I.T grade system.

I work for a multinational who in recent years have put everyone into a grade system, the company looks at the market and pays according to what they see is the market rate for that grade. The grading system does not take into account specialist skillsets and the current market rates for same, so a number of people would be not getting market rates for their skillset (myself included).

Any given week of the year I can logon on to a jobs website and show the current rates for what I do to management which shows that my "grade" is nowhere near market rates but they say they applied the grade system to reflect general IT experience and not skillsets. Its obvious to me the grade system isnt suitable for skilled workers more for general IT work but little ol me aint gonna get the grade system changed. For me to get my worth Id have to be on a high managers grade which aint gonna happen.

Yes, the company has shareholders to report to so they cant be known to pay top dollar to employees but rather reward in other ways via generous packages, shares, bonuses whatnot. I like working for the co. but all of the sweeteners rolled up still leave my salary way shy of market rates. What with mort rates going up etc this is becoming more of an issue so am thinking of moving elsewhere but would honestly not be considering it except for the money aspect.

Has anyone experience of this type of grade system in I.T (inside or outside of multinationals) and how does your company grade?
Is this a sinister new trend in HR practices to curtail salary increases, Ive yet to see an ad on a website for (for.e.g) "technical consultant grade 4" ?

Companies always want to get away with paying as little as they can I'm afraid

I'm not sure I would use job ads to judge the market rates either, alot of times agencies seem to throw ads out there with relatively generic descriptions just fishing for CVs, in which case the salary can be a little inflated. What are aquaintances in other companies making?

From what I've been hearing, there are now a good number of very skilled eastern europeans (EU countries) in the market which is exerting downward pressure on rates, as an economist might say.

Good luck.

I know its up to the job-seeker to get as much as they can when going for a job, ie, the market rate is what the market will pay, but if not the job sites, then how can one gauge current rates for a given skillset, either fulltime or daily rate?
We have an eastern european contractors in with us, AFAIK, he's on the same rate that an Irish contractor is on sitting beside him doing the same thing but in general I too have heard that the foreign contractors have lowered the overall rate as employers realise they can get the same resource for less.
For my particular skillset and qualifications I have, my original question still stands in that the rates and salarys seem a lot higher then what Im on and the grade system my co. has adopted is a just another means to ensure they keep salary levels low.
I recently read Naomi Kleins "No logo" and it discusses the changing employment practices amongst global corporations, so maybe Im looking too much into the sinister side of this (but I dont think so!)..

Maybe you need to look at some other posts (e.g. this and this)

The problem seems to be with their grading system. When I worked for a large multi national a few years ago it worked as follows:

They would assign a grade (2,3,4,5...)to a Job based on difficulty and responsibility eg:
1 - New starter with leaving cert.
2 - New starter with degree etc.
and upwards depending on job and level of skill and responsibility. The grades also had sub grades eg 4.4.

Each job's salary was based on the 'Current Market Rate' (CMR) for the job in the industry (reviewed annually). The system was flexible and each employee’s salary could be viewed as a percentage (Compa Radio) of the CMR. eg An employee with a job grade of 5.4. The CMR for the job would be €50k, but the employee’s salary could be between 80% to 120% of the CMR (100%). They would start the job (no experience etc) at 80% and rise up with experience/performance etc. They *should* not exceed 120% of the Grades CMR. Now, to make it more interesting there were also 'Technical Grades'. A technical employee would have the same job Grade (difficulty /responsibility) as a normal 5.4 (officer worker) employee, but because of their (in demand) skills with a higher technical CMR for the job they would be paid more. eg the Technical Grade 5.4 CMR (100%) would be €75k. I some cases they well exceeded 120% of the CMR for key technical staff, who they could not afford to lose. BTW it was not broadcast to the normal workers that the 'Technical Grades' existed.

Edit: The Current Market Rates were found not from adverts etc, but from ringing up the HR Depts of other companies in the same business.


Towger.