Promotion with no confirmed pay

Question

I have been offered a promotion or rather an extension to my role. This is something the company knows I am keen to do as I have been trying to progress to this for nearly two years.

Here’s the problem. I have worked at the company for over two years. I am a trusted hard working individual who overachieves on appraisals. For the new role that is being dangled like a carrot, the company expect me to do a 3 month trial period in which I will be taking on essentially a complete role as well as doing my current role, but they will not discuss the potential financial improvements until after the 3 month trial. I have been told by senior management that there is no money available in the pot.

Why should I work two jobs for three months to then have no potential of a pay rise. Am I shooting myself in the foot for turning this job down? I’m 23 and I feel like the company is taking advantage of me.

What are your thoughts? Who would take a job without knowing the wage?

Answer 1

Tell them that while you are interested in taking on the new role that you are very disappointed and unhappy that there is no increased compensation for the additional responsibilities you are being asked to take on. Tell them what you've done for them over the last 2 years, how well they've regarded you and remind them of all the praise you've received. Shake your head and sigh a few times to emphasize just how disappointed you are.

Do not say "yes" to anything. Do not immediately agree to their first offer, and whatever they do come back with ask for a bit more.

Regardless of the outcome, take the new job, get the experience and add it to your CV and start interviewing elsewhere. When you get a job offer, take it to your current boss and thank them for everything but that you have received an offer elsewhere. See if they come back with a counteroffer.

Answer 2

In my experience, it is not unprecedented that promotions come after you assume new responsibilities, quite often either by finding out the need for them or inheriting them from someone else. So it might be reasonable to have such a trial period where you have for a limited, ideally defined time additional responsibilities, and if you do succeed, you got your merit promotion. However it needs to be understood with such arrangements, that if they do not award you the promotion after that reasonabe period, you will give up these additional responsibilities. I would suggest to explain this position to your manager in writing so that you have a trail in case they do not give any sign of increasing your salary in a few months and your enthusiasm for performing an additional role expires.

On the other hand, what I am talking about is "additional responsibilities" and "promotion", meaning that you somehow expand on your existing duties with broadly related activities (e.g. become a senior team member, or even team lead). If they offer a completely different role to you (i.e. what HR people call often a "lateral move"), that sounds somewhat suspicious. It is not unheard of either, however I have not encountered such cases outside mid- to top-level management, which I suspect is not your area.

Answer 3

The crux of the issue is that you have the best negotiating position with the most options before you start the probationary period.

Once you have begun to do the work without a mutually shared understanding of how things will look if you succeed, it will be much harder to move the new status quo.

Get a good understanding of current market rates for the position before negotiating. If they will not commit to a raise after completion of the probationary period, they are not negotiating in good faith.

If they are not negotiating in good faith, then you can either refuse the responsibility increase, or accept it and start looking for an employer that understands how to keep good employees.