Thursday, January 21, 2010

Annual Compensation Review

I was reading a survey a couple weeks ago about pay raises. Out of the many HR managers surveyed, only about 60% of all companies will be giving out raises this year. Of those giving out raises, only about 30% were giving out more than 3% raises, and even less giving out more than 6% raises. Many companies are still uncertain about the near future of the economy even though it has seen a recent spike.

For the last couple months my company has been reviewing our compensation plan. I haven't been terribly involved in the process. I was mostly involved at the front end with updating job descriptions and deciding which jobs had more responsibilities.

We determined that some people were being under paid for the position they held and for the length of service they had with the company. Some people received large raises, and some small raises. Almost everyone in the company received a raise.

I was told today that I would be getting a raise that would be effective on this next paycheck. It's a conservative one of only 3%, but it's better than no raise. However, the cost of living here in Oregon actually went down this year (no minimum wage increases for 2010), so it's really like getting a bigger raise of about 5%.

Even with the announcement of raises, some people were still upset when they were told how much they were getting. They felt like they were entitled to more. I think at least 6 people complained today about how "little" they were getting. I was a bit disappointed in them. A "little" is better than nothing. Sure it would have been nice to get a bigger raise, but I'm not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. Brianne and I are grateful.


~Josh

4 comments:

garrynkim said...

We were grateful for our 3% raise too. Any raise is a blessing nowadays!

Krissy T. said...

Many of our friends have been laid off and haven't found employment after months of searching. One of our friends has been out of work for over a year and has applied to over 600 different places with no luck. So yes, I would say any raise is a good raise at this time!

gwen said...

3% is more than teachers make when the economy is GOOD Usually in bad times, teachers' salaries are frozen or cut. So, indeed, count your blessings!

Debbie said...

And....better than no job at all! I took a pay freeze and 4 furlough days!! I make less this year than last year and work harder. Go figure.