When I worked in the trade, I always figured I was doing a good job if nobody was screaming at me. Or handing me two paychecks in the middle of the week. Or just one paycheck at the end of shift Friday night. When I went into management I never had a job review. Only thing that was even close is if there was a problem on the job. One or more of the owners of the company would come on site to figure out what was going wrong. That was about the only time we got any feed back from the main office, or if we didn't get a bonus at the end of the year. If the job / jobs you were on made money hand over fist, and you didn't get a bonus, guess what? Somebody somewhere thought you did a bad job.
Yes, your last sentence is a possible correct conclusion.
Also possible - the owner of the business is just too greedy or short-sighted to bother sharing the wealth with the people that made it happen.
Many organizations are quick to cry poor when things are slow, and expect to get concessions from employees under these conditions. Only a few of those same companies will share the wealth on the upside. Nature of the game.
From a (personal) business standpoint - when your local economy is really strong, AND your company sees enough future business coming in to expand, THEN you are in good place to be making a pitch for more money. IE. it doesn't get much better than that, business wise. Of course, I'm assuming your performance as an employee is strong in all key areas.
Making sense out of the chaos is a big part of the battle, esp. in small companies. Lacking structure from management, I view this as an ongoing discussion. If I present a detailed summary of what I've accomplished to a manager, AND receive no negative feedback, AND a significant amount of time passes with no raise, WHILE the company continues to expand and make money - well, to me, that is a pretty significant data-point telling me to move on.
Many small businesses don't make money, and are often badly managed. For the few that do make money, it is often incumbent on the employee to fight for a fair salary.
Also in business, there is a general assumption that Sales people are obsessed and extremely aggressive about money. Right or wrong, that means business owners may expect to be chased by Sales people for raises more so than by other classes of employees. Again, just part of the game.
Rgds, D.
When I say I'm going to do something I bust a gut trying to do it. But guess what, most people aren't like that:confused3:. Give it some time, it's way to early to draw a line in the sand. Your boss just might step over that line. Then what will you do?
