Are You Sure The Previous Jobs Were The Problem?

I interview a guy down on his luck, out of work following a redundancy in a job that he took because he was made redundant in the job before that. He tells me that in every job he’s had since, he hasn’t had much luck; either the company loses work or has bad working conditions. He seems like a good guy and I hire him.

A few months in: 

Employee: “I think I deserve a pay rise.” 

Me: “You haven’t even gotten through your probation yet! We don’t discuss pay until the end of probation periods. You took the job aware of the offered pay; that is what it is until you prove you are worth more.”

The day before the probation review:

Employee: “You said we can talk about pay now.”

Me: “At the probation review. You have the invite already. It’s for tomorrow!”

At the review:

Employee: “About my pay…”

Me: “Fine. We normally do this at the end of the review. But go on about your pay.”

Employee: “I have been working very hard and I have seen other jobs paying a lot more.”

Me: “I am pretty happy with your work, but I have noticed some improvements I was going to plan in before I am totally happy. I know pay has been on your mind, so what I want you to do is take this list of actions, work on them, and come back to me once I can see improvement. In the meantime, send me these jobs that you think are the same as yours but pay more.”

Employee: “Thank you, thank you.”

A few more weeks passed, I checked on his progress, and he seemed to be slowly getting better. He sent me the jobs that he thought showed that the job is underpaid.

One was basically my job, not his, one was the same job but was a night shift role, so more money, and the last was for the market leader everyone wanted to work for and on the other side of the country. 

None of them were relevant to what he was doing now, and all of them were more money than even I made. 

I talked him through all of this and his attitude changed. For the next few months, his performance was way below what was needed, even after some one-to-one support, and we had no choice but to let him go.

I don’t know who takes a job for a good rate of pay and then immediately expects loads more money and sulks when they don’t get it.