training in their buildings. I wasn’t surprised. I know this happens in most companies. But it made me feel terrible. My peers are busy as hell, facing staffing shortages left and right, and getting paid less than me to train me on how to do the most basic of tasks. I was on the receiving end of…


This is a subject that gets me riled. I recently started working as a manager in a company. I am an external hire. I quickly learned that my peers who have been with the company a very long time make a significantly lower salary than I do. Not only that, but some of my assistant managers make more than some of those in my position. I didn’t discuss my wages directly with any peers, but it all came to light when they saw the rate of one of these assistants while I was training in their buildings. I wasn’t surprised. I know this happens in most companies. But it made me feel terrible. My peers are busy as hell, facing staffing shortages left and right, and getting paid less than me to train me on how to do the most basic of tasks.

I was on the receiving end of this injustice in my first “real” job, where I had moved up the ladder. I found out after leaving that I was most likely making on average of about 20K less than my peers. At that time in my career, I hadn’t learned how to maintain strong personal boundaries (still a work in progress), and I gave my ALL to a company that disrespected me on almost every level. I would work 80+ hours a week sometimes on salary, neglecting much more important things to do so.

Having been on both sides of this situation, I don’t know which feels worse; being paid less than my worth compared to my peers, or being the one paid more than them because…I didn’t put in many years of loyal service to the company?

So, what’s the solution? I understand why it happens. If someone is getting promoted, they wouldn’t immediately be put at the highest end of the range for their new position. If you are near the cap for your position, you won’t receive raises for very long, which is undesirable for most people. However, if you are external talent, you may not accept a new position unless it pays above or at least on par with what you already make.

The few things I can think of to fix this issue are 1) a higher range in general for internal promotes, both on the low end and the high end of the scale 2) no wage caps for positions taken by internal candidates or 3) significantly more benefits for years of service – and I don’t mean just a couple extra vacations a year. Larger (or any, as the case may be) company 401K match, additional bonuses, AND more PTO. And honestly point 2 may not even fairly compensate for the lower salary depending on just how aggressive the benefit package was. Also, I think it’s unrealistic that companies would make these changes on their own. If they were forced to, another common problem of companies focusing too little on internal talent may worsen.

What are your thoughts? I’m curious to know what you think of both my own ideas, and what your particular ideas are for fixing this sick corporate culture issue.

EDIT: My lack of a question mark in the title is really bothering me, but I don’t want to start fresh.

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