I work for a tech start up as a VP in the corp dev team, I was helping the CEO connect his laptop to a big screen to present to a meeting when I noticed an excel he had open called cost budget, I clicked on it and laid my eyes on some confidential information that I wasn’t meant to see (everyone’s salaries listed, literally the entire company salaries)
sad news I could tell by what he had open that he was likely looking for people to cut, but I noticed my salary was one of the lowest. When they hired me they said my salary was at the top of the range they could afford and they couldn’t go any higher but when looking at the excel I had one of the lowest salaries.
Even my junior, an associate had a higher salary then me, granted he’s been at the company for 4 years and I’ve only recently joined but I’m still technically a level above him and joined as his senior.
And my director above me had 2x my salary which is insane to think how low my salary is compared to everyone.
im not sure what to do as technically I shouldn’t have seen that, i looked at it without permission and if they ever found out i would probably get fired for it so they can’t know, but at the same time im really angry how low my salary is, how can my junior have a salary that is almost 50% higher than mine?
I really don’t know how we’re affording this.
You should do nothing.
If you are a top performer and salary negotiations come up, you know what to aim for in the future.
this
If I was the CEO, I would fire you for negotiating your own comp so poorly lmao
Ignorance is bliss.
Didn't you hit the nail on the head in your last comment? If he's looking to make cuts, they clearly aren't affording it. Without more details, it sounds like you're looking at a company with poor cash management and unless things turn around in a big way, the future doesn't look good there.
Regardless of whether or not your own comp is in line with market for your specific role, I would start looking somewhere else. Always better to look while you still have a paycheck coming in.
Recruit elsewhere, but lie and say your current salary is on the high end of what you saw your coworkers were making, so you get a good offer. Then use that to negotiate with your current boss for a higher salary and choose whichever place you prefer or whichever gives you a higher offer. Don’t feel bad about doing that to your boss since they are fucking you over already
Leave
Happened to me, the entire analyst pod (2 less experience than me) and making 20% more. lol I tried to bring it up during my annual review but they only gave me 5k raise (a drop in a sea).
Nevertheless, I left and now someone needs to pickup 30% of the work of the entire portfolio. Poor analysts are fighting for their life right now; or should I say, they are now getting paid fairly?
It amazes me how incredibly stupid companies are. This whole concept of "we will reduce labor costs by boosting turnover" is insane to me. The rate of increase in costs during onboarding is always higher than increasing internal compensation. I honestly think this comes down to the rapidly exploding competency crisis we have in the west right now. Management would rather inflate labor costs through turnover than have people internally discover that management has zero fucking idea what they are doing.
They actually hired 4 people with comp 50% more than mine to replace me. They are hiring more. Deadass. And they told me. Like, you could have just given me that 20% raise instead of increasing your costs by 200% with people who are untrained. Like what was going on inside their head.
And it’s not just me, a bunch of people left before me with the same issue.
Why make this post and not say what your salary is lol?
.
yea I wanna see the salaries...
There should be a type of consultant that anyone can hire who provides a neutral third-party analysis of your total comp and how it compares to the market. Sort of like a third-party financial valuation in M&A or a broker's opinion of value in commercial real estate, except for employees. This would help people determine whether they're being underpaid and would be useful for leverage in salary negotiations (for the employee, if they're underpaid, and for the employer, if they're overpaid).
I think Whole Foods provides complete transparency.
Corporate America would do everything in its power to shut that down ha
Yeah in my first job at a F500 company I learned the hard way that management will do anything to keep salaries low. When I did a good job over a span of an 8 month project, I'd get a simple "Thanks!" email instead of a monetary bonus.
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