The Microsoft Salary and Review System 375
f1055man writes "If you can make it through the obvious bias, Washington Alliance of Technology Workers (WASHTECH) has put together a revealing article on Microsoft's salary and review system. 'Internal Microsoft documents obtained by WashTech News show that Microsoft salaries have been stagnant or nudged only slightly higher over the past two years. Comments from current and former employees about the company's compensation and performance review system suggest a growing level of frustration among rank-and-file workers.'"
Welcome to the rest of the jungle (Score:4, Insightful)
It may be for nerds, and it may at some level matter, but it's not news.
Microsoft Engineer and a Sweeper? (Score:5, Insightful)
Who deserves a raise? Not everyone. (Score:4, Insightful)
The big problem in the States is the government's crazy dollar creation (what we call inflation is directly caused by the Fed's out of control printing of dollars). This inflation creates cost of living increases (including the housing bubble in my opinion). Because of this inflationary cycle, people demand cost of living increases.
For my businesses, I pay my employees the lowest salary possible, in some cases minimum wage. I myself only earn minimum wage. Yet my employees also get a much larger share of profits, up to 70% on a given project. They are directly tied to the performance of their work, as well as the performance of the market. I'm one of the lowest paid in my IT business (although I also do less work than most).
To get raises, your company has to be making more money in terms of net profits. Microsoft is a company that has to constantly find new ways to profit in order to grow. With the added competition in the marketplace, it surprises me that slashdot geeks constantly berate Microsoft for being a monopoly when they have one of the most volatile markets to sell to -- they're constantly having to find ways to keep customers happy.
I wouldn't work for (or invest in) Microsoft or any large tech company. The red tape and bureaucracy is enormous, and the management system is bound to fail at multiple places when their market turns.
If you are an employee of a company that isn't getting a raise this year, consider the realities of your market:
1. Is your company growing?
2. Is the growth reflected in real profits?
3. Does your company see a volatile near-future that they need to save for?
4. Are you personally more efficient or creating more income for your company?
5. Is your government printing more currency than the economy needs, causing inflation in consumer and housing prices? Does this inflationary cycle hurt your employer?
6. Is your employer's tax burden increasing even if they're paying you the same? Is this increased tax burden causing you to earn less?
When you're an employee, you put off the reward of a very high salary by hedging against the risk of running a business. Some people believe a business' only goal is to generate profits for the owners, but this in totally untrue. A business operates to generate profits in the long run, not the short run. The only way to profit in the long run is to make your customers happy and return for more. Also, the only way to profit is for your employees to be operating more efficiently (more work or less cost) than your competitors. Profitable years might be needed to cover unprofitable years, so you can not focus on only one year or 5 years -- you have to look at the overall picture. When you take a salaried job, you give up having to worry about these things in exchange for job security.
Sometimes you won't get raises, but the world will get more expensive around you. You can almost always blame across-the-board cost of living increases on the guys printing the money. Across-the-board prices don't go up unless the money supply goes up. Don't blame your boss for not being able to compensate for these mistakes made by the central banks.
The point of this article buried way down (Score:2, Insightful)
This whole article is just another call for collective bargaining agreements and a union.
If the salary sucks, find a different job? (Score:5, Insightful)
So are we to deduce that this person at one point loved working in an environment where they were treated shabbily and could not defend themselves? Or they did not know this was the culture at Microsoft and later found out the hard way?
The whole quote about favouritism in reviews (unfortunately) rings true about many companies, not just Microsoft. My advice is if you are unhappy - leave, no one is forcing them to work for Microsoft. And it might just be the best move of your life.
Nothing new - That's the same story everywhere (Score:5, Insightful)
The value of my home just went up by $146,000 this year alone -- and before you start accusing me of being too greedy, know that I'm not interested in selling, just living here. All that extra value is pure fluff, the stuff that dot-com stocks were made of. The problem is, I'm being forced to pay property taxes that are going up at the rate of 25% a year just to keep my house. Fat chance trying to find a job where my income increases commensurately.
I've no idea what to do, and I'm seriously considering moving to India, and joining the growing contingent of foreign workers there.
Somebody explain to my why it seems that despite the dollar figure of my salary that's far above what my parents earned at my age, I still feel poorer.... and I'm a good saver!
Re:Who deserves a raise? Not everyone. (Score:5, Insightful)
For my businesses, I pay my employees the lowest salary possible, in some cases minimum wage. I myself only earn minimum wage. Yet my employees also get a much larger share of profits, up to 70% on a given project. They are directly tied to the performance of their work, as well as the performance of the market. I'm one of the lowest paid in my IT business (although I also do less work than most).
That may be great during good times, but what happens if your business falls on hard times? If you aren't compensating your employees appropriately, do you think they are going to stay? You see, salary is a form of compensation. If you don't pay your employees anything but or near minimum wage, you must not think very highly of your work. Just because an effort fails, does not mean that it was for lack of trying. Profit sharing should be an extra incentive to work even harder.
Its very simple... (Score:5, Insightful)
Its all very simple: if you are paid below your worth, look for an employer that will pay what you are worth. If you can't find one then adjust your concept of what you are worth.
There. One could even make a flowchart of that.
Re:Who deserves a raise? Not everyone. (Score:5, Insightful)
I strongly advise getting a passport and going to see how the rest of the world lives if you think 2-3% inflation is out of control.
Re:Welcome to the rest of the jungle (Score:4, Insightful)
Nope, not the whole industry, just those who are struggling and/or short-sighted.
The "everyone else is doing it" attitude is a good way to lose your market leadership position. You have to pay more than lip service to your drive to stay competitive. If the review system doesn't reward people for performing, then they either won't perform or they'll move to where their work is better rewarded. It's like MS is saying "Google, you can poach our employees at a discount."
For a company like Microsoft to be losing good people due to poor compensation is bad management that borders on negligence. MS is sitting on billions of dollars. Are they doing anything with that money that's more worthwhile than retaining their talent?
Bah... no news here. (Score:4, Insightful)
My earnings have been flat since 2000, and significantly lower than what I made in 1997-8. The same (mostly) can be said for my staff. If I could pay them more, I would in a heartbeat, but we haven't been able to raise prices in 6 years, so revenues have grown, right along with costs which means profits remain... dismal. If I gathered up all the profit our company has made in the past 6 years, I MIGHT be able to purchase a small Korean sedan. Instead I've done what any smart employer can do, which is give rasies where I can (which means NOT to me sadly) and plowed the rest of it back into the company. We should all be earning 40% more than we are, but we're not. Deal with it.
Re:Welcome to the rest of the jungle (Score:5, Insightful)
This article, subtley, calls bullshit on them. And, as you say, it's the whole rest of the industry. There must be a great lie going on.
Re:Who deserves a raise? Not everyone. (Score:5, Insightful)
Typically, technical employees DO provide more service every year, based on constantly learning how to do what they do better, as well as commonly picking up other skills from surrounding employees. In addition to this, many times, when an employee quits, it is up to the existing employees to pick up the slack, because the company won't hire a replacement, or hires an entry level replacement which can only pick up a small amount of the work that was done by the outgoing person.
In addition, every year, the cost of living goes up. Many companies consider a Cost of Living Adjustment a raise, but it is absolutely not. It just allows you to maintain the same style of living you had last year. If you do not receive even a Cost of Living Adjustment, your style of living must diminish, and your company is saying to you that you are worth less to them this year than you were last year.
You mention several things that may be affecting the companies ability to pay raises. Well, that's life. We justify high CEO salaries by saying that they take all the risk in running the business. But in reality this is purest BS. The employees take all the risk because they will be fired, not the CEO. They will not receive raises if money is short. Even if the CEO gets canned, he will get a glorious severance package. Plus, the fact that he was a spectacular failure as a CEO is worth more on a resume than if hw was a spectacular success as a programmer.
You also mention that businesses have to look long term, over 5 years or more. In publically held companies, I observe that the "public" will not allow them to look more than one quarter in the future. Investors will not allow them to spend more money on research or developing new products. Everything is quarter to quarter financials until the old products you have become obsolete and your business fails.
Re:Who deserves a raise? Not everyone. (Score:5, Insightful)
The big problem in the States is the government's crazy dollar creation (what we call inflation is directly caused by the Fed's out of control printing of dollars). This inflation creates cost of living increases (including the housing bubble in my opinion). Because of this inflationary cycle, people demand cost of living increases.
I agree that the reasoning behind cost of living increases is somewhat circular. But this tail wagging the dog notion of inflation applied during the 1970's when US government fiscal policy was inflationary. That is no longer the case. We have plenty of other problems instead. The housing bubble was encouraged by persistent, historically low interest rates. It enlarged the number of buyers. It allowed people to buy up in value. Those same people continue to flip properties in the virtuous (I say vicious) cycle. Low interest rates are due to the insatiable appetite of export economies (like China and Japan) for US treasuries and other investments. They make enormous profits, they don't consume, so they have nowhere to put their money. You can't 'invest' in over capacity forever. They also have their own real estate speculation problems. At the moment we in the US are partying on their cheap money. Enjoy it while it lasts.
Re:Welcome to the rest of the jungle (Score:5, Insightful)
This is news because of the economic implications for Microsoft. Microsoft has historically been able to recruit the best and brightest to work for Microsoft, give them stock options, and essentially let investors pay the developers a ridiculous salary without the costs showing up on Microsoft's books. This, in turn, allowed Microsoft's books to look amazing which generated more interested in MSFT stock. Basically, while Microsoft was growing, it could print its own money. Now that this isn't the case Microsoft is a much less attractive place to work.
This wouldn't be a big deal if the coders at Microsoft couldn't find someplace else to work with higher pay, but that's not the case with the elite at Microsoft. That's why Google has been able to scoop up so many Microsoft employees, and it is also why we have seen a steady stream of Microsoft employees forming their own startups and such.
Re:entitled? (Score:3, Insightful)
Raises used to be tied to performance, and I don't mean those nonsensical performance reviews, I mean how you actually did your job and did you add value to the company. Hard work was rewarded, slackers tended to slink away. Now, no amount of hard work seems to matter; you get a "good job" , a pat on the back, and they expect 20 hours of overtime next week instead of 15. The only way for me to keep my salary increasing has been to move from one job to the next as often as possible.
Re:FYI (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: Microsoft Engineer and a Sweeper? (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not an economist, but my gut feeling is that it is getting harder and harder for people to move on. Of course, there's always jobs available as a cashier somewhere, but that isn't supposed to be rewarding for a four-year degree or years of experience. Or, is it?
I'm not an MBA, either, but it seems that MBA schools must not include "morale" anywhere in their curriculums. Time and time again, when management decides to "restructure", morale drops to about zero, especially after all the cuts the executives still get to escape to their championship golf courses and gated communities.
Re: Microsoft Engineer and a Sweeper? (Score:4, Insightful)
Some people view outsourcing of tech support to India hurts their chances of getting a job but I see it as an opportunity. I do PC repair/network setup on the side and most of the clients agree that Indian tech support sucks royally. You can take this opportunity to set up a business for yourself or sit back and let overpriced Geek Squad (Best Buy) provide services that people need.
The Secrets of Salary Systems (Score:5, Insightful)
You will not advance over the 50% mark of your company's pay scale. Since the 1990s, personnel and payroll departments in companies have instituted a graduated pay structure often called "Banding" or "Leveled Pay" to save costs. The concept behind these systems is to organize employees into similar grades depending upon job category and responsibility. A secretary and a construction worker may be placed into the same grade, while their managers and engineers would be placed at a higher grade. These grades span a set amount of money, so for example the construction worker may earn anywhere between $30,000 and $50,000 per year.
However, this system was also structured to keep dangling a carrot in front of the eyes of the employee. The midpoint in these systems is designated as the "market average". Therefore, if you are near this midpoint, you are considered "paid competitively" compared to the rest of the people in that niche market. This makes the possibility for future raises smaller or nonexistent. For the sample construction worker, this would mean that he would not advance above $40,000 per year. While you may believe that you have the possibility of getting up to the top point in the grade, the system is intentionally designed to retard compensation.
I welcome any thoughts if this could be stated better.
Bias? (Score:1, Insightful)
The American english vocabulary lacks words for precision in this, but here goes. The word "bias", in use by rightists (don't believe in worker's rights to collectively, do strongly believe in corporate/business owner rights to pay whatever they like) is only used against, SIGH, "left-wing" views. Never is the term pejoratively used against the vast panoply of pro-rightists who permeate the entire media, business sector and political arena. I assume this is because the rightists who speak are always correct, and therefore cannot be biased.
It's a situation based in mob-hysterical truthiness. Anything to the right of Limbaugh is now biased and lefty and of course, wrong.
The rightists have a stranglehold on reality now. They are holding a bag over reality's head and will not let it breath until the body goes limp.
But reality really doesn't need a voice to be heard. The economy is collapsing from the bottom upwards. We've borrowed another 4 trillion. The interest rates will increase becaues of that, and the annual debt interest payments will top 25% of Federal spending, and we as a nation will go broke, WHILE raising taxes. The dollar will devalue. We're making nothing anyone wants to buy at the prices we can charge. New jobs are Wal-Mart jobs. Medicaid and Medicare are vastly underfunded and will collapse. And they still will cut more jobs and cut the wages they pay.
No matter how hard you try to silence reality with the nonsensical "bias" label, it will win because whatever memes cable TV news network and Regnery press pump into the culture, wages will still collapse, the housing market will both collapse in poorer areas and hyperinflate in the wealthy districts, and there won't be any real jobs to be had.
The readers of Slashdot, young, male, college educated and well employed, are largely insulated from the 90% of the population that will experience the collapse first. But even you all will notice things not working well, and soon. But will you be able to even frame the reality if you are semantically hobbled with rightist word games? Bias indeed.
Re:Who deserves a raise? Not everyone. (Score:2, Insightful)
Yeah, I wish I understood how inflation rates are calculated. Heating costs have doubled for many people in the last several years--that's hundreds of dollars a year. My health insurance went up about 10% this year--again, potentially hundreds per year. My mortgage escrow also went up about 10% (taxes and insurance). Yet, the newscasts still say inflation is amost non-existent. I suspect that inflation is much much higher for some people, and the average must work out fairly low.
Reward frequently comes with risk... (Score:3, Insightful)
You are absolutely correct, starting a "gig" that becomes successful does indeed have more reward than working for Microsoft (now that stock options are thin and Microsoft's stock price increase is tepid). But there is the little caveat above: "becomes successful". In the last few years consultants have either been out of work or struggling. Consulting pay is down. Doing a product oriented startup also has risk, since most startup companies fail. So the rewards that you foresee (and hopefully will acheive) is coupled with risk. The only people who get big rewards these days without taking a lot of risk are big company CEOs.
So why does anyone work for someone else? Less risk. If you have a family to support, you may be unwilling to accept the level of risk required for a higher reward. It all depends on were you are in life.
Upside down (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem with US companies - perhaps all companies - is that culture is completely upside down. People who run and own companies (executives and shareholders) are interested in more profits today. Or at least this quarter. Short-term, in any event.
In order to get those short term gains, the company cuts every cost possible. Considering that payroll and benefits is usually the biggest expense to a company, employees (the people doing the work that generates the profit) get to take home only as much as will keep them coming to work tomorrow.
A longer term view would be of benefit to everyone, including the people at the top who are interested in profits. The first aim of management should be to keep its employees very happy. Those employees will, in turn, keep customers happy. The customers will continue to purchase what you're selling, and will tell their colleagues about how great you are.
End result? Employees are happy and well-compensated. (Side note: I know that I would be more productive at work if I didn't have to worry about making ends meet at home.) Customers are satisfied and deliver profits with their own purchases and referrals. Management gets big bonuses. Shareholders get a higher value for their stock.
If your goal is to increase profits, the fallout is having to clean up after a short term gain. If your goal is to increase share value, the fallout is to clean up after shareholders take their short term gains. If your goal is to take good care of your employees, the long term benefits are substantial. This is how Japan took over the US auto industry; with five and ten year plans.
Unfortunately, it's all too easy for executives in the US to jump from one company to another, squeezing the life out of each until it's time to jump again.
But there IS a shortage (Score:1, Insightful)
As the law of supply and demand dictates, more workers in the market would mean lower salaries in general. Since M$ currently has to pay software developers more than it would like to, there is obviously a shortage.
Re:Who deserves a raise? Not everyone. (Score:3, Insightful)
If (or when) those central banks decide spending those dollars by sending them back to the USA, the violent increase in the amount of bills in the economy will make the inflationary American bubble crash hard. Good prices will double, triple, or even more.
And why? Simple: because if you had 'x' tons of goods and 'y' tons of bills, thus 'y' being able to buy 'x', now you'll have the same 'x' tons of goods, but '3y' tons of bills, meaning '3y' = 'x'.
Now, guess which country is planning to do exactly that? If you guessed "China", you guessed right. They see themselves as enemies of the USA, and they see all the dollar bills they accumulated as just another weapon among many.
Re:Another reason to start your own co. (Score:2, Insightful)
You shouldn't be working hard to get a raise. You should be working hard to earn your current salary. Isn't that what you are being paid for?
Tell me why again, you feel you deserve a raise? You agreed to a certain wage - why, all of the sudden, do you feel you deserve more? To buy a new calendar? It doesn't make sense to me that you feel you deserve more money simply because another year went by.
Now, if you tell me that the prevailing wage went up, that's a different story. Or if your contributions led to much more profit than expected, that too is a different story. But this "entitlement" of an annual raise is silly.
In fact, in many parts of the IT industry, the average wage in 2005 was less than the "going rate" in 1999. If you happened to have the same job as you did in 1999, congratulations, you are probably over-paid. The company SHOULD be reducing your salary. But that's a difficult thing to do, morale-wise. So instead, there's a gradual decline, through minimal raises, attrition, layoffs, and possibly businesses going under (which many did!)
Don't expect a raise. You're not entitled to it. Now get back to work.
- Your boss
Re:Who deserves a raise? Not everyone. (Score:3, Insightful)
Lets say I put in 110% for the company. Good for me, I get a bonus. The next year I put in that same 'above and beyond' level of effort - but now my effort only pays out bonus - cost of living. Do this for five years and I'm probably better off putting that extra energy into your competitor's company.
I'd argue that a cost of living increase is not a raise. While I agree many folks do not deserve a raise - or even the current salary they draw - I know I have the expectation that all things being equal my salary should also match the inflation rates. If not, I make that much less every year I work for the shop. If you are running a shop based on strict profit %, than I'd hope the profits will reflect the inflation, thus covering the cost of living increases as I'm sure your bill rates, etc, are also taking into account that money printing thing... If not, yikes! Or worse - I have to be more creative, put in longer hours, etc, just to keep up with my taxes and other costs just to tread water from a financial standpoint. Must be counting on turn and burn from an employment standpoint, because a highly motivated talent would be boned in less than a decade.
And yes, I would blame my boss for not sorting this, then the company. Then someone at the company gets to figure out what the efficiency loss is when you replace a dedicated employee who has been caring for your customers and making real profits for the company for the last 8 years finds a better gig somewhere else.
If you don't like MS salaries... (Score:2, Insightful)
-- Bridget
Yes, Bias. (Score:2, Insightful)
"It's a situation based in mob-hysterical truthiness. Anything to the right of Limbaugh is now biased and lefty and of course, wrong."
That doesn't even make any sense.
"The rightists have a stranglehold on reality now. They are holding a bag over reality's head and will not let it breath until the body goes limp."
Metaphor alert... metaphor alert...
"The economy is collapsing from the bottom upwards."
I guess that's why 90% of welfare recipients nowadays have a car, color TV, cellphone, etc. etc. Anyway, the rest of your post is basically nonsensical. Sober up next time before typing.
Re:Unionize the masses (Score:4, Insightful)
The big problem with unionizing is that what happened to the other industries will happen to high tech.... I'm not talking about layoffs, strikes, or anything like that. I'm talking about people that don't do their job.
It'll be a WHOLE lot harder to get someone fired for goofing around. For those of you in the automotive industry, you know what I'm talking about. Down on the floor, you look at someone the wrong way, they file a report. You catch someone not doing their job, no hope firing them on the spot, because the union steps in, and that's it. It's become part of the culture there. Not everyone is that way, of course, but the slackers are taking advantage of the system.
Can you imagine if that happened in high tech? I mean, we all work with some goofballs, but at least there's a chance they'll get canned, or move on after low performance reviews.
With a union, there would be almost no hope for that.
Another thing is that while you would probably get a raise every year, there's much much less of a chance that working really hard on a great new idea for the company will land you that promotion, big raise and big bonus. Nope....You're unionized now fella. Gotta do what's good for the union. No promotion, big raise or big bonus for you! The union's taken care of everything. You get the same as everyone else in your grade scale. It's like the old Dilbert comic "I get paid the same, no matter what I do".
If there's one sure why to drive the industry into the ground, that'd be it.
Re:Who deserves a raise? Not everyone. (Score:3, Insightful)
And this is your employer's fault? It is your job to work at the rate you're paid. If you want more money, you have to find someone willing to pay for it.
Your employee compensates you for what you are worth to them. If you want more money, you have to find someone else willing to pay you the increased amount. This is how competition works -- no one will just give you money because you think you deserve it. You have to warrant it.
If you don't pay your employees anything but or near minimum wage, you must not think very highly of your work. Just because an effort fails, does not mean that it was for lack of trying. Profit sharing should be an extra incentive to work even harder.
And yet I don't have people quit my businesses. I pay minimum wage plus a huge bonus because it gives people the added incentive to work really hard and get the job done. On top of that, they want to do a quality job so that we get rehired on contracts in the future.
You make a salary that is rarely tied to the amount of work you do. You feel safe and secure. My employees make more money than if they worked under a salary system -- they're tied directly to the work they do and the profitability of the project. On top of that, they want our customers happy.
Remember, I am the customer of the employee. I hate the term employer -- I am THEIR customer. They're working to satisfy me. I take all their work together, bundle it as a final product, and sell it to my customer.
If you feel you're worth more, shop around. I'm always looking for more people to hire, but the people I interview are 99% overpaid already, and have no desire to be good workers.
Re:Its very simple... (Score:4, Insightful)
XXXXXXXXX Your Salary
XXXX Your Worth - Your Salary = Company Profit
-CGP [colingregorypalmer.net]
Re:Upside down (Score:3, Insightful)
The first aim of management is to keep their fat jobs. They do that by keeping their bosses happy. At the top of the pyramid is the CEO. He keeps his job by keeping the company owner happy. In a publically traded company that owner is the stockholders. Stockholders (or mutual fund managers) don't give a rat's ass about long term - they want return on investment in a 3-12 month time frame so they can keep their jobs.
And that is how capitalism in America is.
If you want to do something long-term you had better be in a privately held company or some other type of institution.
Re:Who deserves a raise? Not everyone. (Score:3, Insightful)
step 2.5: gov't prints money to pay their debt
There fixed that for you
Re:The Secrets of Salary Systems (Score:2, Insightful)
So, if they bring you in at 60% of the mean, you will receive a larger raise each year than someone who is at 80% of mean. You will never exceed the mean, and your raises will eventually be less than the current rate of inflation.
Given that UNISYS does not give bonuses (well, not to the 'little people') and their raise percentages tend to be small - my 60% means the raise this year will be less than 5% - it is only due to the weak tech economy in my area (Indianapolis - anyone need a Tier2 UNIX Admin?) that they can get or keep employees.
Re:Who deserves a raise? Not everyone. (Score:3, Insightful)
The BLS had nothing to do with the 2004 election and the article has nothing to prove those ridiculous claims. Is this supposed to be satire? Or some sort of analogy? The author should know that analogies are supposed to make things clearer, not more confusing. Elections aren't economics and trying to compare the two is simply disingenuous.
The article links to LaRouche material to prove the BLS manipulates the CPI. The LaRouche material relies on ONE example to 'prove' the numbers are rigged. It also pulls out ONE portion of the statistical method to "prove" that the whole method is wrong. A BLS spokesman would never make political statements like the one quoted in the article and the article links to a 404. It also pulls out ONE data point to "prove" seasonal adjustment is wrong.
The BLS is made up largely of career statisticians and takes its work very seriously. The methodologies are public and, yes, there are criticisms, and BLS continually works to improve their methods. While the article has a point about 'core' CPI, the 'non-core' CPI number is still published and can be used by anyone who wants to use it.
These people are really idiots. Do you think computing an inflation number across a country of 300 million people and 3.7 million square miles is easy? Do you think there is a 'perfect' way to compute this number? Let's have it then. BLS would love to know.
Re:Another reason to start your own co. (Score:3, Insightful)
THings are going up in price and everyone else makes more money per year and raises are used to cover the cost of inflation. Why should someone be expected to get a paycut annually while everyone else gets raises?
I really wonder if its worth it to get involved in IT anymore? Unless you have a quarter million in revenue hanging around to start your own business your hosed.
Re:The Secrets of Salary Systems (Score:3, Insightful)
In other words, you get what you pay for.
Re:Start over. (Score:3, Insightful)
I think his points are addressed more accuratly by saying the people who control a corporation are only interested in short term profits as opposed to long term viability. Usually corporation where the people in charge are no longer the founders.
That is not good for the long term viability for any organization.
Yes, I do relize this is a generalization, but it happens a lot.
Former Microsoftie here. (Score:5, Insightful)
Agreed, and this is what I *hated* about the review process. I spent a lot of time generating immense value for Microsoft. I helped bring success in a number of venues and yet any time I attempted to bring these up in review, I was *criticized* for helping out other divisions of the company. Something about me being an employee of my team rather than the company as a whole. My review scores were always 3.5.
I hated reviews. It was a process I generally barely tolerated because it turned the managers into backstabbing weasels. Interdepartmental politics always trumped the significant value of my contributions at a time when I was helping to write the strategy of competing against Linux (as a Level 54, no less). My managers would encourage me until review time and then cut me down in the review over it.
I personally will not consider going back to work at Microsoft. Even though I left largely due to personal issues that left me no choice but to quit, I would not willingly go back.
Re:Who deserves a raise? Not everyone. (Score:3, Insightful)
The something fishy would be your economics teacher. The CPI is not meant to be an end-all be-all number, and if that's what you were taught then I'm sorry. In fact the CPI is not technically an inflation number. You'll note in most news reports the CPI is introduced with "widely used as an inflation indicator" or some other disclaimer.
Ultimately the CPI is an average of the cost of consumer items, so there will naturally be individual values that you can pick out and use to 'prove' the CPI is wrong.
Re:Another reason to start your own co. (Score:3, Insightful)
Becuase our employers (generally speaking) would like to retain our services and ensure that we are productive. If I don't get a raise this year, or if I get a raise that is smaller than the cost of living increase in my area, then my effective salary has been reduced. My same wage has less purchasing power from year to year. If you go several years without a raise, your purchasing power could be seriously reduced. $50,000 a year in 1996 dollars isn't the same as $50,000 a year in 2006 dollars. So if compensation is effectively reduced (if not numerically), then you have less incentive to work at the same level. Over time you may find it more profitable to go work somewhere else.
At that point the employer incurs significant costs in hiring and trianing a replacement worker, and since average wages have increased over the past few years the odds are pretty good that they won't be able to hire someone to fulfill your job at the same low rate they were paying you. So in the end it ends up costing them more money in the long run to not give you a raise.
While it's true that you agreed to perform a specific job for a specific wage, I don't know anyone whose job descriptions (or at least actual performed duties) didn't change over the course of a year. Most people are required to take on a higher workload or level of responsibility as time goes by. Most of us are willing to do it, but not if we aren't to be compensated. Every time your boss asks you to do something that is not in your job description you could stop and negotiate additional fees for services, but most employers and employees would prefer a regular review process with compensation increases.
And the most important thing that you left out is that after a year goes by of doing a specific job, you now have one more year's experience doing that job. Most people will have increased thier skillsets or become more skillful in an existing skillset. Which is worth more, a Java developer fresh out of college or a Java developer who has 3-5 years of experience on successful projects? Or to make it more personal, if you needed medical treatment for a condition would you prefer to have a general practitioner right out of residency or a specialist who had been treating similar cases for years? Most people (employers and employees) would agree that having more experience is worth more.
Re:The Secrets of Salary Systems (Score:2, Insightful)
Right, and there's a specific reason this resulted. Numerous discrimination lawsuits, and, more importantly, the fear thereof, make it so they have to have regimented systems that leave little room for incentive payment. If you pay $NON_PRIVELEGED_RACE_GENDER person more than "equal" $PRIVELEGED_RACE_GENDER then, whoa Nellie, get ready to get sued. How do you prove that you genuinely deem one person's work more valuable than another's? You can't. Since a) value is in the mind of the valuer and b) it is hard to justify valuations to outsiders, you're ultimately punished for your thoughts. If you "underpay" someone for a "good reason", that's AOK. If you underpay them for a "bad reason", that's not OK.
So to CYA, you have to have these thoughtless, rote processes for determining pay, which is a simple function of time worked, education (!), and work experience before joining. Any subjective metric can be painted as discriminatory.
Re:*Former* Microsoftie Here. (Score:3, Insightful)
I was able to help get a number of policy changes through on this area but in the end, some of the changes that mattered most to me were too entrenched in a culture of "bad data is better than no data at all...."
Re:Former Microsoftie here. (Score:1, Insightful)
I do admit that there are tons of politics and that the review process needs improvment, but it is there to improve you and help you realize your potential whether that means staying at MS or not.
Sounds like you never got it.
the way this works... (Score:4, Insightful)
Everybody is evaluated; the evaluation is political, it's painful, and managers don't want to do it, so the results are less than perfect. You should worry if you end up near the bottom, but that's all.
But, in the end, it doesn't matter that much: when times are good, those curves move up and everybody gets a raise.
When times are not so good, nobody gets a raise, except for people who manage to negotiate one. That's the situation Microsoft is in, because although they are still looking good financially, they know they're in trouble.
How do you negotiate a raise? You get a better offer from somewhere else and negotiate. If your company wants to keep you, they'll make a counteroffer. If you made yourself a nuisance or if they think you're not that useful, they'll wish you good luck in your new job.
Re:Former Microsoftie here. (Score:4, Insightful)
I hated reviews. It was a process I generally barely tolerated because it turned the managers into backstabbing weasels. Interdepartmental politics always trumped the significant value of my contributions...
I think this is just a function of the way big corps work. I've seen it at two other companies (as a hardware engineer, not software). It seems the big corps always use some sort of relative ranking system, which taken to an extreme becomes just stupid.
In my experience we were subjected to a rigid bell curve system where 15% or 20% or somesuch -had- to be rated below average. It didn't matter if you had a group with 10 of the smartest people in history, 20% of them would be ranked as underachievers - it was just a retarded system, everyone hated it (and sure enough I heard it eventually got replaced, though I didn't hang around to find out the new system - I jumped to a better job at a smaller company with not as much of the big corp mentality)
I think HR at these big corps just degenerate over time into mindless collections of administratium [wikipedia.org]. They can't figure out why they always lose their best engineers, so they continue making lame attempts at employee satisfaction "surveys". Not useful surveys mind you, just the lame attempt to show that HR is trying their best to retain people. I actually asked an HR person once after doing one such survey why they didn't have any section for user comments, and she replied "well that would just take too long to read them all". (Yeah, I guess one wouldn't want to overburden HR with doing their job by getting useful information...)