New Hire Adjusted Salary

coz · March 2008

We offered an individual a position in our organization and she accepted, (a very good candidate) however, she has asked our Company to lower her Annual Salary by $500-$1000. We have a set hire-in salary for each position in our organization. We do not have a problem adjusting her salary down but we want to violate any laws that may affect her rights or ours. Even though this is an odd request, we are willing to lower her salary but can we legally do that? Do we need a special document fo this? We live in Missouri.

Need help.

sonny · March 2008

Do you know why she is asking? The only time I have come across this was an ee who asked us to keep him below so much hourly so he could keep his SSD. It was years ago and they did it for a while but we finally put a stop to it.

Dutch2 · March 2008

Similar story to Sunny, however, rather than reduce the rate of pay for the ee's wanting to make under a certian dollar amount each year for SS benefits, we reduced the number of hours they worked and still paid them the same as others in the position.

coz · March 2008

She is wanting to keep her child care and medical benefits for her children.

allsteaks · March 2008

Unless you have a collective bargaining agreement that dictates rates of pay, and the reduced salary is above the Federal and Missouri minimum wage requirement, and you have the new hire sign an acceptance of the waiver of minimum salary range, it shouldn't be a problem. I agree that the easier method would be to reduce her hours, but if it's an exempt position, that wouldn't work.

stilldazed · March 2008

Don't know anything about Missouri and sounds as if you have good guidance there. From a federal standpoint, you can lower the salary as long as you don't drop below the federal minimums for exempt or nonexempt, whichever this position is. We have had similar experience in our workplace, and our experiences typically have something to do with SS benefits, the individual's need to keep nonSS benefit under a certain threshhold to either keep the SS benefits in place or avert significant income taxes on the nonSS wages. My only advice would be to consider your organization's salary plan and how the exception will fit in the plan. If the new worker is asking for a reduced wage now, the worker will want the reduced wage to continue with every wage increase you might expect to give worker. If that reduction is not held in check somehow, you could find yourselves with a disparate wage issue if you have other like positions and are paying more to the other positions. Another consideration would be how you are prepared to manage a request for a wage adjustment if the childcare issues change. Thinking way down the road, the children will eventually grow up and not need whatever the other benefit provides. So, then what? We choose to address the issues like some of the others have posted and that is to let the wage fall where it does in the organization and adjust different variables (hours, job classification, etc). I have actually seen, however, situations where employees 'disappear' from active work schedules along about October and expect to return as soon as Jan 1 as possible, regardless of what we actually needed in the workplace, and a supervisor was allowing it to happen. We successfully ended the very last situation by offering work (and we needed the help) in December, the worker declined, and we changed the status to resignation. It was a blessing to get it out of the salary plan.

best wishes

coz · April 2008

Thanks for your suggestion.

KCjan · April 2008

I would suggest reducing the hours. By lowering an salary below the minimum you have established for that position and others, you may be putting yourself at risk for a future challenge re: pay discrimination (yes, even if the person agrees or requests it). What happens if her circumstances change, and she requests to be moved back to the regular pay? You may not have that option. The situation could also twist that the candidate felt coerced to take a lower amount of pay, or that it was only intended to be temporary... The safest route would be to reduce the hours of the position (if that doesn't produce a conflict w/ other workers). Another option is to keep the pay at your established rate, and put the responsibility on the employee. I too have had employees request a reduction in pay or hours to balance SS benefits. I left it to them to balance the days off without pay, keeping in mind it should not cause a disruption in workflow. Most were good at taking time off during slow periods and it was not a problem.

New Hire Adjusted Salary

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