Annual Review

My company recently gave us our annual review which was a % which was deemd by all concerned to have been well below what we should have got thus we did not sign our reviews, yet the wage change was implemented. I know some people will say people are lucky to get anything etc but what I was actually wondering is can the company just implement the increment in the wages without having the review signed?? If this is the case what then would be the point of having a performance apparisal especially as it was not used to set out goals etc for the incoming year.

I might be wrong but I'd say you have two choices here.

1: Ask your manager that you do want want the % increase as given.

or

2: Accept it small as it is.

I work in IT where we've seen huge drops in our wages (especially if you move jobs) and what's a review? Seriously. I know people who've had reviews where they've been given 500 euro. Not 500 per year. Just 500 euro. As a bonus and that's it!!! I guess you accept it or you walk.

Personally, I've always believed in making yourself invaluable to a company so that they feel compelled to keep you happy. But that's not everybody's cup of tea I know.

Someone may well prove me wrong on legal grounds on the above, but I still think that you either take it or leave it.

re:

I agree in principal in making yourself invaluable but when you work shifts and rarely see your boss its difficult make that kind of impression. The wages were adjusted, I again told him I was unhappy but the response was basically "tough luck!!". Just wonder if they can actaully do that. Seems the employee has no rights what so ever in this instance if they can just give you what they want withourt right to appeal.

Re: re:

Check the terms & conditions of your contract of employment but I reckon it'd be unusual for this to guarantee any specific amount in terms of annual salary reviews. Unless you can claim a higher increment based on something like the PPF or similar social partnership plan then I guess that you're stuck with what was offered. I've never heard of employees signing off on salary increments in all the time I've been working (in the private sector) to be honest - whatever about signing off on appraisal forms.

Re: re:

Have to agree with 0, the t&c of your contract will dictate what should/shouldn't happen, but I have never come accross a situation where employees sign off a salary increment. Signing off an appraisal is normal, but if you are not happy with the increment you need to make this point known to the employer and there is little (nothing?) else you can do but walk if you are not happy.

Curious,


Would agree with 0 and Statler that if you are referring to an annual increment there is little you can do but if you are referring to your annual review specifically I'm just wondering do you not have an appeals procedure on your reviews? Is there a union in your company and if so have you approached same about this matter? Does your company have financial difficulties at present?

If the answer to these questions is no then you should preferably as a group put a complaint in writing to the company and keep a copy of same safely in case the situation either comes around again/gets worse.

"If the answer to these questions is no then you should preferably as a group put a complaint in writing to the company and keep a copy of same safely in case the situation either comes around again/gets worse."

I'm just wondering how this would work. Unless this group were willing to discuss in detail their respective financial packages with each other then how could they approach the management about their individual reviews. The reason I say this is I worked in a company which did exactly this about three years ago. The whole company (myself included) signed a petition to complain about various things (reviews etc...). The head of Operations called the whole company to a meeting room and told us all that if we didn't want to work there we were all free to leave whenever we wanted and they would do nothing to stop us. It put a stop to petitions pretty quickly.
Generally, management don't take kindly to what they view as ultimatums, unless there's a union involved. Remember too that in most companies the person giving the pay review is not necessarily the person who decides how much people can get. Most managers are given guidelines as to what they can give based on what they have in their budget. I still think it's a case of accept or walk.

Hi Piggy,

I personally don't see any need to discuss individual reviews because as Curious says "our annual review which was a % which was deemd by all concerned to have been well below what we should have got" so to me its done on a group basis.

To my way of thinking the overall answer to the problem is as you say "unless there's a union involved" which is really what's necessary here unfortunately because Management don't seem to be playing fair.

"I personally don't see any need to discuss individual reviews because as Curious says "our annual review which was a % which was deemd by all concerned to have been well below what we should have got" so to me its done on a group basis."


Fair point sueellen!

Unless this group were willing to discuss in detail their respective financial packages with each other

Click to expand...

While I understand (& share) the natural tendency to keep personal financial details confidential, you might find that doing so helps out management more than the workers (if you'll forgive the artifically polarised view of the world for a moment).

...

Curious,

Didn't the mgt. team have some form of comms meeting BEFORE the raises were implemented? When you said the % was less than people expected - is there differences between the higher performers and the lower performers of does everyone get the same %? If so that'd be unusual in a high tech org.

Typically in my experience companies tend to say something like:
Rating of 1 = 8-10%
Rating of 2 = 3-6%
Rating of 3 = 1-3%
Rating of 4 = Ouch!
Needless to say the majority of people would be in the 2 category...

If it's a large company like say Intel for example you will find that they share a lot of compensation data would others like HP, IBM, Microsoft etc. and when doing their comms rollout they will tell you what the industry standard is for pay increases each year.

MAC