DH "petitioning" for a raise - update again

[Deleted]

DH works for a state-funded college at the IT guy for the library and he's been there for about 4 years. He is much more qualified for his job than the description says one should be. He does all the things on his job description and then some. The rest of the library staff realized how much he knew how to do and so they piled it on. After the second year wages were frozen due to budget cuts. And the third year. And now the fourth year.
DH has been given more responsibilities than ever, to the point where he can't keep up with his core job responsibilities. He also just got a MLIS and has been looking for librarian jobs (he did get a call back, but we have to wait and see if they offer him an on-campus interview), but because of the recession many librarians have put off retirement so competition is somewhat fierce. Every year he's had a performance and merit raise review, and he's consistently getting rave reviews but no raise. The library just opened up new faculty lines, so they do have some money to start hiring again.
This year on his personal evaluation, he addressed the fact that he's doing work that is well above his pay grade and ends up neglecting some of his core responsibilities. He attached the responsibilities of the job as defined by the library and said please either bump me up a grade or scale down my responsibilities.

I'm curious as to how this is going to turn out. Have any of you tried anything similar?

[Deleted]

ends up neglecting some of his core responsibilities.

That doesn't seem to be the best way to ask for a raise, but asking anyway is better than not asking at all.

[Deleted]

he didn't word it exactly the way I did above, but that was the gist of what he was saying.

[lynnerself]

Good luck with that strategy! Most states are in trouble financially. Are promotions frozen or just wages? My DH not only has no COLA or merit raises lately, but never got the raise for his last promotion. And is losing 5% to furlough days. And soon may be asked to pick up more of his pension contribution.
It sucks to be a state worker right now.

[Deleted]

as far as I know wages are frozen - I don't know about promotions. But the university is still hiring. The library closed some faculty lines and open up some new ones. Some of the librarians also retired, so I think they can scrounge up some extra money. The next highest pay grade would start at $6k more than what he's making.

ETA: the state froze all raises - COL and merit. He's non-union.

[giramomma]

It depends on your husband's classification. At the state college I work at, you don't get a raise as your husband is planning to do.

If you are support staff with the same classification as faculty, then there's a formal process for promotions. If the job is no longer the same job that you had when you were first hired, you ask for a reclassification.

If you are support staff that's in a different classification, then, generally you are unionized, and the union the process for asking for a raise is different, and I'm not familiar with that. However, I do know that our previous governor stopped the practice of giving out merit raises 2 years ago.

Either way, in our department, you work with the HR personnel to get the ball rolling. Reclasses and the like aren't really a part of annual reviews.

I'm also wondering if your husband serious thinks he will get additional money. By the time the state is done with me, my pay take home will likely be similar to when I started my job nearly a decade ago.

And, just because there's money for faculty doesn't mean the department is willing to sink extra money into support staff. Those are two separate issues. ETA: Just because YOU think there's extra money due to retirements doesn't really mean that there will be extra money due to retirements.

We've got retirements in our dept. Our department is also looking at about a 10% cut, which I think will be managed by not replacing those that are retiring...

[giramomma]

Apr 11, 2011 14:24:28 GMT -5 @moneyjenny82 said:

as far as I know wages are frozen - I don't know about promotions. But the university is still hiring. The library closed some faculty lines and open up some new ones. Some of the librarians also retired, so I think they can scrounge up some extra money. The next highest pay grade would start at $6k more than what he's making.

ETA: the state froze all raises - COL and merit. He's non-union.

So, it sounds like your husband needs to investigate the promotions process with HR then?

In my department, if you want reduced responsibilities, then you get reduced pay.
If there's issues with prioritizing work, then your husband needs to speak to his superior about that, and for sure, project priorities should be brought up during annual reviews. But, not your husband's approach.

[phil5185]

he addressed the fact that he's doing work that is well above his pay grade and ends up neglecting some of his core responsibilities

LOL - so, if he gets a raise will he promise to quit neglecting his 'core' job? (ie, the job that he was hired to do).

The current supply/demand of IT guys is what establishes his salary - if the college can easily hire a replacement at his pay, they do not have a reason to promote him.

[Deleted]

the problem is that he's doing work for a grade higher than what he is getting paid for. I don't think he'll get more money, but I'm not sure if they're willing to scale him back to his core job responsibilities. He's only supposed to be offering basic tech support to library staff and faculty. He currently develops programs, supports library events, does advanced troubleshooting, attends conferences, and he has even traveled to other campuses to teach the other IT people about a new program the school will implement.

[Deleted]

Phil, no IT professional would do the work that DH is currently doing at his salary unless they were really desperate. And that includes new grads.

[phil5185]

the problem is that he's doing work for a grade higher than what he is getting paid for.

But why is that a problem? When I promote an engineer in my group it is because I have observed their work for a year (or more) and I am satisfied that they have demonstrated that they can do the next higher level. (So far no one has ever asked me to lower their work level so that they are worth less?)

[Deleted]

Apr 11, 2011 14:47:53 GMT -5 phil5185 said:

the problem is that he's doing work for a grade higher than what he is getting paid for.

But why is that a problem? When I promote an engineer in my group it is because I have observed their work for a year (or more) and I am satisfied that they have demonstrated that they can do the next higher level. (So far no one has ever asked me to lower their work level so that they are worth less?)

that's fine, but that's not what's going on here. His position is a dead-end entry level one. His supervisor is a faculty librarian, not another IT professional. He is supporting the school's largest library on his own and at times has to step in at the smaller libraries when their IT people don't know what they're doing. They're not doing it to promote him as there's nothing to promote him to. IMO they're doing it because they can.

[The Walk of the Penguin Mich]

The faculty lines that the library opened up have nothing to do with support staff. These fall under another category. So unless your DH is eligible for one of those positions, the fact that they're open doesn't mean that there's money for support staff. The money doesn't come out of the same pot.

I'm another one who has not had a raise in over 3 years, despite excellent reviews. At this point, there is a budget freeze and no one has gotten raises - merit or otherwise.

What *may* happen is that your husband's move could come back and bite him in the butt. He's abdicating responsibility at a time where his supervisor's hands are tied with regards to salary. That's not looked on as well and since he has a previous basis for comparison he may find that by scaling back his responsibilities, his PE will take a hit next year. If this happens to be the year that merit raises are given out, then his previous evals will not be worth the paper they're written on.

In a university setting, the absolute easiest way to get a raise is to change jobs. Policy makes it difficult to upgrade an established position (I know, I did go through this before), which makes supervisors not inclined to push for it. The paperwork involved is ridiculous as the 'easiest' way is to eliminate the old position and justify the need for a new, upgraded position. The new, upgraded position is not going to happen because of the hiring freeze.

[Deleted]

mich, you're right about the "different pot" thing. I know that's how universities work, it just sucks sometimes.

And I know you're right about how it's better to just change jobs. There is an opening for an IT position that is a grade higher than he is that is dealing with a subject matter he's really interested in, so he'll probably apply for that one. He really wants to be an academic librarian, but he's willing to look at higher IT positions as well.

[Sum Dum Gai]

His position is a dead-end entry level one. His supervisor is a faculty librarian, not another IT professional. He is supporting the school's largest library on his own and at times has to step in at the smaller libraries when their IT people don't know what they're doing. They're not doing it to promote him as there's nothing to promote him to.

Sounds like this is his real problem. He's in a one deep situation. There's nowhere above him to move to, so the job will pretty much always pay about what it does now. As the economy picks up he'll probably start getting some COL adjustments, but that's it. He needs to decide if this is really what he wants to do, knowing that it comes with pretty much the pay he's accepting now, or if he needs to find a different IT job with some growth potential.

This post reminds me a LOT of one of my friends back home. Probably the best security person I've ever met. He works for the local newspaper, because he and his wife have decided to stay in the small town where they live and there aren't any better computer jobs. The guy makes peanuts, but he could walk into a six figure job no problem if they'd move closer to a big city.

[lulubean]

Sounds like he needs to find a new job.

[buster]

Just curious as an IT guy myself, why would he want to continue working at a library as an IT support person? It sounds like he is greatly limiting his growth potential and experience by supporting a small environment.

I can't speak for the raise thing other than he needs to continue excelling in his core responsibilities before taking on any additional work. Neglecting his core job function is the fastest way to not get a pay raise. Also, as you stated recent college grads would likely not consider his position based on the salary being offered. If this is the case, why does he continue to work there?

[Deleted]

Apr 11, 2011 22:14:15 GMT -5 buster said:

Just curious as an IT guy myself, why would he want to continue working at a library as an IT support person? It sounds like he is greatly limiting his growth potential and experience by supporting a small environment.

I can't speak for the raise thing other than he needs to continue excelling in his core responsibilities before taking on any additional work. Neglecting his core job function is the fastest way to not get a pay raise. Also, as you stated recent college grads would likely not consider his position based on the salary being offered. If this is the case, why does he continue to work there?

DH graduated in 2006, and this was the first place that hired him. At the time he just needed something to pay the bills, but he's really come to like the academic environment - that's why he got an MLIS. A academic librarian position opened up in the field he's interested in (instructional technology/emerging technology/user experience), but he didn't get it. He's since been applying to other schools with varied success at each - no offers yet. While he's very good at IT support and other things, that's not what he really wants to do, but with a baby coming he realized that he can't just wait around for something to pan out. I am currently in a Master's degree program that's being covered by my company, so I really can't leave my job for new opportunities. He's begun looking for IT positions at private companies, but a lot of them seem to want experience working for a corporation (which he doesn't have). He's been at the library so long because he likes the environment and the benefits. We have excellent health coverage and they completely covered his tuition when he was in the MLIS program.

[Deleted]

In many universities, an academic librarian IS a faculty position rather than a support position. Is a position for an academic librarian being posted?

I, too, have a MLIS degree. We were also told to position ourselves as the people-friendly side of Information Science. I don't know that that really translates to IT in the business world. Do the skills he has transfer to a non-academic environment?

[The Walk of the Penguin Mich]

Also, as you stated recent college grads would likely not consider his position based on the salary being offered. If this is the case, why does he continue to work there?

It sounds like his core responsibilities (the actual job he was hired for) is NOT IT based. So IOW, a recent college graduate in library science, it may be a totally adequate salary for the job. For an IT position (which it is not) it would be underpaid.

It also sounds like the OP's husband - while he can compete in the library IT scene - cannot compete for those whose degrees/education is wholly in IT because his experience is very specific to his library job. An IT position would be much more generalized.

For instance, I can troubleshoot the software and machines for a many programs that I work with regularly because I know the software well. Our IT department would be useless if I ran into problems, because our software is very specific to a task and most haven't seen it. So being the IT person to deal with our specific software, while it's not in my core responsibilities, it's part of my job that I do. I would never try to compete in the IT scene because that is not where my strength (nor education) is.

It sounds like the OP's husband is in a simlar situation.

[Bluerobin]

MJ, all depends on whether he is viewed as irreplacable or is disposable. Management can always find the money for a good cause. If they do nothing, that pretty much tells you which category he falls into.

[Deleted]

susana, DH wants to be an academic (faculty) librarian in either instructional services or emerging technologies. As I said, they had an opening for one at his library, but they wanted a person with actual librarian experience (even though he's taught 2-3 library instruction classes and regularly works the reference desk). A MLIS can and does translate into working in IT for a corporation, I think it just depends on your concentration. I've seen IT job postings that ask for a MLIS.

Mich, you're sort of right - the job he was hired for required him to do BASIC IT support for his library, but once they realized he was more than qualified his job unofficially morphed into something well beyond the initial job description. He could definitely compete well on the university/academic IT scene, but he has no experience working for a corporation.

Blue, they are scared whitless to lose him. They were/are dreading when/if he finds a librarian job and puts in his notice, so that's why I said I'll be interested to see what happens. I think he'd be happy with an IT promotion at this point.

[Bluerobin]

MJ, that being the case, he can play it.

[lulubean]

If he wants to follow the IT path he may well have to start at entry level in a corp to get the experience. As far as his job is concerned right now it doesn't sound like they care too much (what they are saying is just lip service) about keeping him there. It takes a higher level person to really take up for a person to get him more money or a promotion and sometimes those people are hard at work keeping there own job stable let alone going for bat for someone else. In the end if your DH leaves they will move on.

[hoops902]

Not to say your husband is a liar or anything...but the description he gives that "he goes above and beyond, he does all these things outside the core of his responsibilities, he always has to help out other people who don't know what they're doing"...that's basically the same self-assessment that nearly everyone in the top 90% of jobs would give themselves.

"Blue, they are scared whitless to lose him."

Again though, kind of what everyone who's even decent at their job would say. "Without me they'd freak out, etc etc". Unless you're his boss, the reality is that there's at least some percentage chance that he's simply vastly overvaluing his worth to the institution. There are a lot of claims of "No one would do his job for his pay"...how do you know that?

On some level this sounds like what everyone goes through. They and their coworkers talk and talk and talk about how valuable they are, how they do so much more than the technicalities of their job description, how the place would be lost without them. I don't say that to undercut what your husband tells you, I say that to point out that many a good employee has lost a job this way. "I'm so valuable, give me this or else..." and the company/institution says "ok, good luck, we'll have your last check next Friday". People's self-assesment is often not exactly the reality of how their boss sees them. Heck the reality isn't even important if the boss's view of reality isn't the same.

[Deleted]

Hoops, everything I've said was my interpretation of the situation based on his daily accounts of how his day was - it is not his self-assessment. He's not the type of person you described that goes around talking about how great he is and how lost the library will be without him, although he does say things like that on rare occasion. As far as saying "above and beyond", when a entry-level IT person is asked to travel to other campuses to train their IT staff and teach library classes, I'd say that's beyond the duties of an entry level position (unless the job description calls for that, and it doesn't). When he's on vacation, the staff is supposed to go to systems support for problems. Instead, they just sit on their issues until he gets back. To me, that says something about how they value his service.

I am not trying to make DH sound like a god - it just pains me to see someone who is intelligent and talented get taken advantage of (IMO).

[Deleted]

MJ, we had a guy like your DH when I was in library school. He was awesome at solving IT problems, and he was probably entry level as well. He was actually working on his PhD; when he got it, he left.

That may be your DH's problem. As I said before, an academic librarian is actually a faculty position. This is particularly true if the school where he works has a MLIS program. Faculty positions are usually advertised nationally. They are filled locally rather infrequently.

Bottom line is that he is probably going to have to leave to get what he wants. Almost everyone who works at a university goes through some form of this. If you are on a tenure-track to make professor after X number of publications, it can be a different story. But if you want to become a dean or make any other change in the track, you usually have to go elsewhere to be appreciated.

[skubikky]

Apr 13, 2011 5:24:15 GMT -5 @moneyjenny82 said:

I am not trying to make DH sound like a god - it just pains me to see someone who is intelligent and talented get taken advantage of (IMO).

Oh dear....no one takes advantage of you unless you allow it. The stark reality is that your husband probably needs to seek other employment, probably in the corporate world From what you've said, it doesn't seem that he's been willing to do that for various reasons.

No one is irreplaceable. The way he's being treated is indicative of his value at that place of employment.

[hoops902]

"Hoops, everything I've said was my interpretation of the situation based on his daily accounts of how his day was - it is not his self-assessment"

I guess that's kind of what I'm getting at. It's your interpretation of his interpretation of his work. That interpretation could be vastly different than either reality, or his boss's interpretation.

"I'd say that's beyond the duties of an entry level position"

Again, my point. Nearly everyone who is even an average employee in this economic environment is doing things which are beyond the "duties" of their position. That's how they're keeping their job.

I'm simply warning against the very common thought process of "I'll give them an ultimatum to give me more money, and they'll do it because I'm valuable". "Give me more money or take away my responsibilities" is the kind of veiled threat you make when you're completely ready to be terminated. "I'm doing more than my basic detailed job responsibilities" is a fast-track to the unemployment line in a lot of places.

I'm saying all of this because I used to work with plenty of people who had this same attitude. Some of them were very good employees who regularly went far above their stated responsibilities. They managed to significantly overvalue their worth to their bosses though, and ultimatums of "give me more money or I'm going to do less work" don't typically bring great news.

"Instead, they just sit on their issues until he gets back. To me, that says something about how they value his service."

It's all based on your interpretation though. I'd do the same thing, because I know someone in IT, and I hate dealing with IT people...so I'd prefer to just deal with the one I always deal with...regardless of whether he's valuable enough to deserve a raise or not.


You asked if anyone had tried this. I've seen it many times. Budgets are tight, more is being asked of people. And some people have taken the "this isnt' really my job, promote me or stop making me do it" approach. That works out fine if you're ready to leave for greener pastures if they won't promote you or give you easier work. In many cases though it's lead to being first on the chopping block as someone who's unwilling to continue at the top of their job and instead is making efforts to get back into the 50th percentile at it.

[lulubean]

I broached this question to my DH and he said that if someone had said that to him it would:

1. Be the first time he had heard that from an employee.
2. Raise his eyebrows.
3. Be incredulous.
4. Think the person didn't have the first idea on what the company requires.