13 ms·

We had an all-hands meeting recently where we got to submit anonymous questions. One of the questions was 'with inflation rising at 6%, will the company recons

• chinathrow 5y ago
  > 'Honestly? No' The 'No' alone would be enough, but the 'Honestly?' would me want to look for other jobs right away.
  • lelanthran 5y ago
    >> 'Honestly? No' > > The 'No' alone would be enough, but the 'Honestly?' would me want to look for other jobs right away. Can you explain why one is worse than the other? (I'm not being facetious, I'd really rather like to know).
    • mac01021 5y ago
      I suspect the GP is interpreting "Honestly?" as an expression of incredulity at being asked the question - as though the asker did not know their place as an employee. I can see how such an attitude would be offputting, but I do not believe that is the correct interpretation of the HR spokesperson's meaning.
      • chinathrow 5y ago
        You're right. English is not my first language and I've read the "Honestly?" more as "Seriously?".
        • mac01021 5y ago
          It's just an english idiom that doesn't mean much. It's like saying "If you are looking for an honest response, the answer is no."
        • confidantlake 5y ago
          Sometimes it something like "I know you won't want to hear this" or "I suspect you won't like the answer". It is prefacing something like I know you don't want to hear this but I would rather be honest than lie about it.
• tjpnz 5y ago
  In my experience HR are never receptive to those types of arguments. If you want a raise the best thing you can do is find a new job.
  • kelseyfrog 5y ago
    The best thing you can do is organize your workplace. Job hopping allows businesses to eat the market at the edges and eventually squeeze those demands out of the labor pool.
    • roenxi 5y ago
      Inflation doesn't - fundamentally - change the power balance between employers and employees. Market forces will cause the situation to find a fair market price. If job hopping can't get you better wages, then you probably don't have enough market power to resist if an employer flat-out cuts your pay. Though to try and prevent misunderstandings - I do think inflation is bad for people who are paid wages. Market forces aren't perfect and "market price" is really a band of prices. Inflation pushes all workers to the low end of the band and means if anyone doesn't feel like negotiating they will be pushed in to a bad deal by default.
      • pabs3 5y ago
        Late last century inflation and then wages keeping up with that inflation enabled a generation of folks to pay off their first mortgages quite quickly.
        • skywal_l 5y ago
          Absolutely but this also assumes a fairly "elastic" housing market able to absorb the demand. I am not sure the market is still able to do that with the NYMBYsm and malthusianism around new housing. In high tension area, the price could quickly increase faster than general inflation. I believe CPI does not include house prices.
          • deleted 5y ago
• aeternum 5y ago
  It's foolish to raise by 6% across the whole company when most employees are too lazy to interview elsewhere. Whether or not employees are actually worth 6% more they should not have a problem finding a new job in this market (that will pay 6% more).
  • nicoco 5y ago
    I think you're missing the point. With a 6% inflation, a 6% raise means the employees are worth the same as before, not more.
    • aeternum 5y ago
      Depends on whether we're talking about real or nominal wages. Regardless, my main point is that most people must switch jobs to see the increase. Wages grew 6.6% for job switchers so it is keeping up with inflation. IT and professional services was 10.5%+ but again only for job switchers. https://www.valuepenguin.com/news/ADP-wage-growth-report https://www.valuepenguin.com/news/ADP-wage-growth-report
      • actually_a_dog 5y ago
        So, the economically rational thing for everyone to do is to engage in this gigantic game of musical chairs, if they care about the number at the bottom of their paystub? That's silly, and a great way to throw away a lot of specialized domain knowledge.
        • aeternum 5y ago
          There's a lot of value in playing musical chairs. The market is pretty good at allocating human labor. Some companies get left without people in the seats and others, often the more innovative companies end up with more than they had before. A labor market with high liquidity leaves most people better off.
          • actually_a_dog 5y ago
• onion2k 5y ago
  we're reasonably competitive with the local market One of the best things Covid has done for my salary is make remote work far more common so I could get a job outside of the local market without having to move.
• laurent92 5y ago
  The principle of inflation is to dynamically adjust: - Available products in the world, - Number of people who can afford them. With Covid, we didn’t produce for 2 months in 2020 and we’ve produced slower in 2021. And all governments distributed free money. So, in theory there is clearly not enough goods produced for everyone in the world. Prices should rise dynamically until 10% fewer people can afford them than in 2019. Where are the people who can’t afford buying things? There should be a diminution of 10% global consumption, where is it? Where are the people whose company won’t be able to match inflation, even if they unionize?
  • adflux 5y ago
    Global consumption expressed in...? That currency which inflated
    • laurent92 5y ago
      Expressed in goods. The role of an economic system, communist capitalist or any other, is to organize the delivery of goods. We’ve produced 10% fewer goods in 2020, someone must deprive themselves. The inflated currency doesn’t matter, who’s the people who are depriving themselves while I’ve made a fortune and bought a house? I see we’re a whole lot who won the jackpot with Covid, who are the losers and why aren’t they already revolting?
    • lrem 5y ago
      No. Ignore currencies, which are just our best approximation of a reasonable measure of wealth. The problem is that over the course of pandemic the world has produced less actual wealth. Unless we somehow reduced waste, we should now be able _on average_ to afford less.
  • pjc50 5y ago
    > Where are the people who can’t afford buying things? The already-marginalized? "The Trussell Trust reported a 33 per cent increase in the number of three-day emergency food parcels in 2020-21 compared to 2019-20," https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-8585/ https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-... > There should be a diminution of 10% global consumption, where is it? Hospitality and travel.
• thatjoeoverthr 5y ago
  I just went through this. They gave a one percent raise, last year, because COVID. (The company was fine.) Inflation around five. I talked to recruiters and got a new job, with nearly forty percent increase. Prior employer offered me a large increase to stay. I did not. A raise below inflation is a pay cut. That’s enough.
  • what_is_orcas 5y ago
    > A raise below inflation is a pay cut. A couple years ago my previous company cut the standard yearly raise from 3% to 2%. When inflation went crazy during the pandemic I started casually dropping the quoted line into every conversation with coworkers I could. I even threw out some feelers around organizing but I was always laughed off by someone or other.
• ergocoder 5y ago
  Google HR answered this question in a company-wide forum. It is mostly the market (e.g. the other company pay high, so we do too). The living cost doesn't really matter. I appreciate the honesty though.
  • Shish2k 5y ago
    Facebook HR also got the same question (with the same answer) in the company-wide forum this week. Did I miss some big news story that’s causing this to be on everybody’s mind recently?
    • meragrin_ 5y ago
      It isn't one specific thing. It is just an entire year of shortages and higher prices with no end in sight. I was promoted and received a decent raise this year. With previous raises outside the standard yearly raise, there was a difference. With this one, just treading water.
    • ergocoder 5y ago
      This was years ago at Google. This question is not new
  • notreallyserio 5y ago
    If that's truly the case then they would pay the same salary regardless of location. Do they? A lot of big employers have proudly said no, they'd pay remote workers less if they're in cheaper locations.
    • colinmhayes 5y ago
      Developers in low cost of living regions demand less money, so they're paid less. Sounds like Google is doing exactly what they said.
      • notreallyserio 5y ago
        I'm not sure that's currently the case, what with the move to long term remote work. Do you have data showing workers demanding less pay after moving to cheaper areas while retaining the same position in the same organization?
• wernercd 5y ago
  I, on the other hand, got a 14% raise last month without prompting. Not all companies are run by idiots.
• bjarneh 5y ago
  > It pretty much let everyone on the call know what they needed to do if they wanted a good raise. What did you tell them?
• atoav 5y ago
  I think if you are taking a new job this should be one of your expectations as well: "Will the wage be coupled to inflation?"
  • atoav 5y ago
    And if they say "No" you can ask them if this means you will earn less in 5 years than you start with now, at which point they probably realize that this isn't an attractive offer and either change the conditions for you, or don't take you.
• camillomiller 5y ago
  What I don’t get is this: this person is also an employee who would benefit from that raise ratio. So why is she feeling like her job is to defend the competitiveness of the company in front of other coworkers? The incentives are completely messed up in corporate
  • onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago
    Because if she didn't defend the company on the call she'd be fired??
  • Shish2k 5y ago
    > So why is she feeling like her job is to defend the competitiveness of the company in front of other coworkers? Because that is literally HR’s job description? (If you’re looking for a group similar to an HR department, but flipped so that their job description is “defend the workers in front of the company”, that’s a union)
• furyg3 5y ago
  My employers automatically corrects for inflation at the end of each year. Of course it's still 'behind the curve', since inflation happening this year is only compensated next year, but it's still something. Pro-tip, if you have yearly performance/raise/bonus discussions, let your manager tell you all of the nice things to justify why they are giving you a raise. Dig into it, be super grateful and receptive. Then ask "oh of course this is in addition to an inflation compensation, right?" If not, it's appropriate to be genuinely confused about why you're actually not getting a raise at all given his/her stated reasons why you are deserving of one.
  • stemlord 5y ago
    I just had the opposite happen to me where I asked for a raise and my manager asks if I've considered annual inflation compensation. It was both funny and depressing
• choppaface 5y ago
  Why compare the “standard raise” with inflation when you could compare it with the CEO’s total comp? Is the ratio of CEO-to-employee pay competitive? Has the company’s pandemic response increased or decreased this ratio? How about comparing employees versus the comp awarded to the board or other investors? Tell HR and the C-levels that the employees are making a big investment of themselves at the company. Shape the dialog such that the leadership has to recognize the employees as investors, not cogs.
• helen___keller 5y ago
  I worked for a midsize tech company until recently. At the end of 2020, I did well on my annual performance review but did not see a compensation increase. In the 2021 mid cycle review, I got a promotion to the next level and saw about a 7% compensation increase. At every all-hands since late 2020, the topic of attrition and comp comes up. Every time, the response was that they're keeping an eye on local market conditions and attrition, and if it looks like we're falling behind we'll make adjustments. Anyways, I left for big tech and got a 70% raise (despite a downlevel)
  • _fat_santa 5y ago
    You know what sucks is that I'm currently with a similar midsize tech company. Love the work, the company and the people; but, I also know that I'm probably only getting a 2-5% bump at the end of this year and if I want anything more I have to go looking for another gig. It sucks that every job has a "lifespan" of only 2-3 years before it would be foolish not to go get another job for a massive pay bump. As much as I love my current employer I'll probably leave sometime in 22"
  • wombat-man 5y ago
    yeah when they say they're "keeping an eye..." they're probably just waiting for attrition to get bad enough. You did the right thing for your old coworkers. Perhaps your departure and others will lead them to reconsider their position.
• dfxm12 5y ago
  It pretty much let everyone on the call know what they needed to do if they wanted a good raise. What is needed? I mean, if she's a straight shooter and your salaries are competitive locally, does that mean you'll have to up up and move elsewhere? That costs time and money, and to be honest, wages are low nation-wide. This does highlight the fact that wages are kept low almost by a concerted effort among employers. They aren't going to change out of the goodness of their hearts. Change has to come from the government (don't hold your breath), or from workers acting collectively.
• yibg 5y ago
  To be fair, the company's goal is to pay enough to attract and retain the right talent, not to keep up with inflation. e.g. if everyone else in the market is giving 0%, why would they give 6%? Also, I assume employees would be pretty upset (I would be) if they got -2% if there is deflation happening, so seems a bit of a double standard there. Long way of saying I think tying increase to inflation is kinda silly.