Latest / Prayer Before Work / Your Raise Now Comes Out of Your Coworkers' Hours - Prayer Before Work
Transcript
- Sean Graver: Your company just found a way to make asking for a raise feel like you're reaching into your coworker's pocket. Well, my name is Sean, and welcome back to Prayer Before Work. So here's the setup. Your department gets one fixed pot of money for payroll. And if somebody gets a raise, then the the hours or the or the money has to come from somewhere else on the team. And then your manager makes that known. He says, Well, this should make you more thoughtful about asking. So now wanting to be paid fairly feels selfish. You asked her whether that pot grows when the company makes more money, and the answer was basically no. And you walked out of that meeting wondering why you'd bother getting better at your job at all if if growing just turns you into a budget problem for everybody else. That's really a discouraging place to be, and I I don't think you're wrong to feel it. I mean the apostle Paul says something in first Timothy five eighteen, I I think that's worth applying here. He writes, For the scripture says, You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain, and the laborer deserves his wages. And he's quoting the law of Moses and the words of Jesus here in the same breath. The ox doing the work got to eat from the grain it was working. That was built right into God's law. And a worker being paid for the value they bring isn't greed. It's how God sets things up. So if you've grown, if you've taken on more, if you're if you're carrying a bigger workload than you were a year ago, asking to be paid for that isn't stealing from anyone. And you can ask honestly, with a clear conscience and with your facts in hand, you know, what you did, what changed, what's it worth? Now for the harder part, a system like this can slowly turn coworkers into competitors, and you start noticing what you got. And you start resenting the person who asked first. That's where I'd ask you to be careful. The people sitting next to you didn't design this budget. Don't let a budget process decide how you treat them. And about the motivation question, I get it. If the only reason to grow is the paycheck, then this policy just took the reason away. But I'd push back on that because the skills you build, they belong to you. They go with you to the next review, the next role, maybe the next company. So getting better at your work is never wasted, even when this particular place doesn't reward it the way it should. Now whether this is a place you stay long term, that's a fair question. And only you can answer that. But just don't answer it on the same afternoon as the meeting. So let's pray. God, it's frustrating when the way things are set up makes doing good feelings. work feel pointless, but thank you that you see the work we do even when a budget doesn't. So give us the courage to ask for what's fair without guilt, and the grace to keep treating our co-workers as teammates instead of competition. But keep us growing even when the reward isn't immediate, and give us wisdom about where we're supposed to be now and down the road. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Go make today count.