Wednesday we had a meeting on the belt and our manager said he had some big news. He proceeded to tell us that there will no longer be any performance reviews starting sept 1. He said express is going to a new step pay structure where couriers will be paid based on how long they have been with the company not on performance reviews. He said the company has not given any additional details such as how many steps there would be or how long it would take to top out under the new system. He said instead of performance reviews we will have "performance discussions" or something like that. Has anyone else heard this news or have any additional info?
New express pay structure ?
- Thread starter fdxsux
- Start date
MrFedEx
Engorged Member
As presented to you, this sounds like a scheme to avoid legal action
Rhoderunner
Well-Known Member
Heard the same up here in the N.E. Big headline, little info as usual.
Ricochet1a
Well-Known Member
This is sounding like the system I theorized would be presented - a system much like the military or government civilian service system.
I haven't heard anything additional, but if this is true, then there will be a schedule of pay rates. Pay rates for the next fiscal year would be determined by cross indexing job grade (each craft has a "pay grade" in Express) by years of service, then a pay rate would be determined - no actual pay percentage increases, merely a pre cooked pay rate for the next fiscal year.
This does have the advantage of doing away with management trying to say your pay rate is "confidential". Everyone would know each other's pay rate, by their job classification and years of service under a system like this.
As far as top out times in this structure, it would entirely be up to Express to decide how many years of service would be needed to hit max pay for each craft. The bright point here is that with the current gaming with the annual pay raise percentages, there is/was no longer a top out time. With a schedule of pay rates, I can't imagine that they'd go much beyond 16 years to top out, 20 years would be the absolute maximum I think they could get away with. A schedule like this would do away with the "smoke and mirrors" of the current system - management couldn't play the bull**** game of trying to state you have a career possiblity, but then when someone does the math, a 25 year top out time for a new hire pops out.
If it holds out like the military system, this system would (in theory) mean that those with interrupted service would be - in theory again - be caught back up with those with no break in service. There is obviously going to need to be more information released by Express. This would mean that someone that had a break in service (and started back at the bottom of pay progression when they rehired) would no longer be penalized.
The "small print" to this would be if Express decided to use the term "continuous service" instead of "total service". If continuous service is used, then no break for those with interruptions in their employment.
The other uncertainty would be if they use the term "service in pay grade" instead of TOTAL service with Express. This would come into play when a Courier for example has 10 years of total service, but say only 6 years in pay grade (assume they spent time at a ramp or hub for instance). Would this individual be paid based on 10 years of total service, or only the 6 years in the highest pay grade (Courier)?
As one can see, there are a lot of questions that will need to be answered.
I - along with others - are still curious as to the exact reason Express is going to a system like this. There has to be something else brewing to cause this to come up.
I haven't heard anything additional, but if this is true, then there will be a schedule of pay rates. Pay rates for the next fiscal year would be determined by cross indexing job grade (each craft has a "pay grade" in Express) by years of service, then a pay rate would be determined - no actual pay percentage increases, merely a pre cooked pay rate for the next fiscal year.
This does have the advantage of doing away with management trying to say your pay rate is "confidential". Everyone would know each other's pay rate, by their job classification and years of service under a system like this.
As far as top out times in this structure, it would entirely be up to Express to decide how many years of service would be needed to hit max pay for each craft. The bright point here is that with the current gaming with the annual pay raise percentages, there is/was no longer a top out time. With a schedule of pay rates, I can't imagine that they'd go much beyond 16 years to top out, 20 years would be the absolute maximum I think they could get away with. A schedule like this would do away with the "smoke and mirrors" of the current system - management couldn't play the bull**** game of trying to state you have a career possiblity, but then when someone does the math, a 25 year top out time for a new hire pops out.
If it holds out like the military system, this system would (in theory) mean that those with interrupted service would be - in theory again - be caught back up with those with no break in service. There is obviously going to need to be more information released by Express. This would mean that someone that had a break in service (and started back at the bottom of pay progression when they rehired) would no longer be penalized.
The "small print" to this would be if Express decided to use the term "continuous service" instead of "total service". If continuous service is used, then no break for those with interruptions in their employment.
The other uncertainty would be if they use the term "service in pay grade" instead of TOTAL service with Express. This would come into play when a Courier for example has 10 years of total service, but say only 6 years in pay grade (assume they spent time at a ramp or hub for instance). Would this individual be paid based on 10 years of total service, or only the 6 years in the highest pay grade (Courier)?
As one can see, there are a lot of questions that will need to be answered.
I - along with others - are still curious as to the exact reason Express is going to a system like this. There has to be something else brewing to cause this to come up.
Mr. 7
The monkey on the left.
Yup,
Something's up.
And, would this eliminate the pay grades based on region or not?
Any idea as to whether they'll keep the 7 payscales or if this will be for everyone like UPS? Or a new set of payscales where the cost of living will be taken into account? Quite a few very expensive towns are on the lowest 2 payscales. On edit oops Mr. 7 didn't see you asked the same thing.
Our sister station had 3 FTers quit last week. Could be they've finally had to face the fact that the current system isn't working. If when all is said and done it turns into more smoke and mirrors I'll be quitting as soon as I can. No way I'm sticking around to just get by. I still suspect that they're going to better pay because a restructuring of Express will mean less hours for everyone. But I'll take whatever they're giving, just wish they wouldn't make us wait over 6 months for it.
Ricochet1a
Well-Known Member
At this point, I'm just theorizing here...
Differentials by region could be done with an "addendum" schedule. If Express came out with separate charts by craft, then by region, they'd have more charts than they or regional HR could make sense of.
Going back to the example of the military pay methodology...
There is what they call "base pay" and "specialty pay". If what I'm thinking does indeed happen, the pay chart would be by job pay grade (in a vertical column), then actual hourly pay for the fiscal year arrayed in a horizontal row with "headers" of years of service (or years or service in pay grade, or even years of continuous service). Hope the formatting holds...
| Years of Service | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5+ | ||
| Job | Pay Rate | ||||||
| Handler | $12.00 | $12.72 | $13.48 | $14.29 | $15.15 | $16.06 | |
| Material Handler | $12.50 | $13.25 | $14.05 | $14.89 | $15.78 | $16.73 | |
| DG Agent | $13.00 | $13.78 | $14.61 | $15.48 | $16.41 | $17.40 | |
| Courier/Handler | $15.00 | $15.90 | $16.85 | $17.87 | $18.94 | $20.07 | |
| Courier | $16.00 | $16.96 | $17.98 | $19.06 | $20.20 | $21.41 | |
| RTD | $17.00 | $18.02 | $19.10 | $20.25 | $21.46 | $22.75 |
The above is merely for illustration - IT ISN'T BASED OFF ANY "INSIDE" INFORMATION!!!!
| Regional Pay Enhancement | |
| B | -$0.75 |
| A | $0.00 |
| E | $1.00 |
| friend | $1.25 |
| G | $2.00 |
| H | $3.00 |
Again, the above is merely for illustration - NOT based on any information.
Each region would add the adjustment to the pay in the schedule, and the hourly rate for the fiscal year would be determined.
Again, all for illustration only.
Express would "tweak" the system to make sure no one took a pay cut. Then they'd decide how long to make top out (place it in black and white, there would be a point where there would be no further pay progression - top out). Then they'd make their adjustments for regions. If they wanted to tweak things further, they could start to play with what pay adjustment they'd use for a particular region (a region could move from "A" to "friend" for example if they wanted to cut down on attrition and "soothe" any potential union agitation. Likewise, they could also go the other way if they wanted do, downgrading a particular region if they so desired.
Again, this is all speculation on my part - NOT based on any inside info. I merely put this up for the sake of discussion and to illustrate that a system like this is both indeed possible and is currently used by military/civil service.
UpstateNYUPSer(Ret)
Well-Known Member
Ricohet1a, excellent information. I will add that in the military your pay is based on TIS (Time in Service), which is cumulative, not continuous, which does allow for breaks in service, while promotion to the next grade is based on test scores, performance reviews and TIG (Time in Grade).
I am in the Southeast and have also heard rumors regarding no more performance reviews. I asked my manager about this and he confirmed that this is true but he did not have any details yet. He told me that we would learn the details in our September workgroup meeting.
Ricochet1a
Well-Known Member
Some of the chatter I'm hearing (regarding reasons for changing the system) has to do with how taking sick time has to do with the now obsolete performance review is done.
When an Express employee takes sick time, it is counted against their performance review - meaning that they take a significant hit in their rating even for taking a single sick day in a year. The way the metric worked, taking a sick day resulted in an employee dropping from a "7" for attendance to a "6" - which means that in the final weighted score, an employee would automatically take a 0.2 hit to their score. This may seem insignificant, but due to the pay increase percentage being HEAVILY weighted towards the incremental differences between 6.5 and 7.0, a 0.2 hit towards an employees final score would result in a pay raise which was 0.6% less than it otherwise would be.
For an employee making say $18.00/hr, this hit (for taking a single sick day) would result in losing 11 cents/hr from whatever pay increase was coming their way the next cycle. For a full-timer, this would work out to losing $229 in wages for EACH AND EVERY YEAR that they otherwise would be receiving that "extra" 11 cents an hour. Since this amount of lost pay increase wasn't automatically "caught up" in following years, the employee would in essence be PERMANENTLY penalized for taking that single sick day.
Looking at this over the long term, assuming the employee works another 10 years (or tops out 10 years after taking this illustrative sick day), the employee would lose a total of $2,300 in compensation over their career/remaining time- for taking a single sick day!! I hope this illustrates to new employees why mid-range employees were loathe to take a sick day unless they were on the verge of death.
This was always the issue of taking a sick day while in Express. Those who looked at their compensation through the lens I illustrated KNEW that taking a sick day would cost them FAR beyond the "loss" of the end of fiscal year payout for that day taken - they would take a hit to their annual review and the loss to their pay increase (when accumulated over time till they hit topout or left the company) would cost them dearly.
The problem was that this issue DIDN'T present itself for topped out employees. Since all they had to worry about was receiving a review score that would garner a pay increase that was at least equal to the increase to the topout for the position (usually a 5.0 score was all that they needed) topped out employees didn't have this concern that those that weren't topped out had.
I know of no other major corporation which penalizes its wage employees for taking sick time. I and others believe that this issue may have something to do with the reason for the change. Express always stated (even in HR posters) that employees should take sick time if they beleive they are contagious with some illness, but there was NO WAY for the employee to prevent taking a negative hit on their review if they indeed took a sick day. There wasn't even a way to prevent a hit to the review even if the employee presented a "doctor's note". I often was presented with the situation of being severely ill and trying to make the decision as to whether to call in sick or try to make it through the day.
Again, this is speculative, since there has been no definitive information come out yet. Most ops managers only received notification of the policy change a week and a half ago, and even that was merely a heads up, not an exhaustive explanation as to why the change or how the change is going to affect the wage employees. Since (from what I'm hearing) there isn't a rush to get in last minute performance reviews before September 1, the March pay increases should be done entirely with the new system.
I would anticipate this resulting in people being MUCH more willing to take a sick day if they are sick (or just want a "break", ahem) and not worrying about the consequences to their compensation.
However, this whole system has me thinking of the adage - "Beware of strangers bearing gifts". For all the seeming improvements to the method of determining pay increases, there has to be something else brewing within Express which will be revealed soon after this system is "nailed down". I'm not going to go so far as to suggest that this is part of a bigger picture (of which my postings regarding operational changes are part of), but I can't help but think that there is indeed some linkage between this change in how compensation is going to be determined and how Express is going to reorganize. Just too damn much happening too quickly for it to be coincidental.
When an Express employee takes sick time, it is counted against their performance review - meaning that they take a significant hit in their rating even for taking a single sick day in a year. The way the metric worked, taking a sick day resulted in an employee dropping from a "7" for attendance to a "6" - which means that in the final weighted score, an employee would automatically take a 0.2 hit to their score. This may seem insignificant, but due to the pay increase percentage being HEAVILY weighted towards the incremental differences between 6.5 and 7.0, a 0.2 hit towards an employees final score would result in a pay raise which was 0.6% less than it otherwise would be.
For an employee making say $18.00/hr, this hit (for taking a single sick day) would result in losing 11 cents/hr from whatever pay increase was coming their way the next cycle. For a full-timer, this would work out to losing $229 in wages for EACH AND EVERY YEAR that they otherwise would be receiving that "extra" 11 cents an hour. Since this amount of lost pay increase wasn't automatically "caught up" in following years, the employee would in essence be PERMANENTLY penalized for taking that single sick day.
Looking at this over the long term, assuming the employee works another 10 years (or tops out 10 years after taking this illustrative sick day), the employee would lose a total of $2,300 in compensation over their career/remaining time- for taking a single sick day!! I hope this illustrates to new employees why mid-range employees were loathe to take a sick day unless they were on the verge of death.
This was always the issue of taking a sick day while in Express. Those who looked at their compensation through the lens I illustrated KNEW that taking a sick day would cost them FAR beyond the "loss" of the end of fiscal year payout for that day taken - they would take a hit to their annual review and the loss to their pay increase (when accumulated over time till they hit topout or left the company) would cost them dearly.
The problem was that this issue DIDN'T present itself for topped out employees. Since all they had to worry about was receiving a review score that would garner a pay increase that was at least equal to the increase to the topout for the position (usually a 5.0 score was all that they needed) topped out employees didn't have this concern that those that weren't topped out had.
I know of no other major corporation which penalizes its wage employees for taking sick time. I and others believe that this issue may have something to do with the reason for the change. Express always stated (even in HR posters) that employees should take sick time if they beleive they are contagious with some illness, but there was NO WAY for the employee to prevent taking a negative hit on their review if they indeed took a sick day. There wasn't even a way to prevent a hit to the review even if the employee presented a "doctor's note". I often was presented with the situation of being severely ill and trying to make the decision as to whether to call in sick or try to make it through the day.
Again, this is speculative, since there has been no definitive information come out yet. Most ops managers only received notification of the policy change a week and a half ago, and even that was merely a heads up, not an exhaustive explanation as to why the change or how the change is going to affect the wage employees. Since (from what I'm hearing) there isn't a rush to get in last minute performance reviews before September 1, the March pay increases should be done entirely with the new system.
I would anticipate this resulting in people being MUCH more willing to take a sick day if they are sick (or just want a "break", ahem) and not worrying about the consequences to their compensation.
However, this whole system has me thinking of the adage - "Beware of strangers bearing gifts". For all the seeming improvements to the method of determining pay increases, there has to be something else brewing within Express which will be revealed soon after this system is "nailed down". I'm not going to go so far as to suggest that this is part of a bigger picture (of which my postings regarding operational changes are part of), but I can't help but think that there is indeed some linkage between this change in how compensation is going to be determined and how Express is going to reorganize. Just too damn much happening too quickly for it to be coincidental.
Not long after arriving at my current station I got a bug that kept me up most of the night with severe diarrhea, chills, and difficulty standing. Called in sick and sr.mgr. said get a note. No local doctor, no shape to drive, took cab to emergency room, 2 hrs to be seen in misery, had to pay $100 deductible plus $25 roundtrip in cab. And got hit on review! It's this kind of stuff plus what they've done on pay and pension that makes people despise the company.
If pay does increase significantly for many of us might be smart to pay off what bills you can and save as much as possible. At least for a year or two. Maybe there's been a corporate culture tsunami but I'd wait until they've proved it.
Cactus
Just telling it like it is
If your attendance is within a respectable percentage and they request a doctor's excuse then they should pay pay for it.
Do you mean they are supposed to pay for it? Told my mgr how much it cost me and no offer was made to reimburse me. Over 2 years ago.
Ricochet1a
Well-Known Member
One would think that they should pay the doctor's office copay if they direct an employee to get a doctor's note - but I never heard of Express doing such a thing.
Most locations have a "policy" (never could confirm if it was in PEOPLE or was informal junk) that if an employee called in sick 3 days in a row, they HAD to get a doctor's note to return to work. No note, no return to work. I considered it to be a form of extortion on their part - if you presented yourself ready to work, who in the hell were they to doubt that you could indeed work.
So if one was indeed ill, then took 3 days off in a row - the employee was then liable for sitting through the misery of sitting in an acute care clinic or trying to get their primary care provider to see them on short notice (good luck), in order to be able to return to work.
As we all know, the provider will look at the individual, come up with a diagnosis of "acute viral syndrome", proscribe Tylenol and rest, then write a note stating the employee is able to return to work when "feeling better". A complete waste of health care resources, all done by Express to cower an employee from not using their sick time. The funny thing is that since Express is self paid when it comes to health coverage, Express ends up paying about $60 or so after the employee's copay for the office visit. Complete waste.
I was always of the opinion that if an employee did in fact present a doctors note, then the sick time used should NOT be counted against them for attendance purposes on the review - an "excused" absence so to say. This would've been the "balancing mechanism" for the use of sick time and Express trying to minimize employees calling in sick at the smallest of circumstances or calling in just to take a day off.
There was a time where I had to take more than 3 continuous days off - so I merely called in, was told on the third day I needed a note to return to work, then proceeded to call in the other two days and went in to my provider on the fifth day when I was feeling much better. It jammed them up pretty good and they deserved it. Yes, my review took a hit, but I knew I wasn't career FedEx at that point so I didn't care.
Cactus
Just telling it like it is
Should have told your sr. manager (the dufus that wanted the excuse in the first place) that you were gonna GFT the whole thing to get your money back. He may may have just paid you to avoid all the hassel.
Problem was I had GFTed my ops mgr shortly after arriving about lying to me about what my hours and duties would be to get me to transfer here. I was told by director can't GFT hours and I said no, it's about being told something different to get me here. Director said he had no idea what I had been told, case closed. So I had an angry senior with a bad reputation to deal with. So of course he told me to get a note, made sure I unloaded containers every morning, reload every night with a heavy rt that I couldn't get lunch until 1700 most days. They worked me into the ground. But senior got fired, ops mgr eventually put on evenings, new boss decent fellow, and I'm on a good route. No telling how things would've turned out if I had filed a GFT over that note. Sometimes you have just got to grin and bear it. And work so hard, post such good numbers that you get their respect. I wonder if my being vocal here and at work will get me canned before that better pay comes in March just to keep me from getting it. If so at least they'll never say I didn't do right by them. Over halfway through August mgr told me I was averaging 119% for the month. That number got taken down the day I spent doing a bulk pickup on another rt but they know I'm doing best I can. So that's my advice to everyone. No matter what they do to you keep working hard and good thongs will happen. That flies in the face of wanting to get revenge but in the long run you'll be glad you just did your best. And if you are critical of mgmt back it up by outworking others. You'll be the one they listen too if your complaints are legitimate.
