Jeeze, according to Monster based on the info on my last company, I was paid only 70% of the market rate for my area. I didn't have the heart to check in a different region. The profile they offered also showed a £7k bonus over that... at my last they had a habit of changing the rules anytime anyone looked like earning a bonus.
So that puts me way, way behind.
That's what comes of a career largely established before the Internet came along and advice from web sites such as Eng-tips.
Advice such as I have been giving myself but learned the hard way (experience is a tough teacher with expensive bills) didn't know early enough on to have benefited from personally to the extent I might have had I known then what I know now.
On tat note I am reminded that companies love incentive schemes so lng as they encourage even greater contributions from employees but so long as they never actually have to pay out. On the one hand one would expect this attitude to act as a disincentive but the reality seems to be that enough people can always be conned into even greater efforts to make it worthwhile. I do wonder, however, just how much better they might be if they did pay out.
I am reminded of a field salesman who was pretty damned good. AT his previous company he was the top salesman and they introduced a bonus scheme that was open ended i.e. there was no cap on what you could earn.
He earned so much in the first year he earned more than the MD.
They grumbled (what else?) and grudgingly paid out.
The next year he found his targets had been set much higher and his territory reduced. He smashed those targets as well.
The next year his territory was minuscule and his targets getting impossible so he solved the problem by changing jobs..... what an unexpected outcome. The real solution would have been for the MD to peg his bonus structure to his sales teams bonus structure but that was too clever for them.
I tell a lie, they show more than one and I seem to have started reviewing a job profile near the bottom of the list.
That makes it even worse. I'm not saying I could take the top salary shown but I'd have to be a total dummy not to be much higher in the rankings than I was at that company.
They grumbled (what else?) and grudgingly paid out.
What else? I'll tell ya what else. When I was in MBA school, one of my professors had previously worked as a salesman in HVAC. After landing a particularly large contract, he was called into the office to speak to his boss. He fully expected a hearty handshake, a pat on the back, and a couple hundred thousand in his next bonus check. Instead, he got walking papers. Turns out they didn't feel like paying the big bonus, and could avoid it by firing him. He sued, unsuccessfully.
The problem is they think it is their money they are giving you. It isn't, it is the customer's money... isn't that what all those signs say that HR puts on notice boards? "The customer pays the bills"?
It is why at my last company, having brought in a product against all the odds and that was set to become an industry standard and for which I would earn big bucks in bonuses, they suddenly decided to restructure themselves and let some people go. Guess who some people included, yep, just me.
It did become the industry standard and they managed to hang on to my money.
Small wonder I have little faith in managers or big companies.
Sorry I don’t follow the logic there, surely if it is not their money it is the customers as they pay the bills then it is not your money it is the companies as they pay your wages?
![[cheers]](/data/assets/smilies/cheers.gif "[cheers] [cheers]")