Company refuses to give employees raises, claims anyone’s raise will come out of someone else’s paycheck: ‘What’s the point of growing in the job?’

Would you stay at a workplace after being told that raises are off the table?

Being told ‘no’ when you ask for a raise is a common experience, one that we would argue every single employee has gone through at least once in their career. You could be the absolutely best employee in your company and still have to sit there and listen to your boss’s spiel about budget cuts and restructuring after they denied your pay raise request yet again.

When employees decide to ask for a raise, many do so thinking that the worst that could happen is that their boss would say no, but apparently, even the way employers deny raises has levels of awfulness to them, and if you ask us, the one that these employees had to listen to is up there on the leaderboard. 

It is one thing to be told a raise is not a possibility because the company doesn’t have the budget, but it’s an entirely different thing to be told that if you ask for a raise, the additional amount you will be getting will be coming out of someone else’s paycheck. How awful is that? “Sure, you can get a raise, but just know that the money will be taken out of Bill’s hours, and his wife just had his firstborn baby.”

We’re not sure what kind of tactic this is, but we doubt it will incite employees to work harder or invest more of themselves into the work. They are basically being told that raises are off the table because no one is willing to ask for one in these conditions, so what do they have left that might prevent them from looking for other employment?

This company’s employees should not agree to this bizarre rule, and if anything, they should demand that their raises come out of the CEO’s paycheck. We can bet the CEO won’t even notice the difference, and then everyone’s happy. Otherwise, it might be time for everyone in this company to start updating their resume.