I’ve watched people who barely show up or contribute get raises, while those of us putting in real work keep getting passed over. It feels completely arbitrary. Is there a system? A formula? Or is it just who you’re buddies with? If there’s any transparency, I haven’t seen it. Honestly, it’s one of the most demoralizing parts of being here.
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And don’t ask a question in a webcast. Your director will be calling you if you say something that’s not PC
By dice rolls, or eeny, meeny, miny, moe. Who knows at this point. All I know it's not fair, however you look at it.
FUBAR!
This might come as no surprise, but poorly conducted salary/bonus decisions are mainly due to incompetence and poor communication among leadership channels. Supervisors and managers are asked to get numbers "in the system" and told they can be adjusted later. This is done to "get a grasp" on the raise/promo budgets allocated to departments. This is usually under the guidance of a Managing director or above. All management below that is kept in the dark about those actual numbers. One year T-Line Engineering was given a large portion of the promo budgets because a director made a stupid mistake the prior year with that department. The other two engineering groups had to subsidize the previous years' mess up due to incompetence. Those two engineering groups were shorted that year and then that problem snowballed into the following year.
The problem is that the employee is looking at their performance in the current calendar year, as they should. Behind the scenes, and usually at the Managing Director level and above, they are fixing compensation problems caused one to two cycles before the previous year. You may have had a stellar year, but if upper management made bad decisions the previous years, it won't matter for you unless you really drew a lot of attention to yourself.
Also, those that draw a lot of attention will get rewarded even if their efforts don't produce results going forward. It's basically a reward for being able to write long (wordy and confusing) policy documents that never get put into use. Real work that actually moves the needle is considered "part of your job" and seldom considered for promo/bonus. The problem is that it is not the individual to blame, it is poor management picking low bang-for-buck initiatives. Management rewards those initiatives because it makes them have bragging rights for their own raises/promos.
ultimately, it is a result of having too much middle management filled with people that were promoted beyond their abilities. Again, not the fault of the ones getting promoted, it's a lack of mentorship, attention, and accountability from their bosses.
The HR how-to sessions for compensation planning only add more confusion to intelligent supervisors and managers. When they have questions, no one above them takes the time to give a meaningful answer. It's the trickle down effect, if those above you don't care, why should you care? That's actual, real-world, culture; not that silliness you see on posters or webcasts.