When I first accepted a supervisory role at my last organization I was infatuated with the idea of being in this role – especially at such a young age, over a decade younger than my counterparts. However, due to my age and inexperience within such a role, I was offered a salary that had seemed reasonable at the time, but I later found out was below the market value. Even more defeating, it was lower than the wage that individuals I was supervising with no experience within their role were making. This felt entirely unfair to myself and my perception of the distributive fairness (Oregon State University – Lecture 1, n.d.).
The realization that I was being paid less for a significantly larger workload and extended workweeks as I was working a minimum of 55-60 hours a week was incredibly defeating. Intrinsically, this compensation discrepancy affected my connection to the company as well as with my own perception of my value to the company (Oregon State University – Lecture 1, n.d.). Through repeated underpayment and disconnection through my extrinsic and intrinsic perception of compensation, I eventually left the role.
Compensation motivated my behavior as there were clear inequalities as displayed through the Equality Theory (Oregon State University – Lecture 1, n.d.). I felt that my input and the outputs I was receiving were not equal or fair as displayed through the inputs of those on my team both in similar roles and those of the staff that I was supervising compared to the outputs that they were receiving. I wanted to feel valued for the effort and strengths that I bring to the organization and the compensation that I was receiving did not reflect that.
Oregon State University. (n.d.). Lecture 1: Introduction to Compensation. Oregon State University MGMT 453.
