Disparity in Salary

Question

I was employed as the General Manager in my company and I agreed to the company paying me what it has in place as salary for my position. Now I have discovered that there are serious disparities in salary within the organisation, viz: i.) My salary and that of my operation manager is exactly the same (with all benefits) ii.) Some heads of department are being paid lower than their juniors. iii.) Managers at the same level are not equally paid.

Please how can I resolve this as my executive director has asked that I write the group HR complaining on this abnormalities.

I am looking for how to professorially present my case.

Are you asking about adjusting your own salary, or salaries at your company in general? — thursdaysgeek, Mar 20 '14 at 17:28
I think this may be more of a business policy question rather than a workplace navigation question. I am assuming since you are a manager in a large organization that you know how to communicate with HR. What is your actual question? In other words what specifically are you looking for help doing? — IDrinkandIKnowThings, Mar 20 '14 at 18:09
What is wrong with 'junior' staff being paid less than their supervisors? — , Mar 20 '14 at 23:00
Also, "General Manager" sounds like upper management, without an org chart figuring out where you and these other positions sit, its hard to say. But there are a lot of questions on the site that address pay disparity already. — , Mar 20 '14 at 23:01

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Mar 20 '14 at 17:34

If you are concerned about the salaries of your subordinates, then yes, you should meet directly with HR concerning their salaries.

However, if this is a division-wide issue, concerning not just your subordinates, but you and other teams, then your boss (or his/her boss) should be the one meeting with HR concerning this issue.

It also depends on if salaries are made public to other employees; at some companies, employees can get into a lot of hot water for sharing his/her salary, and the last thing you want is for HR to be looking at why you know other co-workers' salaries.

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 20 '14 at 21:01

The first thing you need to do is check your contract to see what it says about disclosing your salary. As stated above disclosing what you make can be a very very very big issue. I will refrain from making any kind of comment here as there are as many ways to address this as there are companies out there.

Assuming that you can all discuss your salaries than the most senior person that feels this issue should go to HR about it.

I will add this antidote. The company I work for does make salaries public and I generally agree with that mentality. Making them public adds a worth to an employee that than either makes them feel like they are more powerful than they are or less valuable than they are. On top of that salaries can often be negotiated at your time of employment. For people moving from other jobs offers may have been made that beat their other salary and thus is higher than their boss. In a similar fashion people their may be a bigger year to year jump in salary for those being hired right out of school than the yearly increase for others. Say for example you started at a company making 60K, the next year the new hire starts out with a 65K package and you see a yearly 2% increase in your salary (assuming you dont get a raise). You may be his boss but he will still be making more than you.

The fact here is that someone may have told you their salary out of the office or because they felt it was ok, that does not mean that company feels its ok. You should check on their policy before moving forward here.

Disparity in Salary

2 Answers2