Call centre pay rise sidelined

MingulayJohnny

Hello , I work in a call centre for a pretty well known global contractor and for the last two years our pay rise has been sidelined "Due to the global economic conditions". This despite the fact that we receive monthly emails telling us how the company is expanding and going from strength to strength. While I appreciate having a job I don't think it's fair that I'm still on my starting wage after almost three years. I'm just wondering if anybody is currently working for a multinational company in a call centre in Ireland who has been given the same excuse or if they have actually gotten their annual pay rise. Cheers.

NinjaNikki

I'm sure in time your pay will go up and for now as long as you can pay the bills and eat then you should be happy that your even getting a pay each week sorry if i come off it's just that you should be happy!

seamus

This is pretty common.

It's part of the standard expand - contract cycle that companies go through and we saw tonnes of it in the early 2000's.

Basically it goes like this: When a the worldwide economy goes into a recession, the company identifies that it needs to cut costs. It makes a statement to its staff about tough economic conditions, freezes all pay for staff and starts a restructuring program. Year 1 ends with layoffs, pay & promotion freezes and no new hires. Company posts a big profit.

Year 2 continues with pay freezes, but hiring restarts at a slow pace. Company posts a big profit at the end of the year. However, this profit is only the same as it was in year one, so the investors are not happy. Company makes a statement about continuing economic difficulties and the pay freeze stays in place. However, the company is expanding into "exciting new revenue streams".

At the end of year 3, the company posts a record profit, never seen in the company before. It then projects a bigger profit the following year and reinstates standard pay rises, but at half the previous increments because "we're not out of the woods yet".

After 2 more years of record profits and measly pay rises, the company realises that it's haemorraghing staff due to their poor pay rates and employee-friendly (recovered) jobs market and ups their pay rates to industry standard and re-establishes standard pay rises. They then go on a whirlwind programme of staff hires and expansion and posting huge profits. For five years. Then the cycle starts all over again.

You will eventually get a pay rise again. If you like your job, you're happy that the company is stable and you are earning enough to keep you happy, then sit tight.

MingulayJohnny

I get where you're coming from Seamus it's just that the company I work for has been hiring people continuously and in the midst of the recession created new language teams. We also recently found out that the company who the support contract is with wanted to give extra money when the contract was negotiated last month on the the condition that it go to the agents as they are worried about people leaving.

It takes a long time to learn the ropes on my team , you need a lot of training and technical knowledge so we're not that disposable. We still don't know if this money is coming to us. I'd find it pretty maddening to think that the contract company would turn around and say either a) No we want that extra money or b) No they're not getting a pay rise after we told them it wasn't happening , just to save face. I'd find that very callous and petty , but it wouldn't surprise me given the nature of these companies tbh.

_Kaiser_

One thing my life in 2 of the multinationals taught me is that at the end of the day, you are just an employee number when it comes down to it. (God I sound bitter.. I'm not really - for the most part I really enjoyed working there, but I saw enough of what went on too)

No one is indispensible and entire departments can be gutted overnight.
If you're a contractor you're potentially even more vulnerable. We all got permanent contracts early on, but most of those that came after us got 11 month contracts only and let go after that (early 2000s downturn as Seamus refers to)

I'd sit tight and wait it out rather than kicking up about something that probably will be taken off you one way or another (just not given which is what happened to us as Seamus also describes, or increased taxes/levies in the upcoming budget).