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| Q: I accepted a reduced salary to join a promising new company & negotiated 6-month performance reviews. The CEO is now reneging on my review interval. There is no HR Department. Do I have recourse other than leaving? |
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A: The first thing I’d want to know is, did you get in writing the information (the who, what, when, and how much) about the negotiated agreement for a six-month review? This could be in the form of an email, letter, memo or contract. To determine whether or not the CEO’s refusal to honor giving you a six-month review is negatively affecting you at work, we’d need to look at all the agreed-upon terms of this review arrangement – most important, were you going to get a pay raise with each review period? Was any percentage raise agreed upon, for example, until your salary was brought up to market rate? These are the kind of details that typically would be captured in writing between you and the company.
Although Pennsylvania recognizes verbal employment agreements, if you had to sue your boss to get a performance review, it would cost you a pretty penny in legal fees – and I’m not sure you’d have any damages unless you had a clear promise that with each review you were going to get a certain amount of additional compensation. The law typically provides a remedy in the form of either money damages or specific performance. It won’t help you much to have a judge order your boss to give you a performance review if there is no guarantee that the end result of that review will be an increase in pay or other compensation.
So, let’s look at other creative ways to get what you want, which I presume is market pay, and financial recognition for a job well done. Come up with some creative compensation alternatives, and then prepare to sell your boss on why and how they work to his benefit. You might say, “I understand you have changed the review process to an annual one. Although when I accepted this position, it was with the understanding that I would be on a six-month review cycle so that my pay could eventually reach a fair market rate, I want to be flexible, and to that end, would like to make a few proposals to you about how we can continue to keep my compensation on-track to reaching a market-comparable rate in between review periods.”
Moving on is probably a last resort. I recommend you pay for a consultation with an employment attorney to get more detailed information about your situation, with specific legal advice and recommendations on how you can and should proceed.
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