Co-workers wages - would you do it? (employee, employers, job)

[terrasurf]

Hi,

I work for a very large quasi public agency. All employees wages are public info which I can get, from outside the organization. I am tempted to do this to justify asking for, no demanding, a raise. I have a master's and suspect, based on talk, that my pay is no higher than many of the people around me, who don't have master's, and have less demanding positions. I am tempted to look, but living with this knowledge may also be difficult to do. Would appreciate any thoughts on the matter.

[janetvj]

I used to work for a government agency. In government employment, it is common that long time employees at a lower grade level actually earn more than a higher level employee with less time on the job. There are steps within each pay grade so that employees who meet performance standards move up to the next step in pay each year (budget permitting). Even if that employee is never actually promoted he or she will get yearly raises.

If, on the other hand, you believe that your position is assigned to the wrong pay grade, you may be able to ask for what we would refer to as a desk audit. In a desk audit, a personnel expert would review the actual duties and responsibilities assigned to the employee in that position and then determine whether the employee was working within the correct classification and pay grade. If it was determined that the employee was improperly classified, the position could be upgraded, resulting in a salary increase.

[terrasurf]

Thank you, this is very useful information, I had no idea. As it stands, my position is considered to be 'tough', and for that reason has had a very high rate of turn over. Many employees with much more routine workloads stay forever because the annual pay raises and benefits are so good. Kind of a bitter pill for me to swallow, although I am still thankful to have a job. I'm thinking then that a "desk audit" would be something I should do if I really wanted some longevity in the position- since it would be in their benefit too.

[7 Wishes]

Originally Posted by terrasurf

Thank you, this is very useful information, I had no idea. As it stands, my position is considered to be 'tough', and for that reason has had a very high rate of turn over. Many employees with much more routine workloads stay forever because the annual pay raises and benefits are so good. Kind of a bitter pill for me to swallow, although I am still thankful to have a job. I'm thinking then that a "desk audit" would be something I should do if I really wanted some longevity in the position- since it would be in their benefit too.

You don't need to tell me/the forum your job, but I'm almost guessing that it's a teacher in an urban district. It's funny, NY State has a site like that and it confirmed for me all the rants some have had on the C-D forums for my home region about veteran kindergarten teachers earning six figures.

[janetvj]

Originally Posted by terrasurf

Thank you, this is very useful information, I had no idea. As it stands, my position is considered to be 'tough', and for that reason has had a very high rate of turn over. Many employees with much more routine workloads stay forever because the annual pay raises and benefits are so good. Kind of a bitter pill for me to swallow, although I am still thankful to have a job. I'm thinking then that a "desk audit" would be something I should do if I really wanted some longevity in the position- since it would be in their benefit too.

Probably not all employers use the term "desk audit", but I would think that most would have some type of process to determine whether the job is properly classified. Duties and responsibilities often change based on the individual employee. If an employee shows a lot of promise, it's not uncommon to assign higher level duties to that person. When that happens, and the employee is performing duties that are above and beyond what he or she was hired to do (or above what his or her co-workers are doing), then an upgrade would be justified.