I have two assistants.

Anonymous

September 6,2023 at 10:32PM UTC

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I have two assistants. One has worked for me for nine years and manages the incidents and work related injuries of our employees. We have about 108 locations in 8 states and about 700 employees. It’s an hourly position titled Risk Specialist. She takes the notifications of the incidents, contacts the store and coordinates any medical needs for the employee(s) including return to work, vehicle repairs and storage limitations, and customer property damage. Company property damage is handled by our property dept. The other assistant has been with us 3 1/2 yrs but came to us with 20 yrs experience when we bought out a competitor. Her title is Payroll Specialist and processes the payroll for our two companies every two weeks, gets garnishment paperwork to our payroll provider who handles completion and filing, tracks perfect attendance of hourly employees, weekly timesheet review, monitors for unexplained missed time, calculated weighted overtime, monitors proper tax setup, etc. Due to a sizeable pay increase last year for both of them my boss (our dept head) said there would not be any pay increases for them this year. They understood. When I noticed others were getting pay increases, I went to him and asked about giving them a “longevity” raise since it wasn’t being done in conjunction with a performance review. He agreed. They make the same rate. He agreed to allow me to give them a 4.16% increase which was $1.00/hour bump. My first assistant is very upset and called my boss and I into a meeting today and said that was like a slap in the face. She is asking for an 8.16% increase. She told me how disappointed she was that I didn’t fight harder for them and that was all I thought they were worth. She referenced other employees raises (she has access to this information) and how others seem to easily get so much more than our department does. I really thought I did something good for them . Did I miss the mark? Ending pay rate $25/hr. Metro area.

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AnonymousSeptember 6,2023 at 10:40PM UTC
$25 an hour in a metro area is really hard to make a life on. It's $50k/year. And these two people are doing essential, high-level work. I live in an inexpensive small city and $60k is the minimum to maintain JUST MY BILLS.
What's the average rate in your area for HR and Risk Management.
What's the national average?
Adjust them to the higher of the two and be thankful to have people who are good at their jobs and care.
AnonymousSeptember 6,2023 at 10:49PM UTC
If their rate is currently in line with market values for their jobs in their area/location, then that's the response.
AnonymousSeptember 7,2023 at 1:46PM UTC
Everybody thinks they need to be paid more money. If either employee quits how long would it take to train a new person? Positions like that should be highly beneficial for the employee due to the magnitude of accountability that they provide. You want employees that value that position and protect it. If you dont want to lose them, petition your supervisor to increase these positions significantly and explain to the assistants that they are valued.
AnonymousSeptember 7,2023 at 1:55PM UTC
It will cost you more than the $1,916 difference between 4% and 8% to find replacements for either of these assistants. If you do truly value their contributions and do not want to have them looking for other employment, I'd find a way to get them additional bump. The inflation everyone has been subjected to is so very high, it would be worth a full re-evalution. You need a comparative salary from your metro area to figure out what the positions are worth in the market.
AnonymousSeptember 7,2023 at 5:42PM UTC
If you want to keep your employees happy you need to acknowledge their hard work and faithfulness to the role or you will have to retrain and replace every few years, or sooner. after taxes $1.00 per hour is a minimal bump and doesn't truly net anyone anything. You should push for consistency in increases across the business vs valuing certain roles as lesser ones. Then when the review cycle hits you can reward the ones who exceeded expectations and the ones who fell below get nothing or less. So yes, the simple answer is you missed the mark. If you cannot add this to their salaries because of other internal things, ask for a stay bonus and tie it to their being there longer. Then you don't have to amortize it annually and you give them a one time hit now. The overall increase for salary amounts to $2080 over a year and a $5k bonus now would give them better stick though the taxing of it levels it out. Oh and one more thing COLA - cost of living in your area, factor that in too because your $1 raise probably still has them making less than they made last year.
maria roseSeptember 7,2023 at 6:18PM UTC
The fault of these 2 specific employees not getting pay increases in line with the rest of the staff should have been addressed immediately and explained when they got the previous pay increase which from the explanation given was an increase to put them in line with the pay rate for their specific positions. Unfortunately, some positions are not deemed to qualify for yearly salary increases. For some reason, these 2 individuals think that you control that decision when it is beyond your reach. You are going to have to explain the difference and the why. If anything, your answer can clarify the company’s current policy on pay increases which seem to have changed within the last few years. Hopefully the dissatisfied employee will understand.
You can make note to those who made these changes to revise the information given all employees on “expected pay increases “ which should have been already available in the corporate policies when they were making all those adjustments across the board to increase all employees pay rates.
AnonymousSeptember 8,2023 at 12:58PM UTC
In what way are these people assistants? They sound like they manage their own workload and perform vital functions for a fairly large company. The title of your post makes me think you do not value these employees' skills and experience. Given their work experience (and depending where you are located) they sound underpaid to me.