Can't get issues resolved in work!

Yonka

I’m having a few problems in work and not really sure what I should do. Bit of background first. I’m with the company I work for 5 years now, I started in a Junior Admin position part time. I’m a single parent so this suited me and helped me balance my work and parental responsibilities. A year and a half ago a colleague in another department went on maternity leave and I was asked if I wanted to job share with another girl who also worked part time. Anyway I was apprehensive but I was up for the challenge so I took it on and was told I did a great job for the 6 months til my colleague came back from Maternity leave.


So when she came back (in October last year) I was offered a promotion to the position, still part time, and I took it but I asked my then boss about getting a pay rise so he said that when it came time for my review I would get my rise then. I did, I got a 6 and a half percent rise but it actually only amounted to €1200 extra a year which I felt was totally cr*p for the extra responsibility I had now. I brought it up with my boss and he said that I had gotten one of the highest raises in the company that year, I argued that yes maybe in percentage terms but not in terms of money because a 6 pc rise to someone on a full time wage is very different what I got on my part time wage and besides I had been promoted it wasn’t just a regular yearly pay review. He suggested I should get more training and I could have another review in 6 months time. I applied for a course I wanted to do and was turned down due to training budget restrictions on my business group. I tried in vain to get someone to do my 6 month review and still didn’t get anywhere but I just got on with my job anyway.

The last time I brought it up I was told we would be getting a new boss and he would take the matter up and finally resolve it (a year later!) so I had a meeting with him a last week and we discussed my job. He gave me my job description which I’d never had and told me he’d added on extra responsibilities such as working late and weekends (I’m contracted to work 25hrs a week). I told him I would do what I could (as I always have despite everything) but being a single parent restricted me a lot as to what overtime I could do and I do work part time for that very reason and it’s worked that way for the last year and a half, I always get my work done also I brought up my pay with him and he had obviously been briefed by HR as to what my gripe was cos he was telling me the same thing I’d heard all along (you got one of the biggest rises in the company blah blah blah) and that the grade I was at meant that I was actually being paid slightly over the average but he agreed to look into it, apparently the grade system is being changed in January and I could move up and he’s looking to see what he can do for me. I told him I would like to do the training that I need also.

My new boss is American and has a totally different attitude to work that my other bosses have had. He is not happy by the fact that me and the other girl I work with have kids and he told me before that what our department needs is someone who can put in the hours!! We get our work done and always have and I feel he is judging me by the position I’m in and not the work I’m doing (he hasn’t been in the door long enough to see that for himself)

Anyway sorry that’s so long and there’s a few different issues there but I’d appreciate some advice/feedback on my situation anyway.

Thanks!

Shelflife

two things here, first the pay rise of 6%, it may not amount to much to you but thats not the fault of the company. you wanted part time hours but then you want full time wages , 6% of an increase in wages is huge over the year for any company.

2nd. he cant add on extra responsibility or weekend hours into your terms and conditions without your permission or agreement. you should have got a contract outlining your duties at the start of your job,by not providing you with that they are in breach of employment legislation.

Yonka

Thanks Shelflife, I appreciate your reply.

Just on your first point, I certainly don't earn anywhere near fulltime hours for the work I do my wages are pro-rata for the hours I work. Even with the raise I wanted, (which is just over double what I actually got) it still wouldn't amount to a huge amount but I feel it would acknowledge the extra responsibility. To go from a junior admin position to being partly responsibile for whether the company wins work or not is a huge jump in responsibility imo and I don't think it's too much to ask that that be reflected in my wages. I just don't get why it has to be in percentage terms.

Regarding the extra hours, I suppose I'm just worried that he'll end up looking for me to be working almost full time hours when I need to be part time and the company agreed to that (it's in my contract although it does say that I may be required to work extra hours but only under prior agreement with my manager). I've seen him look for time to be made up (which I have no problem with) but not expect us to have made up extra hours if he decides on a whim that he wants something done just when we are to leave on a Friday.

I'm not scared of hard work or anything, I've put in the hours before when the company needed me to and got a bonus in recognition of it but my personal situation won't allow me do that much this time and like I said he has an "American" attitude to work and also no family so doesn't really understand if I say (for example) I have to leave early cos my Daughter's sick or whatever. I just feel like he is raging that he has two women with kids working for him and he wants someone who will give up evenings and weekends all the time to devote their life to the job.

Hope I'm making sense there!

Mr. Presentable

To be fair to your boss, you keep mentioning your single parent status, you that's why he sees you as such.

6% is well ahead of inflation, and you are only part time, by choice. Although I accept 6% of feck all is still feck all.

Yonka

nipplenuts wrote: »

To be fair to your boss, you keep mentioning your single parent status, you that's why he sees you as such.

6% is well ahead of inflation, and you are only part time, by choice. Although I accept 6% of feck all is still feck all.

I mention it here but I don't keep saying it to my boss. He knows I'm a single parent he acknowledged that in our meeting before I even said anything. It's not that I keep using that as an excuse or anything, that's just the situation I'm in. My colleague has similar responsibilites since she has a kid too.

Yeah it's not much at all, I know the 6% is well ahead of inflation but I was promoted to a higher position, it wasn't like it was just a regular review, you know and that's my argument. Part time or not I shouldn't be discriminated against for that I still deserved a proper pay review for the promotion same as anyone else in the company would have if they'd been promoted.