Do people really get fired for looking at other job options? 11

[bradpa77]

I'm sure we've all heard the story before.

Joe Blow was reading job postings online and the boss found out. Joe was fired for being an unloyal employee.

I've heard several variations of the story, but they all have the same moral: Don't let your boss know you're looking at other career options or else you might get fired.

Does anyone have any real-world stories to validate this rule-of-thumb?

I just find it hard to believe that anyone would fire an employee just because they are interested in other career paths. We all get sick of our jobs from time to time and wonder how green the grass is on the other side. It's only human nature to check out your options in life. How can you label someone 'disloyal' in these instances? It doesn't seem right.

 

[ajack1]

Prost I do not have to read posts from people who have been laid of for the first time, that is the reason I started on my own and set up in the first place.

What made it even more annoying was that the company I worked for was profitable and had a good and loyal work force. Basically they started developing around where the factory was, land prices shot up and he sold the land. My ex boss walked away a millionaire many times over and I with all the work force walked away with the absolute legal minimum and was told on Monday that we would be finished on Wednesday. The longest serving employee had been with him 27 years; he was treated just the same as everyone else. I do know how it feels and it is not nice.

That has made me even more determined never to treat anyone I employ in that way.

As I said I am not in the position to pay the best money around but do the best I can and try to make up in other ways, like being very flexible about when people work, giving them the odd paid day off when we are not busy, that type of thing.

I try to be very trusting and honest but this does leave you open to being burned but general my staff and customers seem to like it that way. I am often out the office and people can if they wish sit there on the net looking for jobs, I do not monitor them, but I would be very annoyed if they did, that would be abusing my trust as I see it.

If people wish to leave for whatever reason that is fine, I was once in that situation I know what it is like to want to better yourself, just please don’t do it in my time.

Trust and loyalty HAS to be a two way street, if you do not give it how can you expect to receive it?

 

[Ashereng]

Trust and loyalty HAS to be a two way street, if you do not give it how can you expect to receive it?

I agree with you. The problem is usually the answer to this question: "Now, who goes first?". In you case, it seems you do. Good on ya!

It would be nice if you were in Petroleum rather than Automotive. Oh well. Maybe I can come over to mechanical.


"Do not worry about your problems with mathematics, I assure you mine are far greater."
Albert Einstein
Have you read FAQ731-376 to make the best use of Eng-Tips Forums?

 

[jmw]

Ashereng,

"My bosses have two ways to find out if I want more money - by asking me, or by seeing me leave."

you place too much faith in management.
There is an option that should be open to you in the annual review process: to make sure your boss knows what are your expectations. He may not ask, he may be surprised to see you leave, he may ask "why didn't you say something? if you had, maybe I could have gone to bat at budget time but i assumed you were content."

Managers usually don't canvas for bad news and while they know everyone would like to think they are worth more money, they really don't want to ask about these things... think about it:
"Well, would you like more money, or is your salary good enough for you?"
What answer will they get, even from those who are reasonably happy with their lot?
Those who have a concern will raise the issue.

To my mind pretty well everyone will "job hunt" but to leap to a conclusion that a person isn't happy or loyal is wrong... for some people it is just "window shopping".
I would draw the line at doing so in work time, but in breaks or after hours? or when you work far more than your required 40 hrs? there is a sense of quid pro quo that is often lacking.

I would expect management to be a bit sensitive to the issues and yes, while they may be documented cases of people being fired for "inappropriate use of the internet" the probabiluty is, as someone pointed out, that this was the excuse and not the reason.

JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[Ashereng]

jmw,

So you are saying that it is my job to make sure my boss knows how much money I want?



"Do not worry about your problems with mathematics, I assure you mine are far greater."
Albert Einstein
Have you read FAQ731-376 to make the best use of Eng-Tips Forums?

 

[ktlasers]

Yes.

 

[Ashereng]

I respectfully submit that my job is to make sure I am making as much money as I want or can.

I don't have a vested interest in the name on the cheque, just the quantity.

However, we are diverging from the OP. So I'll stop here.

"Do not worry about your problems with mathematics, I assure you mine are far greater."
Albert Einstein
Have you read FAQ731-376 to make the best use of Eng-Tips Forums?

 

[ScottyUK]

A good manager should know how much you are worth. It is part of his role to make sure that your compensation package is sufficiently attractive to keep you there. After all, whose problem is it if you leave: his or yours?

I have no guilt in skimming the careers section of a company website or glancing over the recruitment e-mails which seem to land every day in my inbox. I work substantially more than my paid hours, work through lunch, lose a lot of public holdays, and have my free time regularly disturbed because of problems at site: a few minutes a day of company time spent ensuring that my boss is doing his job by keeping my package competative is not going to cause me sleepless nights.

----------------------------------

I don't suffer from insanity. I enjoy it...

 

[HVACctrl]

I used to work for a company where they would have the top 5 big wigs in the company meet yearly and discuss, in a round table environment, the raises for all the departments and/or exceptional individuals.

They would come up with across the board numbers of 2-3% sometimes and say the company had a tough year. No one could ever negotiate.

One year, I took on, not only my current job, but added the responsibilies of another guy who quit. He made more than me, was less educated and less professional. not only did I not get bumped up to his level of compensation (which should have been the minimum), but I was given an OVERALL raise of 8%. This included the ubiquitous 3%. So, for my troubles and for moving up from supersvising two engineers and acting as interum engineering manager (when the director of engineerig was traveling, which was often) to directly supervising a total of 14 engineers, technical service reps, inside sales reps and order-entry personel, I essentially got a 5% increase. This was still well below the salary of the guy whose job I absorbed. He had one measely job, I then had his and mine.

I didn't know it at the time, but I think this was when I subconsciously decided that I was outa there. When I brought up the pay to my boss (who made about 3x what I made), he mentioned that the previous guy was way over-paid and that he was personal drinking budies with one of the owners.

Ed

 

[MedicineEng]

this is nothing to do with loyalty or ethics. It has to do with cleverness. It is not clever to search for new jobs in your current work. It's common sense.

 

[jmw]

HVACctrl,
I swear, you just described my situation at a previous company almost exactly except some years the market was so tough they didn't give rises and in others, deferred them for 6-months.
Yes, they too did the "natural wasteage" routine and gave the vacant jobs to sitting employees for no extra reward..

This company is not unique. This seems to be increasingly the way of things. Management/directors have incrementally arrived at the siuation where they can do as they like.

So we have a situation where loyalty is a one way street.
I never did job hunt on the internet while at work but I wouldn't object to people doing so in their break times; what does it cost the company?

When it comes to being "clever" job hunting is a way to send a signal. Companies might find that monitoring employees visits to job sites a useful indicator of moral... excpet there are much better indicators and they could care less about moral.
Ask yourselves, why should management care if you are searching for jobs on the internet? If they care that you may leave, then this is a useful indicator for them but there are much better ways to retain staff; penalising them isn't it.

JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[JAE]

ScottyUK quote:

A good manager should know how much you are worth.

I agree with that - however, as a manager who tries to keep my people busy, well paid and happy, I must say this is a very difficult thing to do. There really is no way to truly find out "how much you are worth". This is a moving target and is based upon a large number of variables, conditions, and effects.

For instance, an engineer on my staff may be "worth" $50,000/year in January. Then, in March, a large economic change happens, say a big drop in the stock market, or a boost in the interest rates. Now, the voluum of projects diminishes, our firm (and other firms in the area) don't have enough work, and my employee becomes less valuable as he cannot demand higher wages (less market for his services) and I cannot pay him higher wages (low firm income). Is he now "worth" $40,000?

But then in June, the market recovers, a large business moves into our town and competing businesses follow and there is too much work for the existing firms. We try to hire additional staff...and this requires higher wages, and my $50,000 employee is now getting offers of $60,000 from our competitors.

Every year I try very hard to purchase and study numerous salary surveys, and get information from other Human Resource personnel of our competitors. These all provide a vast array of salary ranges based on location, firm size, discipline, private/public employer status, years of experience, education level, and license status.

I've spent hours setting up spreadsheets to interpret these surveys and I at best can only get a rough range of what my guy is "worth".

Bottom line: it is very difficult to set salaries at a level where the firm can not be overwhelmed by "overpaying" staff and at the same time pay enough to satisfy the employee to stay...to tell him that we want him to stay, grow, and add to the value of the firm.

 

[UcfSE]

JAE, if you ever move to the Orlando area, let me know! I'll be sending you my resume.

 

[ajack1]

A great post JAE and a star for you.

I think you sum up perfectly what managers and bosses are facing all the time. Do you keep paying someone $50,000 when the market only stands $40,000, well yes you can but only if they do not jump ship when they are worth $60,000.

Yes everyone wants job security and top salary, but the two do not go hand in hand all the time. If people want to chase the best money and there is no reason they should not, then they also have to accept that firing or pay cuts go with this.

 

[Ashereng]

JAE,

Dealing with market forces does not make you an ogre either.

It is my job to do what is right by me. If I don't take that responsibility, no one else will.

If is my boss' job to do what is right by him/the company. If he doesn't do that, I certainly won't.

You and I are on opposit side of the same relationship. If we each do our jobs, that is the best we can hope for. N'est pas?

JAE,

With the effort you put into trying to determine what the average pay is for your people, you seem to be trying to do the best you can to keep your people. Not too overpaid, and not too underpaid. And by what you have said, you seem to be doing a good job of it for your guys.

However, I would like to clarify one point on "worth".

Let say you make $100,000 at company A for the sake of arguement. A direct competitor, company B, across the stree offers you $150,000 to do the same job. Let say your current employer will not match, they are only still offering $100,000.

Are you now worth $150,000?

The answer to that is you are worth $100,000 to company A, but you are worth $150,000 to company B.

Your worth to someone, is what that someone is willing to pay. It is not an innate value.

An analogy is the run up on price of a Honda generator as a storm is approaching. Now that everyone wants/needs one, the price goes up (the only people not buying are those that don't need another one).

"Do not worry about your problems with mathematics, I assure you mine are far greater."
Albert Einstein
Have you read FAQ731-376 to make the best use of Eng-Tips Forums?

 

[JAE]

Ashereng
I absolutely do not disagree with you - the word "worth" was used in my post with quotes in that I hear this sort of term used a lot by employees as though there is some true number out there that represents their personal value and....damn... the company just won't pay me that nunber (i.e. pay me what I'm worth).

I always cringe at that sort of talk precisely because of what you say, that the amount of money you are paid is what you are worth. In my book, human beings are priceless as human beings.

As employees, their compensation shouldn't be looked upon as a measure of how much human respect the company sees in them (although that sometimes happens)...but rather its simply an attempt by a company to pay them a wage to do a job and still make a profit.

And that wage setting exercise is always a sort of tug-of-war between company and employee. The wage sometimes is too high and sometimes is too low in that some are offered higher wages and leave, some stick around even though they don't justify their wage based upon their benefit to the company.

 

[tmr4791]

Speaking of compensation, I work for a large (enr top 100) company that makes all employee salaries and hourly rates available. I was just wondering how common this is. I think it's great. I know what my boss makes. I know what his boss makes. I know what the person in the next cubicle makes. I know what all of their exact raises were last year. It seems to completely take the guess work out of figuring out if you are being treated fairly or not.

 

[Warpspeed]

That may be o/k for some professions, but what about where creativity is a major component of the work ?

Engineer "A" does his fair share of routine work, but engineer "B" is absolutely brilliant. He has come up with innovations that have really advanced the companies products to market leader status.

It may be perfectly acceptable to pay the high performers more than their less talented or less motivated brethren. But doing so openly may promote jealousies and hatreds.

I have seen this, where some employees actually gang up and sabotage the work of others, in order that they themselves do not appear inferior. It can seriously impact the team spirit if there is a large salary differential for what to some may look like equivalent effort.

I believe negotiated salaries should remain a private matter.

 

[TurbulentFluid]

tmr,

IMO; the whole concept of income secrecy was invented by corporates who want to swindle their employees: ie, if you don't know John in the next cubicle who's same thing as you earns twice as much, you'll be happy with half his salary. I think all firms should (be forced to) act as yours does!

 

[ajack1]

I fail to see what someone else earns is a factor. I would assume that at every interview both the employer and employee try to sell themselves to each other, if they succeed then they agree terms of employment that are mutually acceptable to both.

Money is only part of this and people choose jobs for different reasons, what is the benefit of knowing what a co-worker or your boss earns? If you are happy with your terms stay happy if not do something about it.

If you really want to cheer yourself up see what an equivalent worker earns in Eastern Europe or India or China or Mexico the list goes on.

 

[TurbulentFluid]

ajack,

true when it's about terms of employment during the job interview. Untrue when it comes to asking for a raise. If I was paid n and the guy next to me doing the same thing just as good was paid 4n, I'd be at the boss's door in 30 secs flat. However, if I didn't know the guy was recieving 4n, I'd be happy with just n, which is what the employer would want to.

And money is only a part of a deal, we absolutely agree. But a 90% part as far as I'm concerned. Also, I'm very cheery: I live in Eastern Europe and, being an ME, can but dream of a weekly salary a kid at McDonald's earns in USA. You know what the Jew said...