Should i ask for a signing bonus? Ibalready accepted, is it too late?

October 17, 2019 11:45 AM

Going from temp to permanent hire. Been in the role for3 months and the salary is considerably more than my current hourly rate, should i ask for a signing bonus to make up that difference?

I have been temping for the last 5 months at a major logistics firm. A few months ago they moved me into a new role that was a fast track to being made permanent. Two days ago the boss made the offer and i accepted. I didn't think at the time of the offer to ask for a signing bonus, and i didn't negotiate the salary because it is almost double what i am currently making.

That said i have been in this role for three months at my old hourly rate and last month i missed an incentive by not being a permanent employee. Can i approach my boss and ask if consideration could be made for the time i was in the role at half pay and missing out on this incentive payment?

posted by djduckie to Work & Money (11 answers total)

Generally it’s nothing ventured, nothing gained where comp is concerned, but in this case it’s a big no for me.
posted by Admiral Haddock at 11:58 AM on October 17, 2019 [2 favorites]

Best answer: I don't think I would if I were in your shoes. You were a temp so the incentive wasn't for you, and since you already accepted, it's kind of weird to go back and ask for more money- you missed your window (in my opinion).

But I would keep a very detailed document of all your achievements (an easy way to do this is in an email draft, or email them to yourself periodically with a weird code word tag so you can find it all easily), and then ask for a raise with lots of evidence the next time it's appropriate to do so (contract re-up, performance review, or whenever people generally officially ask for raises in that context).

Enjoy the higher pay! Now's also a GREAT time to set up an automatic savings account. If your salary just doubled, I would take at least half of the increase and funnel it straight into a high-interest savings account, before you get used to spending the higher cash flow. Congrats on the new role!
posted by nouvelle-personne at 12:03 PM on October 17, 2019 [5 favorites]

Why would you be entitled to the higher rate before you got the job? The salary came with the position. I would not risk pushing this -- just enjoy your new higher pay rate.
posted by fiercecupcake at 12:07 PM on October 17, 2019 [1 favorite]

No way, and you should reframe how you're thinking about this. You were a temp, making temp pay, and they could have not offered you a job that doubled your pay, and you would still be making that up. Hiring bonuses are about future loss, not about imagined past loss. For ex. I used the fact that I wasn't fully vested in my 401K (thus would be losing 401K funds) to negotiate a hiring bonus. That was the company giving me an incentive. I don't see where you would have had anything to leverage.
posted by DoubleLune at 12:08 PM on October 17, 2019 [3 favorites]

You can always ask, but I don’t think you have a very strong case.
posted by sallybrown at 12:09 PM on October 17, 2019

No, you already accepted. Additionally, you weren't working at "half-rate" in a way that should be compensated afterwards.
posted by rhizome at 12:20 PM on October 17, 2019

If you were temping through another company and not just a contractor previously, you have to remember that they have almost certainly paid a signing bonus--to your previous employer. Either that or (possibly in addition) they will have been paying a substantial premium over your old wages to that temp agency for your services. If you're genuinely in enormous demand and you could go anywhere else tomorrow, maybe it might be worth a try, but I think most people who temp don't realize how much of a pay cut it means. You're already doing really well, based on my experiences with such companies, in that your current employer did not try to give you a permanent offer that was substantially cheaper than what they'd already been paying for you.

If you have leverage, by all means! But if you're just thinking of this as "they weren't paying what the role was worth before," there's a very good chance that they were and that it was your recruiter or agency that was taking the difference.
posted by Sequence at 12:22 PM on October 17, 2019 [6 favorites]

Response by poster: Thanks for all the insights. This type of position is definitely a first for me and i decided to take the "enjoy what i am getting" advice.
posted by djduckie at 1:04 PM on October 17, 2019 [2 favorites]

Next time you get a offer ask for more pay. Having been a temp isn't the justification, your excellence and achievements are. You may not get more, but you will have pointed out how lucky they are to have you.
posted by theora55 at 1:27 PM on October 17, 2019

Most places who wanted me temp to perm paid X for temp with a conversion to X minus 25% on perm. Reader, I passed.
posted by tilde at 1:48 PM on October 17, 2019

If there is a waiting period for benefits, you might ask if your time as a temp could be counted for that time. They may not have the flexibility to do that, but sometimes they do, and that's less of a compensation request and more of a how does this work kind of question that might prompt them to see if they can do something for you.
posted by willnot at 3:25 PM on October 17, 2019 [4 favorites]