Eight Ways Your Employer Can Deceive You (Not Just Fire You)
Nearly 20% of American workers describe themselves as “unhappy” at their jobs, half say they are stressed at work, and 18% use the word “angry” to describe how they feel about their jobs. Most people work to survive —to pay the bills and feed themselves—and that’s not exactly a recipe for job satisfaction.
However, for the most part, it’s a relatively simple exchange: you give up your time and skills, and the company gives you money and other benefits in return. However, your job has a big impact on your life, and there are many ways you can screw up at work. Getting fired for no reason (or for some stupid reason) is the most obvious way your job can fail you, but it’s not the only way: here are eight other ways and what to do if they happen to you.
Tax errors
One of the easiest ways an employer can make your life miserable is by screwing up your tax situation . If they issue an incorrect W2 and you use it to file your taxes, it could result in you paying the wrong amount of tax or receiving the wrong refund. Taxes paid incorrectly can also affect things like your Social Security benefits or the rate at which you are taxed.
Employers are also responsible for withholding taxes on your behalf; If they make a calculation error and under-withhold , you could be facing a large tax bill—or worse, a fine if the under-withholding is egregious. One of the things your employer must withhold is Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA) taxes, including Social Security and Medicare taxes. These are “matching” withholdings: If you were to pay $5,000 in FICA taxes, your employer would have to withhold $5,000 from your paycheck and then send $10,000 to the government. If they haven’t, they may require you to pay back the $5,000 you accidentally paid , or they will have to report it as income paid to you, which will affect your tax bill.
What you can do: You can (and should) file an amended tax return when you receive your amended W2, and then pay any additional taxes you owe. If your employer failed to withhold FICA taxes, you should calculate how much should have been withheld and contact a tax professional to make things right. Most importantly, you should always check your pay stubs to ensure that withholdings include FICA items and are consistent with your expectations. If you think your employer is underpaying or overpaying, contact your HR department and ask them to look into it.
Strategic lack of promotion
In the world of backhanded compliments, being passed over for a promotion because you’re too valuable in your current role is certainly a traffic jam. Managers are supposed to facilitate your career growth – or at least not stand in the way of it – but if you make their life easier with all your competence and work ethic, they may decide to promote other, less deserving people rather than you. . This way, they won’t have to hire, train, and mentor someone else for your position. This will obviously have a negative impact on your career as your resume will start to look like you’ve hit a wall in terms of abilities and experience, not to mention the loss of salary and other compensation you might have received if you had received the promotion you need. should have had.
What you can do: You can, of course, look for another job and try to get promoted by moving to a new employer. If you want to stay in your current position and promotion and title are not a priority for you, you can ask for a raise: Have an honest conversation with your boss and ask for more money instead of that raise . However, for this to work, you will need an exit strategy ready to use. Finally, you might want to explore the possibility of moving to another group under a different manager—your current boss may not want to lose you, but he might not want to openly torpedo a lateral move if it involves another manager.
Silent action
Quiet promotion is a type of “title creep” where you are given many new responsibilities without any title change or promotion. You suddenly find yourself working on bigger projects, or managing more accounts, or getting more shifts, but you don’t end up getting more money or benefits. This typically occurs when companies lose workers and reassign their jobs rather than hire replacements.
What you can do: First, start documenting the extra work. Record your extra hours, count how much more you’re doing in terms of shifts, bills, projects—even the number of meetings and calls you have to handle. The more data you have that shows you are doing the work of two people or a much more senior employee, the better. Then ask for a real raise and/or raise. If that doesn’t get you anywhere, you can use all this data to update your resume and look for a new job.
Silent shooting
Just because someone has been promoted to a management position or runs a business does not mean they have the skills or temperament to be confrontational. Sometimes your job fails you because your boss wants you to leave but is afraid to say so, so he resorts to passive-aggressive tactics to get you to leave. These may include giving you much more work than your colleagues, giving you projects beyond your skills and experience (and hoping you fail), isolating you by making yourself – and other workers – unavailable, or (worst of all) simply stripping you of your responsibilities and separating you from everyone else, causing you to spend your days in boredom.
What you can do: Filing a formal complaint or taking legal action over a silent termination can be difficult. You can try talking to your boss and see if you can resolve the situation through discussion; you can obviously take the hint and look for a new job, or you can respond to a quiet layoff with a ” quiet layoff ” and enjoy the ride. But be careful: Review company policies and any annual goals set for your position before you quit quietly to make sure you’re not setting yourself up for a much bigger exit.
Verbal enhancements
Your boss promises you a promotion as a reward for past performance or as an enticement to step up your efforts or get through a difficult period. Then the promotion will never happen. Not only were all your extra efforts not recognized, you were deceived, and if you made any financial plans based on the promise of a higher salary, you are screwed.
What you can do: It is difficult to take any legal action regarding verbal promises and oral agreements; While oral agreements can be valid in court, they usually require the other party to acknowledge them and agree to your version of events, and employers can change the details of your job at will almost any time they want. The best thing you can do when you receive any undocumented promise is to immediately document it yourself , and then try to get your manager to confirm it via email or in writing. You may also consider hiring a human resources consultant to help you understand your options and prepare letters and emails about the situation.
Wage theft
One of the most common ways people cheat at work is through wage theft, which is when your employer doesn’t pay you according to their legal obligations. This can take many forms, from being forced to pay for uniforms or equipment out of pocket, to being forced to work unpaid overtime, or not being informed about available benefits (or simply being denied access to promised benefits). It is estimated that workers in the United States lose $50 billion annually due to wage theft .
What you can do: First, find out what your compensation should be—both the promised salary and benefits and the local laws governing wages and other practices in your area. Secondly, please note: review your pay stubs and make sure you are being paid what you were promised. Third, document: If you notice discrepancies in your pay or are asked to do unpaid work, start tracking and saving receipts. Contact your company’s HR department to see if you can remedy the situation; otherwise, contact the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division and file a complaint.
Future restrictions
You applied, interviewed and accepted the job, but did you actually read all those documents you signed? Work often limits not only your current activities in relation to the job, but also your future activities, and in the form of non-compete agreements, non-disclosure agreements and non-disparagement agreements . Taken together, these types of legal agreements can tie you down for significant periods of time after you leave your current job and make it difficult to find a new one, even if you leave on good terms. In other words, you may be deceived by your work in the future without even knowing it.
What you can do: First, research your state’s laws. The Federal Trade Commission tried to ban non-compete clauses but the case was stalled in court, but many states have laws limiting and regulating them and non-compete agreements can be difficult to enforce. Non-disparagement and non-disclosure agreements make more sense: your best move is to be aware of what you’re signing and think through the consequences of limiting your freedom of speech for a certain period of time, and be willing to turn down work that requires it. If you’ve already signed one, review its contents and brush up on the law—for example, a non-disparagement agreement may not prevent you from filing a worker’s compensation claim.
Bad reviews about work
Managers are just people, and people have different skills. Some managers are simply bad at giving performance reviews , and this can really hinder you in terms of promotions, salary increases, and overall career growth. A few common ways a bad manager can ruin your performance evaluation include focusing only on the last weeks of your performance instead of an overall evaluation of the past year, introducing personal bias into the evaluation, and being surprised by a long list of errors. problems you’ve never heard of before.
What you can do: You can almost always add a response to a performance review before you sign it. Avoid angry or aggressive language and objectively challenge misjudgments or provide context that your manager missed. You should also ask for a meeting with your manager to discuss the review —while remaining calm. If you can convince your manager that he made a mistake before the review was closed, you may be able to improve the situation.