3 ms·
It was a landmark year in part due to freezing pay. I don’t know, everyone likes more money, but having been in leadership positions and now being an owner it’s
by aksss 3y ago
It was a landmark year in part due to freezing pay. I don’t know, everyone likes more money, but having been in leadership positions and now being an owner it’s not as simple as most “individual contributors” tend to imagine. For non-trade/non-service industry jobs, longevity or inflation are never good things to peg pay rates to, imo. Market rates and individualized retention considerations are good. For all we know, the “pay increase” budget was used to fund higher premium costs on the backend to keep ee benefit costs flat. With the glut of industry layoffs and supply of talent theoretically seeing a bump, a pay freeze doesn’t sound absurd to me. IME, the reality is that most higher level employees don’t jump over single digit percentage pay increases. If they dislike the environment they’ll go in any case unless you’re paying an absurd nuisance fee to keep them. If they like the environment and job, it’s worth more to them to stay in that environment and ride out these intermittent policies. I’ve never worked at a company where I felt entitled to an annual cost of living pay raise. If you feel you’re getting a fair deal for the important work you’re doing, keep doing it. If it’s a raw deal, jump. But the entitlement attitude is one I stereotypically associate with lower-value cattle employees. Do more, get paid more. Take on more responsibility, get paid more. Career and talent progression isn’t simply pegged to time for everyone, and so neither is pay.
- StarterPro 3y agoI'm not sure if "entitlement" is the correct term. The biggest part that owners/leaders tend to forget is that no work gets done without employees. If the leaders took the cut instead of the employees, then we'd actually see the entitlement come into play.
- refulgentis 3y agoI don't come from much, had a successful if scrappy startup and am at FAANG now. I feel ya. This is a blinkered view, though I appreciate it. The key to the negative vibe is the absurdity of it all: the expectations set swung _rapidly_, MS is clocked $18B in profit right before announcing these freezes, and no, revenues don't go up from freezing pay. Note also the savings from the pay freeze haven't happened yet - they're saying no raises until December 2024, so savings starts in December 2023.
- aksss 3y agoYeah, guilty of not reading article detail, was assuming their net was landmark, and no, not assuming revenue is impacted by reduced expense. Also assumed pay freeze was presently in effect, meaning immediate cost avoidance and predictable expense though term of policy. Either way, I have some sympathy for the business interest and would be as interested in the internal rationale, at least as much as the reactionary injustice take/assumption.
- mutant 3y agoThe privilege and entitlement dripping from this post makes me sick to my stomach.
- aksss 3y agoIt's the experience of being responsible for a broader whole. Hard decisions are required in that context. It all seems simple from the outside - I know because I've been there too.
- salawat 3y agoI'll grudgingly second this. at a certain point, you simply run out of options. you have fixed cash flow, bills to pay, people (service providers) wanting more, and growth is genuinely hard. The thing that disgusts me about it, is we're not more clear about these sorts of things in terms of manager/employee relations.