Promised pay rise hasn't happened, staying motivated?

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Hi All,

8 Months ago I landed my first IT role which was advertised at 20-23K, I was offered the job at 20K and was told this was due to me not having any experience which I was fine with and also because i was expecting to get a paid alot less than that for an entry level/getting my foot in the door job in IT. Also by the time i had paid my train fair it was more or less what i was getting paid for working in the paint shop i was currently at, so I was pretty happy.

In the job I pretty much single handily run the support desk for up to 200 users across 4 sites. I really settled into the role a long time ago and i do the monthly reports for the help desk and present them to the IT director in a monthly meeting. According to these reports i manage to deal with 80% of calls myself without any escalation needed and in terms of the job i couldn't have asked for any more, i have picked up invaluable experience of technologies i wouldn't of imagined i would of been touching in my first entry level job such as Exchange, SQL, Linux....You name it whenever somethings happening or being setup i am asked and shown how to do it such as installing ESXi onto new servers, creating VM's etc.

Anyway my point is that I have been really happy with this job and the experience i have gained and not only this but they have been really happy with me and throughout my 6 month probation i was consistently pulled aside and told how much of a good job i was doing and how happy they were with me and to keep up the good work. I then also found out that there was a guy doing my job previous to me which i wasn't aware of when i first took the job and all ive heard off my manager, director and other members of staff is how much of a nightmare he was and i was exactly what they were looking for.

So you can imagine how i feel, ive really worked my ass off putting in extra hours doing stuff from home over the VPN etc. Really gone the extra mile, cant explain this enough. Just before my 6 month probation was up at the start of December, lets say mid November my boss told me that he had already approached the director and said that im being underpaid for what im doing and that they should consider giving me a pay rise. My boss is aright and we've got on really well and he told me he went into the meeting with a long list of reasons of why i should be getting a pay rise because he knows they can be quite tight and he said he didn't really have to do much convincing and that it was agreed within minutes however he told me the pay rises for people like myself were planned for January.

So ive continued to work my ass off looking forward to January....and January has passed. During January i asked my boss if he had heard anything to which he told me he hadn't and he would have a word. The next day he told me he had done so and had been told that apparently im top of the list for a pay rise and as soon as its happening il be the first to know.

Anyway 2 weeks past and i decided enough was enough im going to lay it on a bit thicker...i basically told my boss that i was extremely disappointed that i had been told i would get a pay rise in January and that it hadn't happened to which he pretty much got my jist and said that he still hasn't been told much apart from "there moving some money around" and he said try not to get disheartened to which i said well i am lol. He pretty much understood where i was coming from and just said he cant really do alot as this is the directors field of decisions and that he had been told that im top of the queue and back in November he was told himself i was going to get a pay rise in January.

I'm quite a patient person and i don't think i would be to concerned that i haven't had a pay rise if i hadn't been told i was getting one, however i just feel like there taking the piss out of me now and its really got to me. I was really enjoying working there, everyone's nice and its a lovely place to work and i was learning loads but this has just put a really foul taste in my mouth. I know alot of these things are budgeted for but after all this im constantly seeing them signing of PO's for things that aren't urgent such as a penetration test & two new laptops.

What are your opinions? Am i being a bit over the top?

Either way i had stopped planning/aiming towards any sort of certification and was just focusing on learning loads of stuff across all there different areas and practicing playing around with VM's with SQL, Exchange, AD etc. But this has got me a bit more focussed to crack on with another certification as i need to stand out from the crowd when i go for another job. I'm getting on with the 70-640 now....I always knew that even though i was loving the job there would come a time to move on and try and find a better role to continue my path....however i didn't expect myself to be considering this after 8 months. However i do plan on getting a year under my belt. But as i say i am looking at jobs online now and can see some paying 25K-30K and what there asking for is stuff im doing every single day and i just feel like i need to get the years experience under my belt then start applying for these jobs and see if im looked at.

I feel like even if this pay rise is given to me pretty soon i don't think its going to change the way i feel, its really got to me how they've acted about all this, its not been professional by any means (Another thing to note is that i never had a meeting or anything at the end of my 6 months probation, there was nothing really to say but it would still have been nice to have had one)

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Wow, sorry for the essay....As you can tell this has really got to me haha.

 

Sorry to sound a bit harsh here but..

You have a job, we are in the middle of a second dip into a recession and people are being made redundant left right and center (1000 made redudant from 2e2 in the last 2 weeks, some of them with no salary paid since December and no packages either).

The fact is you're in a job where you're gaining shed loads of experience and you're complaining about a potential 3k payrise?? Dude, you can't pay for the kind of experience you're getting at the moment so if I were you I wouldn't be rocking the boat too much.

Sorry if I am sounding harsh but I have had friends over the last couple of weeks lose their jobs, there is a potential that I or other friends of mine may also lose our jobs so whilst you're in work gaining that experience I wouldn't worry about it too much and give it some more time, obviously if after a year (from your start date not the end of your probation) you still haven't heard anything then you may be right to bitch and moan but you may well find that the company has a bit of a lean time at the moment and need to weigh up their options before giving pay increases.

Sorry if it's harsh but take the offer of the increase with a pinch of salt until it actually happens or until such time that you can't afford to carry on working in that role because you can't live on that salary (you did after all accept the original starting salary and should realise that increases generally happen once a year and may not happen for longer if people fall outside of various criteria).

 

This one actually kept me awake last night, srsly!

Take into account both things above, as I would have said the same, but also the fact that things happen more slowly more often than not than we want them to, and what is the biggest thing in the world to one person doesn't even come on the radar to another. It will happen, just probably not as fast as you want it to.

 

I would echo what others here have said.

Also bare in mind that when people are doing budgets etc, they are often looking towards the tax year end so you may find, that although later than you wanted you will see the pay rise from the beginning of April onward, when budgets have been refreshed for the year ahead etc.

Either way you are earning what you have said yourself you are happy with as an entry position and it sounds like you are getting great experience, and you can't put a price on that, believe me. Keep your head downand keep working hard with the occasional reminder to your gaffer, and i'm sure you will get it in due course.

 

You almost answered your own question above...

Kill two birds with one stone, yeah you may not really want to leave and if you are appreciated at work you will need to make it quite clear that you are an asset to the team that needs investment.

Its easy enough to say you are unhappy and tell your boss, and he continues to not do anything about it... You said you see jobs advertised for 25 - 30k doing the stuff you do every single day right? Well it would be time to spruce up the CV and get it on jobsite / monster / cwjobs etc... and get some interviews.

Now if you get an offer from one of these interviews for lest say £27,000 this now puts you in a strong position. Hold off on giving the yes or no for a few days and speak with your manager, say look I've got an offer for a new job and its for (x) amount more. At this point if your manager values your skills he will be worried about how you are now in a 'Win / Win' situation, being in such a powerful position.

Yes we are in a somewhat recession, last time I remember we weren't in one... Wait I can't remeber it was so long ago, but people out there are not letting this put them off and are getting rises every day.

Just remember, for the company to lose someone experienced that knows the company like yourself, will not only cause a big dent in productivity and efficiency. It will also cost alot to get someone new hired through recruitment agencies etc, not at the least to say it will be expensive and costly to train that person to your standard. This will be something your manager is thinking and will feel you are worth a few grand extra just to keep him from the hastle of going through the headache that is recruitment.

If this doesn't work you have an offer for more money pending... why not take it? I know some people get comfortable in jobs and this can be a real stump to career growth. At the end of the day if you have chance to progress through another company then do so, and if your boss at your current place isn't willing to pay a little bit more out of his pocket for your expertise, then maybe it is time to think if you want to work for a company that doesn't value you for what you are worth.

Hope this helps.

 

They wrote a story about this Called Peter and the Wolf!!!

I would be careful about playing these kinds of games because more often than not they don't call your bluff and you go off and in some cases the new company isn't as good or as much fun as the last company and sooner rather than later you have to move on again.

The next thing is and this is only my opinion here but you've only been in IT for 8 months and you may well find that other companies aren't prepared to offer that kind of salary to you, especially based on your current salary (and please don't lie to them if asked because when you join the company you would be getting a ytd tax paid form that shows how much you were earning).

I would be hesitant to jump from job to job at the starting stages of my career, especially if I were a permy. Obviously as a contractor you are expected to move around contracts but even then you would want people to have some stability in their jobs.

I stick by my earlier comments about you being given a decent exposure to the technologies and as such you should carry on with it, with 8 months commercial IT experience you don't know everything and roles paying 25 - 30k expect you to be a little bit more exposed to technology than 8 months usually gives you.

 

Thanks for all your comments guys and youve certainly got me feeling a little more upbeat about my situation.

I can see it from both sides really, i wasnt expecting a payrise this early but then when i was told i would be getting one in January i really got looking forward to it and was counting down the days since this next payrise will be the most money ive been on and also im trying to save up for deposit for a mortgage with the misses atm. So there are a number of factors as to why i was really looking forward to it and this is why its then lead me to feel a bit disheartened when it hasnt happened. I guess this is another one of those life lessions of just because someone says somethings going to happen dont believe it is until you see it. Shame that they had to say that really.

On the other side i do believe in alot of comments which Braderz said. The fact that they have had someone in my position previously who was terrible and theyve done nothing but slate him and literally throughout my 6 months probation period i was being told every other week what a great job i was doing. So like Braderz has sort of said i really had it in my mind of, they know theyve now got a decent persion in doing the job and i thought to myself they must really value me and wont want to lose me. So for them to then start mucking me about has just annoyed me.

Another thing to add is that they did try to bring someone else onto the the helpdesk who could also lias with our developer. This was 3/4 months ago. They didnt offer much money for the role i think it was like 18-22K so they probably didnt get the right calibre of people. However they did interview a number of people and none of them were what they were looking for and it got re-advertised a couple of times and in the end it just whittled away and got forgotten.

So from my point of view this was another reminder to them that its hard to find someone decent so when youve got someone decent working for you dont muck them around. Also it leads to me think that the funds were available a few months ago for another member of the team so why isnt it available for a payrise for me when im doing a great job.

Anyway i know ive ended this on a negative again but i can see it from both sides and you guys have made me a little more upbeat and i do understand that if i go for another job there will be alot more competition out there and i perhaps wont get one of these higher paying jobs, and even if i did it could actually be a step back as i might not get as much exposure to stuff as i am right now.

I think i will continue how i am and try not to be to pushy as suggested and see what happens in the next 4 months.

 

Stick at it, as said i'm sure you will get it eventually.

With regards to the budget etc though, it's much easier to agree to spend money when you have additional function being carried out, ie another head in performing functions that they deem necessary, where as for a pay rise, they aren't in the short term getting anything new or additional. In my opinion this is generally the sort of attitude that a lot of the money men make, but over time you will often find companies grow and end up having 2 or 3 well paid excellent people, rather than 6-8 moderate people. That's my experience of it at least.

 

They haven't actually said you are not going to get it? If it wasn't promised you would still be there happy, right? well, you are still there...

 

Thanks for all your advice guys, il keep you posted

Either way its got me back in the habit of focusing towards something, Im working my way through the 70-640 Microsoft press book and managing to keep in the routine of doing a bit every night. Hopefully wont be long before i can book the exam.

 

It's not like the OP is moaning that he hasn't received a pay rise without the higher-ups ever having mentioned it.

His boss told him he would be getting one in January (I hope he was actually explicit in this statement rather than just saying he would try and get you one!)

It is amateur management practice to promise someone a pay rise without the decision makers having approved it first.

You are right to be aggrieved.

 

It sounds to me as if it's a budgeting issue. I may be reading too much into it when you say the pay rises were "planned" for January, and they're '"moving money around".
Someone either didn't do their sums before approving your pay rise, or they did them wrong. Now it's the end of the tax year, most funds will have been allocated, so finding a little bit of fat to trim will be difficult.

The important thing to remember here is that your pay rise has been approved. They have not only acknowledged your worth to them, they also did it after 8 months when they could have waited another 4 months and given you the same rise then, and you wouldn't have batted an eye at waiting a full 12 months before a pay rise.
I would be frustrated at having to wait longer than expected as well, but you enjoy the job, you're learning lots and you know more money is on the way. Now all you need to do is persuade them to backdate your payrise to January when you eventually get it

 

Thanks again for the comments guys.

I'm glad you understand the position im in lol, yea i had plans to ask for a pay rise after my 6 month probation period but like ive said my boss came to me after 5 months n yea he did say the words, you will get a payrise in January and like you've said the reason i feel aggrieved (my words = pissed off lol) is because i was told i would get one and it simply hasn't happened.

But also i don't want to put my boss into a tough position because i don't know whether he was meant to tell me this information or not or whether it was just a conversation between him and the IT director and then he just decided to tell me on the sly.

Prior to righting this i was getting pretty fed up etc but venting my frustration out in this thread with you guys and some of the stuff you guys suggested and said to me has got me back in a good place and im just getting on with my job and showing more willingness than ever to get involved with stuff. Not trying to big myself up to much but there's problems arising such as a script has stopped working and isn't doing its job and me and the guy above me whos meant to be the Administrator whos been there 6 years are looking at it and im the one solving the issue and figuring out what's happening and his just sat there not really having a clue lol and this is all infront my boss. Im not trying to say its a competition its just a adding factor that winds me up even more than i clearly have more of a clue of whats going on when ive only been there nearly 9 months now.

I dont think i need to boast or try and big myself up i think my boss realises his got someone good working for him whos dedicated and technically minded but obviously the powers above him are holding out on the pay rise and he has no say in this. Surely there must come a time though when he must go up to the directors and say look can we stop mucking this guy around, i value him and we would be foolish to piss him off n let him go elsewhere.

Hope i don't sound to big headed but that's just how i feel considering i haven't put a foot wrong since ive worked there, i clearly out perform the administrator when it comes to troubleshooting major issues on several occasions.

Also "It is amateur management practice to promise someone a pay rise without the decision makers having approved it first."

I completely agree with this, i feel like they've been really unprofessional with the way they've gone about this but then i guess it comes back down to again, was my boss meant to pass on the information of me getting a pay rise in January to me or was it just a hush hush conversation between him and the director that wasn't meant to go back to me......I guess i could ask.....

Its quite funny that this has been brought up again today as yesterday my boss, just quickly made a passing comment to me of "by the way i still haven't heard anything about your pay rise, however im hoping i will hear something within the next couple of months" i just said OK, i couldn't really be bothered to say anything.

Also further to peoples comments about they could be waiting till the end of the financial year, im hoping this could be true as certain PO's such as server warranty's are being held back until the end of march.

Either way im still cracking on with the 70-640 and i just keep telling myself in the back of my mind that im getting good experience and the money will come lol

 

The employer has broken their promise, if they really wanted you to have that pay rise you would have got it by now. They've got your hopes up and kicked you in the teeth, that will be playing on your mind all the time, so much so you've posted on a forum. What's staff turnover like?

If you've been creating user accounts lately then they've got the money there to hire, they should have the money to up your wages. You could always give them the benefit of the doubt, just to see if that pay rise comes in April but I'd be asking for a definitive answer and in writing. I'd be finding out how much the last guy was on.

In the mean time, take whatever you can get out of the job and push for them to pay for training / certifications. If you're kept on your toes, learning new things every day and being challenged to the eyeballs then stick with it, that's if you can survive on your salary for a year or two. You need to think about your CV, what's going to look good on there to a potential employer and make sure the next job is a career move and not just about the money. It would look better on your CV if you've been there for 2+ years.

In all fairness, 20K is a very decent salary for your first IT job and the experience as many others have said is invaluable. You've been lucky to find an employer willing to give you a chance. Perhaps for just now, leave the money thoughts to one side until you get a full year (ideally two) under your belt and look at any extra money coming your way as a bonus. You should be in IT for the love of the job, it's much more interesting than most desk jobs out there and you could be breaking your back working in a warehouse for less money. The money will come after 3-5 years experience, maybe sooner if you're lucky.

It's rubbish that they've broken their promise, it could just be a delayed promise but there's always someone out there will to do a job for less money and at the end of the day we're all just a number.

 

Yea i do know that getting my first IT job at 20K was brilliant there was alot i saw advertised which were 18K and by the time my travel came off i would of been earning less than i already was but i was applying for these and willing to take them to get into IT. However luckily enough i landed this job which offer a good starting wage and like you said not only that im doing alot more than just sitting at a desk answer the phone like i could of been in alot of starter IT roles.

I actually think the MD probably looks at our department as a pain as we are the only department that has huge costs but doesn't bring in money lol, we buy and look after the servers which host the applications and jobs that the other departments sell if that makes sense. So he probably sees all this income from other departments but just sees loss at ours.

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This is what got me motivated to get cracking back on with a certification

 

That's the way it is usually seen unfortunately. You buy your new shiny server but to the MD's eyes there isn't a return on that investment.

But back to the original topic - like already mentioned - I wouldn't sweat it (I know it's a bummer and makes you unmotivated) and just stick with it or the time and look elsewhere when you have built up a good set of skills and experience. To be honest, 20k and the technical work you are doing for your first IT job is quite good!

 

Please bare in mind my train ticket for the year has cost me over £3000 lol