Is employer obliged to give an employee a pay rise?

[sim]

Is an employer obliged to give an employee a pay rise if only to cover cost of living(inflation)? Can an employer put a freeze on pay rises to particular individuals or would this form grounds for constructive dismissal? Do you have to give an employee quantifiable goals or can a salary review be purely at the discretion of the employer?

title expanded by ajapale

 

[rainyday]

Re: Salary Reviews

Is an employer obliged to give an employee a pay rise if only to cover cost of living(inflation)?

No.

Can an employer put a freeze on pay rises to particular individuals or would this form grounds for constructive dismissal?

Yes, assuming that there is some sensible reason for the pay freeze, like poor performance from the individual or poor finances overall.

Do you have to give an employee quantifiable goals or can a salary review be purely at the discretion of the employer?

It's not an either/or choice. There is nothing in law to state that an employee should have quantifiable goals.

 

[sluice44]

Re: Salary Reviews

Is an employer obliged to give an employee a pay rise if only to cover cost of living(inflation)?

I've heard that Hewlett Packard employees have had a pay freeze for the past 3 years.

 

[InfoSeeker]

Salary Review

I work for a company where we had pay reductions for 18 months and are now back to what we were on 3yrs ago. The company is increasing turnover annual by significant amounts but little is repatriated to the 'ants' and these are skilled jobs. Of course we have a choice, ie to leave and many have. I myself am tring to change career. I think PWC stated that the annual increase for 2004 was 4.6%.

 

[Lemurz]

Re: Salary Reviews

My employer a very profitable multinational tried the pay freeze lark a few years ago to boost profits for Wall Street.

Our American collegues got stuffed with a 12 month pay freeze, but the European Works Councils wouldn't have any of it, so we still got our usual inflationary increment.

 

[onekeano]

Re: Salary Reviews

"I've heard that Hewlett Packard employees have had a pay freeze for the past 3 years."

Except for Carly, but she doesn't count anymore.

Roy

 

[Jane]

Re: Salary Reviews

Lemurz, can you explain how they went about this? I'd be interested to know.

 

[sinead76]

review

I've been on the same salary since January 2004, I was expecting to be called in for a review but it never happened. I know my closest colleague got a review and rise a few months ago (don't know how much), 12 months after her last review so I know there's not a price freeze.
Should I ask for one or would they laugh in my face? (they're probably laughing behind my back - last night I divided my yearly salary by 52 and again by the number of hours worked in a week and I earn less per hour than the office cleaning lady!)

 

[Biggles]

Re: review

There's nothing to stop you asking for a salary review at any time. Rather than just going into your manager and blurting out that you want a raise, perhaps you word it as a request for a performance review. If he/she asks why, you could then say that you hadn't had a pay rise in XX months and wanted to know whether this was in any way attributable to your performance.

If there is an issue with your performance, you should at least get some specifics on the aspects of your performance that are being negatively perceived along with constructive advice on how to address the issue. Seek specifics - don't accept the use of phrases such as "I feel..." or "My gut feeling is ....". Problems with your performance should be based on specific examples - otherwise it's useless and condescending.

If there is no problem with your performance, you can reasonable ask for a pay rise on the basis that other people are getting one.

 

[mmclo]

Re: review

Are there any guides or models of best practice for this type of thing maybe from IBEC or Institute of Personnel Managers??

Biggles seems to have some insight??

 

[PaybackPayroll]

Minimum Wages

Should I ask for one or would they laugh in my face? (they're probably laughing behind my back - last night I divided my yearly salary by 52 and again by the number of hours worked in a week and I earn less per hour than the office cleaning lady!)

Your employer would not be allowed to pay you less than the minimum wage.

Divide the gross reckonable pay earned in a pay reference period(week, fortnight, month) by the number of the employee's working hours in that pay reference period.

If this is less than €7/hour, complain to the rights commissioner [broken link removed]
(National Minimum Wages Act 2000)

 

[sinead76]

re

Its about €9.31 p/hour
Cleaning lady gets a tenner an hour but I have a bloody degree!

 

[purple]

Re: Salary Reviews

You seem to be working very long hours without any overtime. It would seem reasonable to ask for overtime payments, some of your workload to be redistributed so that you can get back to 39 hours a week or for the long hours to be acknowledged with a pay rise.
As an employer I wouldn't see this as being an unfair request.

 

[sinead76]

re

actually i based that calculation on a 35 hour working week
not sure how i worked it out on a monthly basis, but
€18000 / 52 weeks = 346.15
divided by 35 hours = €9.89