Can someone explain the concept of MRR zones?
How many are there?
What does it mean to be in MRR zone 2?
Is there an MRR zone 3?
Who gives us the info in what MRR zone we are?
8 replies (most recent on top)
I hadn't heard of MRR, but I'd heard about median pay factor. I thought Cisco liked to keep everyone at the median point for their pay grade. If your MPF was above a 1.0, you were making more than the median pay for that job title/pay grade, This made you expensive and increased the target size on your back every LR cycle because it impacted the team's budget.
I had been at Cisco once as a grade 9 and LR'd. I had an opportunity to come back, but the manager could only swing a grade 8 for the role. He did manage to get me my original grade 9 pay plus a few percents increase for inflation between when I was LR'd and when I returned. I was pretty happy about that and didn't think much about it, especially as I survived the next round of LR's (because I'd been back less than a year), but the following LR nailed me "because I was too expensive" and letting me go was more bang for the team's budget bucks. It meant that they could replace me with a younger, more junior person at the 1.0 MPF and take the excess and give it to someone who was at .8 MPF and bring them closer to 1.0.
I'm in discussions about returning again because I'm currently a red badge making grade 10 pay, but doing the work of a grade 8. If I want to convert and stay for more than a year, I have to take a big pay cut but we all know that due to my age, I won't be able to stay more than a few years regardless of whether or not I make the median pay or above average pay.
I miss the benefits, but for the current pay I'm making, I'm not interest in giving up $30 to convert.
Is Cisco still doing and showing the 9 block cr-p?
You can ask for your mrr or pay range. It’s all a sham to try stop attrition for better pay.
It’s a big thing. Cisco likes to have people in zone 2 (middle), but because of inflation and competition for talent, the MRR ranges have been increasing (10% this year already). Because of the lousy rewards budget, people have been increasingly falling into zone 1, and quite a few fall below the minimum. (Just because the MRR increases, the salary doesn’t)
HR are trying to force managers to get people back into a competitive range, but there is no budget to do it. When managers complain, they are told to go up their exec chain and horse trade somebody else’s budget - like that’s going to happen.
So, people’s pay is increasingly falling behind both the market and new hires. And so, we are losing people in droves.
Sounds completely useless. Who cares if a VPs incompetent friend is a Grade 12 with a MRR zone 2 or 3? They shouldn't be a Grade 12... 11... or 10
You have to ask your manager to show you your report but you can’t have a copy. There are zones 1, 2 and 3.
MRR stands for Market Reference Range and there are 3 per grade level. To be in MRR 2 is roughly the mid point compensation for a grade. MRRs are also adjusted to market conditions so there tends to be some drift as to where an employee may be in a range over time. Hope this helps.
In my experience it's not transparent and there's no standard of what it means to be mrr2 vs 3. Usually up to the discretion of the manager.