Never worked for a company that didn't give raises every year. Weird.
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I don't necessarily expect a cost of living increase each year or some onether annual increment. That's just getting more for time served and Cisco wants ambitious people.
Companies that don't provide annual cost of living increases, even if only a modest 1-2% increase, will not retain people. Just like with the military, it takes lots of little people to do grunt work, half as many to manage, and a small number of people to lead. If you limit pay increases to promotions, then half the people will leave because they can't get a promotion due to lack of available positions, not lack of talent. At least the military provides an annual increase, usually the same as social security.
Phone companies hate churn in subscribers. There is a cost to cancelling an account and opening new accounts. While they gladly accept the costs associated with creating new accounts, they hate the costs in transferring or closing accounts. It's the same with new hires. There are costs associated with recruiting and getting new people up to speed when you lose someone who quits due to a lack of pay increases. When will Cisco learn that keeping pay static is a bad idea? When you've been a grade 6 for a couple of years and finally get promoted to grade 8 and some new grad comes in as a brand new grade 6 and is making the same as you, you're going to leave too.
Stock up on peanut butter, it's a cheap and easy to make meal for any IT worker who can no longer afford copious amounts of take-out food on your way home from campus.
Have you ever worked for a company that lays off thousands every year?
I don't necessarily expect a cost of living increase each year or some onether annual increment. That's just getting more for time served and Cisco wants ambitious people.
The bigger concern for me is lack of promotion opportunity. Not getting annual pay rises is fine if there is the possibility to getting promoted. In my particular role if I want promotion I would need to leave or relocate. That's my choice so I can't really get too high and mighty about it. I need to take ownership of my career but I do think Cisco doesn't put much effort into offering career progression options. At one meeting I went too it was made clear to me that promotions to the next grade were available...just I had to move locations. That's fine if you are mobile. Not if you have a family.
But again, if I want it hard enough I can always leave...which does mean that the motivated people with good skills leave and are not retained. Bad news for Cisco.
Find a job at a fancy tech company if you want merit & cost of living raises. The cost of living in Northern California is rather affordable.