Over the last ten years, each and every year I get an Avaya rating of “top relative contributor”; but when I asked for a raise after ten years of this perfect record, or why I couldn’t get a raise, I was told by my Human Resources Business Partner (HRBP) that in the last year I hadn’t really seemed as focused or driven as years past.
So I told her, yeah, last year was the 9th year I hadn’t received a raise, wasn’t recognized with a promotion nor any appreciable award other than stock options which I have to believe now, my superiors then knew wouldn’t be worth anything given the trajectory we were heading as a corporation. When I asked for direct monitory compensation to adjust for that factor I was told “your pay is fairly aligned for your position and geographic location.” When I asked where, exactly my pay fell on that geographic scale, she said it was only exactly middle of the median.
So, given this I decided I needed to adjust my work ethic to align with what I had been told by our human resources team was similar and customary with the geographic scale and put in a below level amount of work; because that is all they were willing to do. Human Resources and this EC leadership have created an environment that offer no incentive to work hard or overachieve, so I don’t.