Advice on asking for a pay rise - first job!

chrisguy116

Hi all, this is just my situation at the moment and I'm hoping to get some advice/guidance on the matter
-basically someone to tell me if I'm stupid or crazy or both!

Anyway , I'm 22 years of age and have been working in the same job for 4 1/2 years now. I got the job pretty much straight after L.cert and have been there since... It's a small shop, recently we've grown- year on year busier & so on.. When I started out I was on €10p/h cash, which was great for an 18 yr old!

The employer is a family, which makes it tougher to approach on matters like pay & so on.. Over the past 2 years I've worked more and more with customers and pretty much doing all that can be done ie no more responsibility to be taken.. Since its a small shop there is no real prospect of a higher up job, I really enjoy what I'm doing now and would hate to leave , for my sake as well as employers.. But it's been nagging me uncontrollably for the past few weeks that I feel I'm going nowhere and that I can never start any sort o life with my pay grade- (about 15k )and with no prospect will I one day leave with no more than a weeks pay and be left to start on the bottom rung of another job again??

I'm a bit lost and family aren't too helpful on what to do!
Just wondering if there's anyone in a similar position? Or could offer a comment or two (even if they're ones telling me to shut up & that I have a job)

Michael D Not Higgins

Is that 15k gross or net?

You can try broaching the issue with the family, but be prepared for them to possibly say no. You may need to upskill/do some further education to increase your worth. At the very least, after 4 years I would have expected an increase of 5-10%, especially if they have more business with the same amount of staff.

tatli_lokma

OP, from my reading of your post, it appears you are working cash in hand at €10 p/hr. If I were you I would be more concerend with getting paid through the books, rather than a pay rise. After 4.5 years working cash in hand, you have missed out on a lot of SW credits and if you did lose your job you would have no contributions upon which to make a claim. Even things like a free dental check up are out of bounds for you as you don't have any PRSI paid. If you got sick and couldn't work you couldn't claim illness benefit.

When getting paid cash in hand it is much harder to broach such things as pay rises/ annual or sick leave benefits etc. And you have no protection of your employment rights because you are not legally working.

Chances are if you ask to go through the books you won't get a pay rise, as your employer will have to incurr extra costs by having you work legally, but perhaps once you have covered that hurdle in about 6-12 months you may be able to then ask for an extra few quid per hour.

Having said all that €10 p/hr take home isn't a bad rate for retail. At your age, when you started work with no experience your minimum wage rate would have been €6.06 p/hr, so from the get go you were earning almost €4 over the minimum. Even now you might only be legally entitled to €7.79 per hour.

Retail of the sort you mention (family business) is not the place for carving out a career TBH. At 22 years of age, I would be encouraging you to either stay where you are and take on some sort of retail management course part time, or leave and look to apply to somewhere that you can move forward (eg Lidl or Aldi do management programmes for employees, as do some other retaillers). Not taking from what you have learned where you are, but there is only so much you can learn in this sort of environment. Experience in a large store will broaden your horizons hugely. You need to start thinking long term, and not just about the hourly rate of pay.

chrisguy116

Michael D Not Higgins wrote: »

Is that 15k gross or net?

You can try broaching the issue with the family, but be prepared for them to possibly say no. You may need to upskill/do some further education to increase your worth. At the very least, after 4 years I would have expected an increase of 5-10%, especially if they have more business with the same amount of staff.

Gross, now in saying that my employer has opted to pay my PRSI etc so I officially pay tax etc but it doesnt come out of my pay- which I understand is about €30-40 per week.

chrisguy116

tatli_lokma wrote: »

OP, from my reading of your post, it appears you are working cash in hand at €10 p/hr. If I were you I would be more concerend with getting paid through the books, rather than a pay rise. After 4.5 years working cash in hand, you have missed out on a lot of SW credits and if you did lose your job you would have no contributions upon which to make a claim. Even things like a free dental check up are out of bounds for you as you don't have any PRSI paid. If you got sick and couldn't work you couldn't claim illness benefit.

When getting paid cash in hand it is much harder to broach such things as pay rises/ annual or sick leave benefits etc. And you have no protection of your employment rights because you are not legally working.

Chances are if you ask to go through the books you won't get a pay rise, as your employer will have to incurr extra costs by having you work legally, but perhaps once you have covered that hurdle in about 6-12 months you may be able to then ask for an extra few quid per hour.

Having said all that €10 p/hr take home isn't a bad rate for retail. At your age, when you started work with no experience your minimum wage rate would have been €6.06 p/hr, so from the get go you were earning almost €4 over the minimum. Even now you might only be legally entitled to €7.79 per hour.

Retail of the sort you mention (family business) is not the place for carving out a career TBH. At 22 years of age, I would be encouraging you to either stay where you are and take on some sort of retail management course part time, or leave and look to apply to somewhere that you can move forward (eg Lidl or Aldi do management programmes for employees, as do some other retaillers). Not taking from what you have learned where you are, but there is only so much you can learn in this sort of environment. Experience in a large store will broaden your horizons hugely. You need to start thinking long term, and not just about the hourly rate of pay.

In the past year and a half I'm doing a lot more ( serving customers etc ) from what I was doing before. I'll admit I was extremely happy at the start when I was getting a good wage for doing pretty menial stuff. errands, cleaning organising etc. for the past year I've been on the books.

In terms of looking forward that's exactly what I'm doing now, wondering what the next step is is quite daunting. If I didn't mention I'm currently a part-time student (2nd yr) in Griffith college studying there 3 evenings per week... Am I mad to go seeking a higher wage with my current situation??

Fukuyama

Ask and set down reasons why you can justify it.

You have nothing to loose.

Don't quit the job however. Getting another job will be tough with college commitments. It's easier to work an old job around a new course, than it is to work a new job around an existing course. If that makes sense...

10 per hour is higher than most small retail jobs in Spar etc... where staff are paid as low as 8.65.

chrisguy116

Dean0088 wrote: »

Ask and set down reasons why you can justify it.

You have nothing to loose.

Don't quit the job however. Getting another job will be tough with college commitments. It's easier to work an old job around a new course, than it is to work a new job around an existing course. If that makes sense...

10 per hour is higher than most small retail jobs in Spar etc... where staff are paid as low as 8.65.

funnily enough that makes a lot of sense to me.. friends tell me I'm mad to consider doing anything else until I finish college (3 more years)

Michael D Not Higgins

chrisguy116 wrote: »

funnily enough that makes a lot of sense to me.. friends tell me I'm mad to consider doing anything else until I finish college (3 more years)

If you're in college, stay where you are.

Do you get a P60 to show your tax and pay each year? If not, I have to echo Tatli's comments that it sounds like cash in hand and you're losing out on SW credits. Don't just assume they're paying PRSI because they told you so.