How to approach the company about appreciation for one's work?

Question

I've been working for 4 years at a company. The job is stable, and the pay is acceptable (though after devaluations in my country, it's been behind for a while now). I'm actively looking for a new job, but unfortunately the market is scarce in an economic crisis (I'm living in Argentina and I'm not willing to relocate in the near future).

The area I work for only offers the base salary. There are no other perks: no productivity bonus, no spot bonuses, no extra vacation days, no days off. In short, no special treatment other than the minimum required by law.

The area I work for deals with machine learning. Neural networks. With those the company has saved "a lot" of money. Yet, the only bonus we received was a cheer from the direct superior (my team leader). Not even a congratulation letter.

Recently my company has been uploading to LinkedIn several posts about a solution they bought that basically does the same thing we are already doing. They are congratulating, by name, the people involved in that project. Our boss doesn't believe it's important. "Those things are just advertisements" he says. Or he just tries to weasel out of the situation with jokes.

How would I approach the company about expression appreciation for our work? I've been already told NO to any sort of raise or bonus (I was "prized" with a trip to tag along company execs for 3 days in Colombia a couple of weeks ago, which wasn't really that bad).

I want more formal and public recognition of my contribution. Being tagged in LinkedIn would be great (since that will help my resume, as most recruiters are very active on LinkedIn). But this doesn't seem like a priority for my boss.

Edit: My direct superior approached me about this. Her call was only "to listen to me whine for a while so I can go back to work" basically. Her reaction was "we don't need to promote ourselves because we do things that actually work. Our team gives results that our clients appreciate. What you saw on linkedin was just advertising, and we are software developers, we don't need to care about advertising anything. You should get pride from the fact that this all works like we designed it, and our compensation for it is our paycheck, not some photo on linkedin". She would not push this issue forward to a higher up.

This is a lost case, it seems. (For some context: this company has downsized their software development department and fired over 20 devs, moving development to Colombia, and has been slowly bleeding developers who go to other companies. None of them left for better salaries.

Answer 1

There are two main issues here:

1. No matter what we say or how nicely we phrase it, in any job negotiations it comes down to supply and demand. The company looks at how many potential employees are there, in that area, with skills the company needs, and how much do they cost. The employee (or a potential employee) looks at how many jobs are there, in that area, and how much they pay. They're not going to pay more than they have to, not if they know (or just think) that they can find other people to replace you easily enough.

2. In anything you want to do in life, some steps and conditions are necessary, and if you can't or aren't willing to do it, there's no point in asking for further steps.

In your case, if the current conditions (in the area where you are) are such that the company doesn't have to pay you more... you will have to relocate, whether it's in a better city in your country, or to another country, continent, somewhere.

If you cannot, the company will keep squeezing you like a lemon, getting as much work out of you as they can, for as little money as they have to pay.

Appealing to them, talking about your efforts etc, rarely ever does anything. If they were such people that actually pay attention to that, they would have increased your salary already.

The sooner you leave, more time you will have to adapt to the new environment, wherever that is.

I know it's not the answer you wanted to hear... but it's reality, such as it is.

EDIT: This is not just about salary. Anything that costs them money, goes under the same rules. Anything that makes you work less for the same money (such as more paid vacation) again goes under the same rules.

And, anything that's not monetary, but makes it easier for you to find a new job, such as being tagged on LinkedIn... why would they help you to leave them, if they don't have to? Same rules.