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Maternity cover pay vs experienced employee pay

Victoria

Looking for advice for a friend - genuinely !!

My friend has 18 years experience in their job and they will be finishing up on maternity leave in a couple of months. An office junior (straight out of college, no work experience and the daughter of the business owner friend) has been brought on to cover the same job whilst she is on maternity leave.

My friend found out today that the office junior will be receiving the same salary as them - the office junior had to clarify their salary on the phone and also opened the mail which contained salaries for the month (this is part of her job).

My friend is unsure whether to approach their boss about this and challenge the reasoning behind the pay situation. She is hurt and betrayed as she has worked hard to get to the salary she is now earning. I haven't come across this before and I was wondering in your experience, will challenging this have any impact on the situation?

Thanks

Parents
  • Unless your friend thinks that difference is a result of direct discrimination - which is difficult to evidence from a comparative figure of one - then there's no legal grounds for objection.

    I'm pretty sure that challenging the apparent disparity *will* have an impact, but it might not have the impact your friend would like it to. Either - hurt and betrayed as she feels - her grievance will be rejected and she'll feel even more hurt and betrayed, her morale will collapse and she will either be exited for poor performance or will resign in a cloud of indignation. Or her employers will raise her salary despite not, actually, needing to.

    Which is the more likely outcome will depend upon her relationship with her employer...
  • in reply to Robey
    Apologies, I was mistaken when I first posted. Having spoken to my friend again, the office junior is being paid more than my friend who is the office manager. The boss has confirmed the junior is only to be covering the basic admin tasks and not the legal aspect of the role (sheriff officers).
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  • in reply to Robey
    Apologies, I was mistaken when I first posted. Having spoken to my friend again, the office junior is being paid more than my friend who is the office manager. The boss has confirmed the junior is only to be covering the basic admin tasks and not the legal aspect of the role (sheriff officers).
Children
  • in reply to Victoria
    I think I'd want to know why someone was being paid more than me to do my job; especially if I would 'know' that as part of my job. I think a careful and non-aggressive: "I'm looking forward to coming back to work on X and to handing over with Y, who I understand has done a great job. I would appreciate it if we could have a conversation about my salary on my return? I'm aware of course that the salary for my role has been increased while I've been away, so it seems like a good time to have a conversation about it." There are of course good reasons why temp cover demands a higher rate than a long term role (as they have no job security and offer flexibility that most of us cannot), so even though it doesn't sound like it's the case here, making it a genuine enquiry could bear fruit.