Case in point: a colleague of mine was just RIFed a couple of days ago (along with various other people throughout the country). He was a very valuable guy in the office, and the senior leadership of this office thought highly of him. But the senior leadership of this office did not make the decision. The core decision was made at corporate headquarters level to “reduce the number of employees at Level X by Amount Y”, and they passed this to their underlings to find the necessary people. The ax happened to fall on this guy, no doubt because he was low in some metric or other that people who didn’t know him that well looked at.
Lower paid entry level people were not included in the RIF. By being a higher paid guy, he was exposed to this mandate.
I can’t speak to whether the OP’s fears are real. This depends on the business and decision-making practice of the individual employer. But the phenomenon definitely exists. There are business leaders who believe in axing more highly paid people, who they believe can be replaced by lower paid people with little loss. And the ones who make this decision don’t necessarily know the worth of the people who ultimately get axed.
What exactly makes you think you’re being overpaid? I think it’s far more likely that you’re undervaluing yourself. You can talk to your boss about your concerns and see if he can’t wrangle extra benefits (like vacation time or a bonus) in lieu of a raise, but I say take the raise and deposit it directly into a savings account (and after a year when the account starts amounting to something, invest it). That way, it’s there as insurance in case you do get laid off at some point.
Well, back in the mid-90’s, there was a shortage of technicians. To make matters worse for my employer, a major company was threatening to move in to my neighborhood and steal my employer’s employees. They were even so bold as to actually call employees at their work and ask if they would like to come in for an interview.
To stop the bleeding, my company offered everybody giant raises to stay. The bulk of my bloated salary comes from that.
Don’t get me wrong. I still consider myself a top performer, I mean, I’ve still goten plenty of raises after that. I just wonder if HR thinks: “Hmm, we can fire him and hire two technicians fresh out of college for the same price.”
Now?
Getting rid of well paid long time employees and replacing them with entry level positions is a long occurring practice.
Heck I personally know of instances around 15 years ago where the folks let go were all within 18 months of retirement and pensions vestment – coincidence?
I stand by what I posted above, but I’ll readily acknowledge that the situation varies from industry to industry and company to company.
For example, in my last company (one of the big accounting firms), low performers weren’t kept around in the first place. So when the layoffs came, they typically went by seniority. Which, contrary to the OP’s fears, typically meant that the lower-paid people got sacked first only because they had not been around as long.
My current company (giant retailer) operates as I said above. We haven’t had layoffs since I’ve been here but I’ve been in many, many staffing meetings and the relative salaries of employees has never been an issue when we talk about budgeting or possible downsizing.
I would not recommend turning down a raise or asking not to get a raise. It sounds like your company is currently doing just fine. However, if the time comes when their finances tank and layoffs are eminent, you could approach managment and offer to take a temporary paycut to help out. I’d only recommend that if you really felt like your neck was on the line, though. Otherwise, go with the flow man. Your company obviously likes you.
This means they did what they had to in order to stay competitive in the marketplace. Before those massive raises, they were quite possibly severely UNDERpaying all of you. If they thought those raises were dumb, they wouldn’t have kept giving you raises over the years. And the fact that you’ve stood by the company’s side for so long makes you look exponentially better to HR and to your manager(s).
You really should not worry about this. Of course, anything is technically possible. You could get fired right after getting your raise this year. You could get fired tomorrow. Maybe you’ll make it to retirement. Who knows? You can’t bank on *anything *for certain, so you might as well let them pay you what they want to pay you and save yourself the anxiety. :^)
I’m an H/R manager and have been one for over 20 years and salaries are decided by budgets not performace.
Generally you have a set amount allocated to each department and the department makes cuts from that point. So asking for a lower salary isn’t going to help much.
If the company wants to cut $100,000 in salaries, the first way companies do it is by, not hiring, and attrition of older workers. Then they bring in hour cuts.
Also we look at the total package not salary. So asking for time off instead of pay isn’t a real good idea as that’s factored in. In fact the more time off you have, the more likely you are to be the one to go. After all when you’re not working, not only are you idle but the job that isn’t being done is, going undone, or handed to others who will do it not as well, or go into overtime. All result in more expense down the road.
You’re far better off taking the raise and banking it. You should also from this day forward be starting to look for another job. No one should, in this economy, be caught off guard.
I recommend everyone go one at least four interviews a year. One per quarter.
If you’re worried, about it getting back to your employer, say you’re looking for temp work to cover an additional one time expense, like piano lessons for your kid
In reality with over 20 years in H/R I say 95% of all my firings were do to conflicts in personality not performance issues. Performance issues usually result in the bad performer quitting before he gets the axe
Which is why the entire concept of “H/R” beyond practical tasks like filling out W2s and whatnot is bullshit. In 90% of corporate jobs, there is no way to measure “performance” in any tangible way. TPS reports written? Lines of code compiled? So ultimately it just becomes an arbitrary assessment of an employee’s personality or mannarisms or overall cultural “fit”. Performance evaluations are just a way for companies to exert their control over their employees. The theory is if you make people feel like they are under constant scruitiny, certain types of people will kill themselves trying please the higher ups in order to receive the validation they need.
What’s the difference between top and bottom performers anyway? 0-5% raises? That’s $2500 at most for someone making a typical $50,000 salary. Barely more than inflation. Most places aren’t investment banks where most of your income is earned at year end bonus time.
To the OP - If the company is paying you a premium, they clearly value what you do. And if they don’t, it won’t matter what salary you are making. Money in hand is better now.
