The company does not provide/believe in annual merit increases (irrespective of what you may be told when recruited). If you earn less than $70k/year, you will receive a COLA adjustment yearly but for those earning more, there are no annual increases.
It is common to be given more responsibility, including whole departments, without a promotion or raise – you’ll be told ‘we’ll take care of you with your bonus’. In many cases they don’t and a handful of cases there was actually a drop in the bonus. The worst scenario I was able to confirm was an individual who went from a handful of employees to a team 10x the original size. No promotion, no raise, no increase in bonus.
One of the companies (BLS) is extremely inefficient given the current economy and as such drives down company profits that impacts everyone’s bonus even if you don’t work for BLS (or at least that’s what you’ll be told at year end).
Most of the leadership has grown up with the company (including the President, Managing Directors, and VP’s) so their only ‘real world’ perspective is what they’ve created ; they’re rarely willing to bring in executive level leadership from the outside that can provide a different opinion and in the odd times that they do, all the existing leaders rally against the ‘new comer’ with the response that ‘its not the Bayview way’.
If you are an individual with seasoned experience, you will soon find yourself in a situation where the market will provide you with a compensation plan that matches your abilities and recognizes that growth comes from those that can provide different opinions that prevent a follow the herd mentality that is so prevalent.
