Plans

I’m off work this week, but I’ve decided that next week is the week! The week to start making moves. It was always my plan, at least for the last couple of months, to not do anything before this week off so as to avoid being stressed during it. Next week I will email the MD about my very overdue salary reviews. I think the phrasing will be something along the lines of “While I’m enjoying working here, I’m sure you understand that it’s important to me that my salary remains fair and market rate….” and then refer to my contract which says I’m entitled to an adjustment effective from May 2020, and another from May 2021. It’s fair and factual and doesn’t assume malice but it will set out my position that I haven’t forgotten and I’m not going to let it slide.

But really this is just the first stage. The second stage is starting to interview elsewhere again. I could just do that in parallel or instead of, but if I end up negotiating a salary elsewhere using my current salary as a baseline then I want that baseline to be as high as possible.

I don’t really know what to expect here. It’s possible that as soon as I mention salary they’ll find a reason to get rid of me, and the reason I’m concerned about this is that they’ve got rid of two other people since I started, under strange circumstances. I don’t think this is likely and I think it would be extraordinarily stupid as they are currently in violation of the written contract, but it’s a possibility. But I also don’t expect much positivity either. I mean, I don’t think it’s an accident that we are where we are. So I’m expecting that anything they offer will be more of a token gesture to satisfy the contract rather than a genuine effort to be fair and competitive. I guess my feelings are prejudiced by my last employer, so maybe I’ll be proved wrong.

But how they respond to it is up to them, not me.