The Corporate Gears to fight 11

[HornTootinEE]

Question for the masses:

Some background: I have 4 years of expierience in the utility industry since graduting from college with an EE degree, Power emphasis. My first year I worked in our company's substation department, doing system protection, subtation control design, etc. After a year I transferred to another location as a distribution engineer, doing pretty much anything distribution: Substations, system protection, circuit design, underground, overhead, Distribution SCADA, etc. You name it, it gets thrown on my desk.

I have been working pretty hard, doing well, getting great reviews at my performance evals from my boss, being told I'm doing above and beyond the level of work the company expects for an engineer at my level. (I'm not tooting my horn, just telling you what my boss is saying). I'm trying to take on large projects, extra duties as needed, etc. But asking for a promotion from Eng. II to Eng. III or an above-average raise (better than 3%) gets met with "ah, eh well HR won't allow that" type of crap. The "HR won't allow it" has been the prevailing attitude since I started with pretty much anything. So, I ask HR about it, they say "Well, Management has to come to us with promotions and raises and we pretty much just make sure everything is legal, we aren't slowing things down"

Now the question: How do you fight the corporate gears like that? Do you fight it, put up with it, or find another company to work for? My wages are literally average or slightly below, my benefits are maybe average for the industry, and vacation/holidays is also around average. Retirement is decent, but average again.

People talk the economy, but in our geographic area, the economy is not slowing down one bit, especially for the utility sector. Even the company throws "the economy" at us but has posted record earnings the past two years.

SO, in the seasoned opinions of those on this board, whats next?

 

[ARenko]

indme,

Same happened at my first company. 10 of 20 in the engineering dept left within the space of 4 months as the market was quite good at the time. Five of us left on the same day. I know several of us cited pay as a reason for leaving during exit interviews. Those that remained were rewarded with significant pay raises next annual review.

I don't see the problem in doing exit interviews as long as you are professional and don't burn any bridges. This company listened and made adjustments, not just in pay, but in other areas. I still have friends working there more than 10 years later.

 

[lacajun]

Unless you are one of the "chosen" ones, you'll have to switch companies to get better pay, better work environment, and more interesting work.

Management habitually uses the binomial distribution as the reason most people do not get better pay. They say they are immune to playing favorites but they aren't. They have biases and those are exercised daily.

I've seen engineers mess up royally but still get moved along with the rest of us. I've overheard other engineers implore management to remove said royal mess up from a project and replace him with someone interested in doing it. They were turned down. When two senior engineers implore a manager to remove a royal mess up and it doesn't happen, you know a bias is at work.

I've had managers younger and older than me steal my ideas and represent my hard earned knowledge as their own. Management knew but saw fit to leave things as they were.

Companies I've worked for have complained a lot about people leaving because it costs a lot to recruit, get an employee up to speed, and replace experienced people. Yet they create environments that encourage people to leave, in my humble opinion.

Someone recently told me that if you begin your career with a medium pay company and stay there too long, it will be hard to elevate your pay despite moving up the food chain.

 

[DHambley]

First, watch the movie Office Space one more time. You will see yourself when Peter states, "Heck, If I work my tail off and ship more product, Lumburg's stock goes up one tenth of one percent and I get nothing." The light will turn on when you realize that employees really don't have any bargaining status. It's almost as if companies realy don't like employees but, they always like someone else from the outside better. You have to make yourself that guy from the outside. You have to job hop every 5-8 yrs.

 

[ysm]

To those who have mentioned getting a good raise when they jumped to different companies, was it the same industry, similar job responsibilities?

Thanks
ysm

 

[SteveMartin]

I wasn't one of the above posters, but every job hop I've done has seen a substantial pay increase (greater than anything I've gotten year/year in a given company). This has been both related and fairly independant industries, never the exact same one. Responsibilities have tended to hover around the same point.

 

[lacajun]

For me, different industry but with a lot of similarities and same responsibilities. Also, different industry and different responsibilities.

 

[GregLocock]

ysm -job hops %ages

+35% into a really good fun job
-10%+a car +round the world relocation (ripped off, in retrospect)
+30%
+20% (back to the previous job, ie a 50% pay hike after an 18 month absence).

So, given that annual raises of 5% or so are probably a reasonable long term average, jumping ship seems to be worth 6 years of progress inside a company.

On the other hand, if you hang around for long enough in a large organisation you may be able to maneuver youself into a job that ticks most boxes. Also that 18 month break has cost me 5 weeks of long service leave and screwed up my pension somewhat (offset by the higher pay I'm on, obviously). Relocating is a fairly expensive and unpleasant business, I'd try and factor that into any move.

Cheers

Greg Locock


New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376

http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?

 

[jmw]

But don't forget that the amount of money you can put into your pension fund in the early years is peanuts especially when you look at inflation and pay rates. The killer years are the later years so do your hopping about early on if you are in a country where pensions are not portable.... they are in the UK, though they ain't worth much, especially after Gordon Brown raided everyone's pensions to prop up his failed financial policies.


JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[ysm]

Thanks Greg.