back to article Capita's top brass bags 20% rise - as IT bods shiver in wage freeze

Capita's top bosses' annual compensation packages rose by a fifth last year - at the same time the UK outsourcing giant's IT Services (ITS) workers had their wages frozen and bonuses scrapped. Hard-pressed ITS staffers, who are thrashing out a pay deal for 2013, were furious when they learned of the windfall enjoyed by execs …

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  1. Charlie 5
    WTF?

    confidential matter between the company and its employees,

    and the shareholders perhaps

  2. James 51

    As long as the shareholders keep getting dividends they probably won't pay enough attention to see that the managers are robbing them blind.

  3. CaptainHook

    Strike

    1. Mark 65

      Two choices

      Strikes rarely achieve their intended outcomes.

      They should:

      1. Lump it, or

      2. Move on

      Striking will no doubt just ruin them rather than the greedy bastards at the top.

      1. jammy
        Paris Hilton

        Re: Two choices

        Strike=voluntary pay cut

        If you live in an abusive relationship and treated like dirt go somewhere else

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Same old story

    Didn't meet targets, eh? Remind me again who sets the targets? And what guarantees are there that the targets are realistic?

    Quite.

  5. CatoTheCat
    Terminator

    She may be dead but her spirit lives on.

    1. El_Fev

      Yep she invented greed, in the 70's it was a paradise....idiot

    2. JimC

      But actually

      I don't recall this vast escalation increase in executive greed and executive salaries starting until very many years after Thatcher's reign ended.

      And you know, as Thatcher herself said, there's no such thing as society, there are only men and women, and society or the government hasn't engineered this, the executives themselves, the individuals, scratching each others backs and sitting on each others boards have done each. Each individual shares responsibility...

      Its no good the banks and the executives saying "the government should have stopped us being greedy irresponsible bastards": it was your own duty to be moral and responsible individuals yourselves...

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    As companies fall, rewards for those at the top increase in breathtaking fashion while regular employees are slapped with pay freezes/cuts or redundancy. Most of these people are core to the business with niche and crucial skills, while pointless waste like HR and their "diversity" (read: "positive discrimination") mantra trundles on untouched.

    If I had £1 for every time I've seen scenarios similar to this I'd be able to buy them all out and still be able to buy my 17th house in Honolulu.

  7. Thomas 4

    Now be fair...

    It's very difficult to freeze salaries while ensuring the same or a greater amount of work from your employees. The small bonus just helps to offset the insurance rise when the tyres on your Bentley are repeatedly slashed by hacked off plebeians.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    There needs to be some sort of link between top earners and bottom earners especially when it comes down to pay rises. I am all for capitalism but it needs to be managed to genuinely be for the benefit of the majority.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      John Lewis Partnership used to have this (they may still do)

      Senior management pay was linked to the lowest paid employee - so they could only get a rise if the lowest paid did too. Not sure what the multiplication factor was though.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: John Lewis Partnership used to have this (they may still do)

        "Senior management pay was linked to the lowest paid employee "

        Well, highest paid director is on around £775k according to the annual report. Assuming somebody somewhere is on minimum wage for adults, that's about £12k, so if the multiple still exists it would need to be a stonking 65x. Which sounds bad, but compare that to Tesco, where the nerk that replaced Leahy is on about £7m a year, so the Tesco multiple is 580x .

        Having said that, the directors of JL don't get any special bonus scheme, just the same proportion of salary as the masses, and they don't enjoy particularly preferential contracts - no fat cat severance terms, no rolling contracts of more than a year.

    2. phuzz Silver badge
      Alert

      You could do that, and the managers would make great speeches about it, about how "we're all part of a team" (only with more words like 'proactive' in there), and at the end of the year, everyone would get the same tiny pay rise, except those same executives would also be picking up their massive bonuses, for "performance".

      1. Corinne

        As Phuzz says.......

        The senior execs won't get a pay rise as such, they'll get differently categorised bonuses, share options, pension breaks etc that aren't part of the official package for the lower ranked staff. So there could be a 0% pay rise across the whole company, with 0% "standard" bonus awarded, and the execs get their special "exec only" bonus upped & a nice chunk of share options.

        There are other ways they can improve the income without an official pay rise too e.g. rejig the company car scheme so people of grade X & above get a massive rise in car allowances, or let them have more things they can charge to expenses.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Perhaps such stories should be retitled "executives grab cash while they can" - providing a more timely heads up for employees and share holders.

  10. JimC

    Pigs in the trough...

    the whole "executive class" is out of control...almost enough to make you a bloody socialist...

  11. This post has been deleted by its author

  12. NotJustMeThen

    Did the top brass resposnsible for setting the targets receive any sanction for their inaccurate forecast?

    It is important to align targets with the remuneration of those who set the target, and those who are expected to meet that target. I wonder what would have happened if the targets had been exceeded?

    As for greed, it was allowed to go unchecked and unregulated by messrs Blair and Brown. Brown's regulatory changes paved the way for the banking crisis. Teflon Tony certainly knew when to hand over responsibility and head for the lucrative international circuit.

  13. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Unhappy

    What is that? About 10x the rate of inflation?

    Somebody pointed out that when the UK Premier league started player salaries were about 40x support salaries.

    Now it's more like 150x.

    The cult of the "superstar Board." Heads we win, tales we still win.

    But note with so many shares held by hedge funds/pension funds too many shareholders are too f**king gutless to say "No, you don't deserve this."

    1. JimC

      Re: too many shareholders are too gutless

      No, its worse than that. It means that the people administering the funds are themselves part of the executive class and have a personal interest in escalating executive salaries as part of the great money go round escalator, and it means that the people who actually depend on the income from the pension funds have no real say in what's going on. More pigs in the trough.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: too many shareholders are too gutless

        "It means that the people administering the funds are themselves part of the executive class"

        Some are, some aren't. Actively managed funds usually have overpaid arrogant puffballs running the show, and they will clean out their own investors. But the majority of shares will actually be owned by relatively passive investors (tracker funds, pension companies, insurers etc), and in those companies the fund managers won't be so well paid, though they may have salaries that you and I would be well pleased to receive.

        In both cases there's very little crossover from fund management to corporate management, so I think that there's not the back scratching that you suggest.

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    My Boss Told Me

    That due to the recent re-organisation I couldnt have a salary increase, because the people who would decide it - were no longer there........

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Welcome to the world of the 1%

    Now fuck off back to your cube you proles and make them some more money!

    1. NotJustMeThen
      Flame

      Re: Welcome to the world of the 1%

      A cube would be a vast improvement: we're in a noisy, open plan hell.

  16. The Godfather
    Meh

    Bog Standard repsonse

    Don't you just hate the typically formal sanctimonious reply given by the company... perverse that many are called human relations or marketing areas....

    Executive trough-feeding appears to be thriving..yet again.

  17. This post has been deleted by its author

  18. Electric Panda
    Mushroom

    When the meteorite hits...

    Only four things will survive: cockroaches; Keith Richards; "the Board"; and HR departments.

    Everything else is toast.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: When the meteorite hits...

      And lawyers.

      Or did you mean them when you said cockroaches?

  19. PeterM42
    IT Angle

    To All Capita employees.....

    You are all Prostitutes - ie: you get stuffed for money, but your pimps make the most out of it.

  20. This post has been deleted by its author

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    For reference there has been another pay review skip for the serfs, if you want to be rewarded for hard work and commitment find somewhere other than Capita to work for

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