If You Want To Keep Your Employees, You’ll Have To Pay Up

About four years ago, I worked for a company that provided behavior services for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. We did individual counseling, parent training, data analysis, etc. Think highly specialized mental care and support in home and community settings.

After two years of working there and getting another certification, I asked my boss for a raise. I was newly divorced and raising three kids, so I really needed the money. I had been working over ten hours a week of overtime to stay afloat. My boss also knew about my situation. My evaluations were great, and I had been told I would be moved up to supervisor soon, so my boss had to have known this conversation was coming.

This man looked me dead in my eyes and said:

Boss: “I know you want to make more money, and your reviews are great, but I want to make sure you are loyal to the company mission. I can tell when people are just looking to make more money. And we tell those people to go work somewhere else. I want to make sure that the new supervisor will put the company mission and the families they support first. I can’t offer you a raise at this time, but I will get back to you.”

No date was set for a follow-up meeting or anything.

I started applying for new jobs that day. Within two weeks, I had found a new position making double the salary for only forty hours of work a week. As it turns out, I was being severely underpaid — shocker, I know.

The day I handed in my notice, my boss and the owner were in a meeting about my new position within the organization. Of course, no one said anything to me about it beforehand. They sent me an offer, which I politely declined because it sucked. Then, they tried to hire me on as a contractor at a rate that was at least 25% lower than every other contractor rate in the city for my position, so I turned that down, too.

My boss and the owner were both shocked that I rejected their offers, especially since they were willing to offer me “so many perks,” they were giving me the opportunity to “become a leader in a great company,” and they believed I was “a great clinician” who would do “so many great things within their organization,” etc.

I reminded my boss that he was the one who told me to go work somewhere else, and then I stopped responding to their messages.