how cruel
Mgmt: "And in review of your last year, we've come to the decision that... erm... oh look, you're getting a massive pay rise AND a bonus!"
Shocked employee: "Really?"
Mgmt: "No, April Fools!!! ahahahahahahahahaha!"
Workers at Capita IT Services (CITS) have been warned their annual reviews could be moved to the same date... April Fool's Day. After an austerity-focussed 2012, during which salaries were frozen, bonuses shelved and 1,000 staff put at risk of redundancy, the upcoming pay review for employees is no laughing matter for many. …
I've worked at two companies that have done this while I've been there, moving everyone to the same date makes sense and has less overhead than doing the process for various people at random times. I found reviews/awards based on when you joined more personal and a better %
increase,
However on the back of this there is always a 'normalisation' of pay awards and you can guess which way they get normalised. The workforce need to turn this to their advantage, this also makes collective bargaining easier, join a union and get your colleagues to join, especially if rumours of redundancy are flying around.
I spent a lot of time trying to unionise various capita sites, all to little effect. The management indoctrination was immense, and the individual pay reviews were one of the main reasons given by employees for not wanting to join a union. Perhaps now opinions will change, but I suspect it'll be too late for many. Offshoring was always Capita's end goal, and for the companies they outsource for it provides a nice little 'once removed' defence to avoid them looking too bad in the press.
Yes and no. The various divisions of Capita are very insular and act almost like independant bodies, it's a real "silo" culture there. This is talking about Capita ITS specifically, the guys who write & support the software that's used by the various outsourcing divisions rather than those divisions themselves, so devs, sysadmins, project managers etc rather than minimum wage drones in call centres.
I attended a recent roadshow by the senior management team at ITS and have to say that the move to a single date for pay awards was welcomed by the vast majority, especially seeing as it would appear (I assume) that there is actually a budget available for pay awards this year, something which has been missing for the last few years (like 90% of IT outsourcers except 2E2).
For those who miss out on a pay award or get upset because it gets 'normalised' the wrong way, there is a flourishing jobs market out there if you have confidence in your own abilty and think you deserve more, or maybe you could sit tight and moan about not getting a pay award next year as well. And the year after. And so on. And so on........