Do I have any recourse if my old boss screws me on my annual raise?

September 24, 2007 12:08 PM

I recently moved to a different division at work and my old boss took advantage of this to screw me on my annual raise: what, if any, recourse do I have?

I've worked for the same company for 6 years and every year we get an annual review. In this review we're scored between 0-5 on different aspects of our performance, and the average of these scores defines the raise you get (I usually get about 3.5).

This year though I changed division at raise time and even though I got an average of 3.29 in my review, my raise was 1.23%. I've spoken with HR about this and have been fobbed off (hey, that division had a bad year etc). So is that it? Do I/ should I just suck it up? Or is there something else I could do to get what I think I'm due?

posted by forallmankind to Work & Money (4 answers total)

At one of the large local employers, people pretty much universally expect to get screwed by their managers if they change jobs, so they make sure they don't announce their intention to transfer until immediately after reviews are in and raises are allocated.

It sounds like you have little or no leverage at this point. Your options are probably only for the future: 1) Time your transfer more carefully 2) Seek an employer with a different compensation system and corporate culture.
posted by Good Brain at 12:19 PM on September 24, 2007

Unless you have a contract I don't think companies are legally even required to give you an annual raise so I don't think you have recourse there unless you were discriminated against for age, race, etc...

I've actually had quite a few people I indirectly managed get hit with similar situations and they've ultimately just had to suck it up.
posted by Octoparrot at 12:21 PM on September 24, 2007

You have the same recourses everyone else has in this situation: complain to someone who might have the power to do something about it (certainly not HR), threaten to quit, quit, or start plotting to quit. Unless they have some sort of contractual obligation with you, your employer is not obligated to give you a raise even if there is an informal policy. You just learned something about life in your new division. I'd be plotting to quit if I were you.
posted by nanojath at 12:24 PM on September 24, 2007

Compensation, from the corporate standpoint, is the cost of keeping you from leaving. Since the old division doesn't have to worry about keeping you, they felt justified in giving you a low raise. There was probably a set dollar amount allocated for raises. Since they knew you were leaving, there was no incentive to pay you enough not to leave.

Don't feel bad.... I'm probably about to go through the same thing. :/
posted by Doohickie at 12:41 PM on September 24, 2007