Episode 148
Raises for Some, Rage for Others
Ever told your team it’s been a great year — only to leave some employees wondering why they’re not getting a raise? We break down how that misstep can crush morale and what leaders can do to fix it.
We break down a real-world scenario where leaders gave hourly employees a raise but blindsided their salaried team with nothing but an email. The result? Chaos, frustration, and a whole lot of unanswered questions.
If you’ve ever struggled to navigate compensation talks, this episode is packed with practical advice. We cover the importance of clear communication, why transparency matters (especially when things get uncomfortable), and how to rebuild trust if you’ve already dropped the ball.
Whether you’re managing a team or running the whole show, these insights will help you handle tough pay conversations without losing your employees’ trust — or your sanity.
Highlights:
- Why skipping communication can turn a good year into a disaster
- The importance of preparing managers before sharing big decisions
- How to avoid damaging trust when raises aren’t an option
- Why clear role expectations can prevent pay confusion in the first place
- Tips for having tough conversations without hiding behind emails
If this episode hit home, be sure to subscribe, rate, and review the show on Apple Podcasts. And if you know another leader dealing with tough conversations, pass this one along!
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Transcript
Hey everybody, welcome back to this episode of Blue Collar BS. I am your co-host Brad along with... Yes, we are. We are both back with another episode of Blue Collar BS. We are happy to have you along on our journey. Mr. Doyle, he has... As you'll hear later in the year on a self-admitted episode of how much he does for the show, which I really do appreciate all that you do do.
Steve Doyle (:Steve!
Steve Doyle (:when I do do.
Brad Herda (:Yeah, when you do do, has brought another topic for us today to discuss one that is very interesting and potentially timely as we are, you know, into cute beginning of Q2 kind of laid the groundwork for what's going to happen for the year raises, et cetera. People are pissed or not pissed. Mr. Doyle introduced the topic that we're going to go through today.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Steve Doyle (:All right, so you're an executive of a business. You've made
Brad Herda (:We'll call it a manufacturing company of some sort. We'll say they've got 75 employees.
Steve Doyle (:sure of some sort doesn't doesn't really matter
Steve Doyle (:Sure, doesn't matter, right? But you're on the executive team. You've touted that it's been a stellar year for your company. You've broken records. Everything is great. And it is now Merit time, annual review time, Merit time. And you, as the executive team, you look at and you're like, hey,
We need to do merits. We're going to do merits for our non-SaleRead workforce. But we have made the decision that our SaleRead workforce, need to put a pause on sending merits out for our SaleRead workforce.
So we have been talking for the last several times that Brad and I have gotten together about employee engagement and morale, more or less. So this conscious decision comes out of, we are going to do merit increases for group A, but we're not going to do merit increases for group B. So Brad, that's the scenario.
Brad Herda (:Of course, I'm not serious.
Brad Herda (:So I have lots of questions potentially here. So group A, the non-salary, so that would be hourly workers and direct labor, I assume, yes?
Steve Doyle (:Yep.
Steve Doyle (:Correct.
Brad Herda (:And for the salaried employees, two things come to mind immediately. One, over last two years, there are inflationary, keep up with inflationary type raises that took place along the way that may have created opportunity for, yeah, we're a little bit out of control here potentially for where we want to be in our market share. Or not would be a question that I would have for those
Steve Doyle (:Hmm.
Steve Doyle (:Good question.
Brad Herda (:organizations because if, let's just say the last three years, was seven, seven, nine for increases. That's heavily accelerated. If they were, if they were having great years and doing all those things and being good stewards to their employees. I know I have clients that have done that. It's like inflation was going up. They were having good years. They, they gave out big raises to go alongside with that to not piss people off.
Steve Doyle (:Thank
Steve Doyle (:I mean, let's answer that question very bluntly. No.
Brad Herda (:Okay.
Steve Doyle (:Okay, get the point and that point is very valid. That did not happen at all.
Brad Herda (:Okay, I was just, you know, just asking a question.
Steve Doyle (:In this scenario, this scenario we're placating on, that scenario did not happen.
Brad Herda (:Okay, then shame on them. So how was this information conveyed, communicated, taken out? Was there a town hall meeting where, the leader of the organization is gonna get everybody in front and this is what's going on and here's the structure and this is what we're thinking, you by the way, this big deal that's coming through or did we have a major quality problem that we're waiting for? Was there a litigation something that we got?
Stockpile some cash for just in case. mean, lots of things could be communicated appropriately.
Steve Doyle (:Mm hmm. Lots of things could be communicated, Brad. But let's back up. Let's talk hypothetical before we get into what really happened. Why would we want to have such a meeting? What purpose would having such a meeting do with the workforce?
Brad Herda (:It creates that transparency. It creates trust it creates Opportunity for communication back and forth it creates Q &A And every organization's got the two or three people that will always try to get the I got you so card to their leaders Okay, fine. So you take those questions and you dance around them like a politician but there's gonna be the other 90 % of the
Steve Doyle (:home.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Steve Doyle (:Thank
Brad Herda (:crowd's gonna ask legitimate questions. Hey, what about, what about, what about? And you get those answered in front of everybody, so everybody hears the same message at the same time, same words.
Steve Doyle (:So that what you're really saying, Brad, is companies that operate with a transparency model of communicating whether good during good times and in not so good times have a greater probability of maintaining trust. Is that what you were saying?
Brad Herda (:Well, based on your skeptical look on your face.
Steve Doyle (:Is that what you're saying, Brad?
Brad Herda (:I am saying that if you have leaders that, so first of all, your team needs to trust your leaders. If they don't trust your leaders, it doesn't matter what you do in front of the audience or not, right? So are you creating the vulnerability of what's going on there? you the information, sharing the information appropriately, or are we saying, hey, good on you, so sorry, you're in the middle.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Brad Herda (:All those on the bottom get rewarded all those on the top get rewarded new in the middle not so much
Steve Doyle (:Right.
Brad Herda (:And people see through that, employees see through that. And unless they want to, and this could be a strategy play from their standpoint that they have too many people employed, too many things. So they're going to let those that want to self-select, self-select, and they can reduce their burden costs by X percent and not have to worry about sending anything to the state for layoffs or whatever. It could be a strategy play. I don't know.
Steve Doyle (:Mmm.
Steve Doyle (:Correct.
Steve Doyle (:It could be. It could be. And all of that is unknown. But the big, the big question, the big thing here is when you are being more transparent about what is going on, whether during good times and in bad, it leads to more higher engagement and trust.
Brad Herda (:David Lebowski.
Brad Herda (:Well, the incongruency is the problem here, right? You can't go along all year saying awesome, awesome, awesome, awesome, awesome. And then here we are giving everybody their fours and fives through reviews because, know, we can't have any feel bad. So everybody's a four and five, even though reality is right. Cause we feel bad a lot about this. So we're going to artificially high performance reviews.
Steve Doyle (:Correct.
Steve Doyle (:In reality, half the team is ones.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Brad Herda (:And then say, by the way, we're not going to give up merit because we had such great years without any communication or information. I mean, that's a.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Brad Herda (:I'd watch your tires in your parking lot depending on what kind of organization you got.
Steve Doyle (:Wow, going going right after it, huh? Yep.
Brad Herda (:Well, I'm serious. if it's, I don't know that I would, you now you gave the direct laborers their money. So there's probably less, there's probably maybe a less tendency for something like that to happen because there's more controls potentially and watching those individuals come and go from the office area than the shop floor in many cases.
Steve Doyle (:Wait, well time out. What are we saying there, Brad? Different show. Never mind, different show.
Brad Herda (:Right. What I'm saying there is that the security cameras tend to be in different locations for the office than they are for the floor.
Steve Doyle (:Mm hmm. Yep. Absolutely. Absolutely. Great.
Brad Herda (:That's all I was saying, that there's greater opportunity for floor guys to go do things than maybe the office folks could do because when people are coming and going from the office, everybody's paying attention. Nobody paying attention in the shop floor. That's all I'm saying.
Steve Doyle (:Yep. Yep. So hypothetically, since I haven't haven't given like a clear answer on this hypothetically, hypothetically, let's say in this type of organization, how it was rolled out and communicated was done via email, mass email. So everybody got the message at the same time.
Brad Herda (:Really?
Brad Herda (:I'm really good.
Do you remember the commercial where the guy that hit the virus button and got all the dancing heads on their screens once all over the place and his head started popping up about who hit what, did what, where? I mean, I that's what the office environment was like when that email was gotten and read, is that all of a sudden, everyone's like, you've gotta be fucking kidding me. What the hell? And all the cubes marched out into, know, here's our
Steve Doyle (:Uh-huh.
Steve Doyle (:Yep.
Brad Herda (:pitchforks and torches ready to go.
Steve Doyle (:I'm out.
I mean, hypothetically, that could have happened. Hypothetically. I mean, I don't know. I mean, this is a scenario we're making up, right? Hypothetically. Wink. And hypothetically, ironically enough, even managers of employees didn't know this was coming down. Higher up managers didn't know this was happening.
Brad Herda (:Hypothetically.
Brad Herda (:Right.
Steve Doyle (:So they received at the same point of all level of cell read workforce received the same communication.
Brad Herda (:At the same time without notice or understanding. So, so you're, I'll just call it, depending on your organization structure, we'll call it the C level organization structure. Made a decision, it, kept, it a secret. Didn't roll it out to those that are leading the, so, so they're the leaders of leaders. Didn't roll it out to their leaders. So when it went to their team members, the, the individual contributors.
Steve Doyle (:Yep, you're.
Steve Doyle (:Yep.
Brad Herda (:they'd at least have a sniff and a whiff and a no and an ability to have meaningful conversation with their employees. Yeah, that's just a fucking shit show waiting. That's gonna be knock, knock, knock, now serving door number 16. It's gonna be like going to the deli sandwich. Just get in line, folks. Just get in line and pull that CEO's door and go knock.
Steve Doyle (:Yes. Instead.
Steve Doyle (:Yeah.
Steve Doyle (:Yeah. Well, yeah. And guess what? Theoretically, what what do you think as an executive? What do you think can transpire from?
Brad Herda (:Was it done on a Friday? Was it done on a Friday?
Steve Doyle (:Nope. no, God no. Why would you do it on a Friday? Why? Hypothetically, this was done on a Tuesday.
Brad Herda (:Tuesday. Well, because Tuesday, because it was done on a Friday, you'd leave in the afternoon so that nobody could get a hold of you.
Steve Doyle (:Well, you know, I mean, there are reasons why you do things like that on a Friday afternoon. But let's let's do this.
Brad Herda (:Right. We're recording this show. We do it on Friday, and nobody can get a hold of us.
Steve Doyle (:Right. There's reasons why, but hypothetically, let's just say we pick a random day, like a Tuesday. Let's do it on a Tuesday. Let's do it first thing in the morning.
And let's just say
Brad Herda (:I'm guess productivity is way low on Tuesday. I'm gonna guess there was nothing getting done anywhere on Tuesday.
Steve Doyle (:I mean, hypothetically, nothing was getting done because now you have employees going into their manager's office all at the same time going, the fuck is going on? Now you have managers going to their manager's offices going, what the fuck is going on? You have those managers going to the manager's offices or maybe even executive offices going, what in the hell just happened here? All I'm doing is having conversations. And guess what? As each day goes by,
and there is no conversation with the employees.
Brad Herda (:How many sick calls were there on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday?
Steve Doyle (:I wouldn't say there were any sick calls. I would say that there was a lot of I'm now leaving. After right after I am no longer leaving, I'm no longer staying late.
Brad Herda (:We're now doing eight to four and literally eight to four, not seven to five or six.
Steve Doyle (:Correct. There is no longer any, there is, the trust is gone.
Brad Herda (:There's no extra effort being provided by any of the salaried staff whatsoever.
Steve Doyle (:there I let's hypothetically say no, because I I'm not that close to the situation that says yes, this is exactly what happened. But let's just hypothesize from. Morale perspective, what's going on?
Brad Herda (:Company is fucked.
Steve Doyle (:Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Yeah, because and then and every day so just hypothetically every day that goes by when there is not a face to face meeting with the key decision makers to the employees doesn't need to be one on one. But every moment that goes by that there is not a face to face to feel heard.
Brad Herda (:Wow, this is...
Steve Doyle (:to give some form of explanation of what's going on. Regardless of what do you smell?
Brad Herda (:You know what I smell, I smell opportunity for professional business coaching, Inc.
Steve Doyle (:I sm- Well, Opportunity Brad is everywhere.
Brad Herda (:That's what I smell I smell an opportunity for you to go do some knock-in on some doors say what are you guys fucking doing? Let me let me help you with this I Know but it's your hypothetical which means I can make you hypothetically opportunistic here
Steve Doyle (:This is a hypothetical. This is a hypothetical. It is my hypothetical. Yes, I'm very opportunistic. So ironically enough.
Brad Herda (:Sounds like they need some executive help because this was whoever is providing them the advice or guidance on this is fucking wack with the head.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm. So now we're on, let's just, it went out on Tuesday. So we're now at Friday, at the beginning of the morning with no communication from the C-suite as to what's going on.
Brad Herda (:They're not in the lunchroom, they're not walking the floors, they're they are they are bunkered and hunkered into their offices, not doing anything. 100 % avoidance is my take on what they're doing.
Steve Doyle (:Nope.
So, so.
What what do you think they could potentially even do to help start? Smoothing things over.
Brad Herda (:have the all employee meeting like, hey, you guys are pissed. We get it. have, we'll meet in the conference room or in the library or the lobby or, you know, go to a, wherever their town hall meetings are, go to the nearest bank that has a big ass conference room or whatever. a bottle of water, do something, you know, maybe go get them some swag on top of it with a company branded logo.
Steve Doyle (:Are there.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Throwing a fucking pizza to throw in a fucking pizza that'll make the day Everything over You know because you know, that's what they're gonna get instead of their merit that's gonna that's really gonna smooth it over let me tell you That's gonna make them not want to pick up the phone and talk to a recruiter
Brad Herda (:We'll get you some pizza and a swag bag and a bottle of water and we'll call it good.
Brad Herda (:Thanks.
Steve Doyle (:What do you, what brand do you think could make it worse? What would make the situation even worse?
Brad Herda (:could make it worse?
Brad Herda (:Oh man, oh wow.
Brad Herda (:I well so so they've hunkered down all week is Is what I'm right so it's now Friday if it was Tuesday Friday They've not roamed the halls. They've not done anything. There's been no communication. No nothing What could make it worse If I'm go down my disk profile behaviors These are all pissed off doesn't matter. I think they don't have any friends left in the organization S's are scared shitless, but I'm gonna tell anybody
Steve Doyle (:Sure. Sure.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Brad Herda (:And the C's are trying to calculate how much money all the executives are pocketing for themselves by not giving it the C's. So we got all that going on.
Steve Doyle (:yes.
yes. Sure. All of that's going on, but that's alright. That's because now they have time to do it because they are purely working their 8 to 4.
Brad Herda (:Thanks.
Right, and they're only going to work on the things that are in front of them. They're not going to go ask for any additional support or help. So what could make it worse from the executive standpoint?
Steve Doyle (:you got that right. Hypothetically, sure.
Steve Doyle (:No, what would make it worse from the employee standpoint?
Brad Herda (:I the executive showing it with new cars.
Steve Doyle (:There's that.
There is that. Now.
What if you were advised, if you were the executive and you were advised, you know what, we're not gonna have a face-to-face meeting. I just want you guys just to go send emails to your team and tell them how much they're appreciated.
Brad Herda (:Those are the things that get printed and framed and become memes across an organization. And the next thing you know, it's sitting on somebody's desk when that president walks by and they're like, what the fuck is this? And they got to take that serious look in themselves and go, yeah, we created that.
Steve Doyle (:you
Steve Doyle (:you
Steve Doyle (:huh, right.
Brad Herda (:But most the time they don't and they get pissed at the employee for doing the thing, even though they had nothing to do with it. They truly are the victim of the situation, not the creator of the situation. Yes, I recall our engineering team back in the day when we had some of those types of things where shortly after we went public and the board of directors and the contract signings and all the other things for our executive teams and...
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. So what.
you
Brad Herda (:all the 10k reports out on the SEC filings and watching everybody get their money. that's the deal they signed. Why are we so pissed off about it? We should go do our shit better so we don't have to be jealous of what they're getting because we didn't do our job better.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Steve Doyle (:Yeah, now I was fortunate to be in part of an organization where even during a downtime, we had quarterly town halls and they were great. You got the information, whether or not we chose to believe the quote unquote rhetoric at the time, or if you actually genuinely were in the know and like, no, this is actually legit. And they're trying to be they're trying to be genuine and transparent.
I still remember the one town hall we had where we were very transparent. It was very transparent to us from our executives down to the employees and the management staff and the leadership teams. Hey, we are on some tough times. We are going to be in a layoff period. And it was clear that it was said the order of magnitude was never communicated, but it was clear that, something was going on.
And I will never forget the day when it happened and it wasn't one or two. was hundreds and it was all done one to one. It wasn't, it was never mass. It was done one to one. And that day you didn't know it was going to be that day until that day, that day came and just, and it was all done in one day.
Brad Herda (:Yep, the escorts were there and people followed where I did all the things. Here it is, it's in and out. 2009, was one of the worst days, that was one of the worst leadership days of my life. Was having to do that.
Steve Doyle (:and yep but then
Steve Doyle (:But I would say it was great. was. There's a lot of things we could say done right, done wrong. But one thing that the company in my eyes did right is they were transparent and letting people know where things stood. And that decisions had to be made. And after that, then, you know, you could have said a million different things of, hey, we could have done this this way, that way.
But circling back to like this instance where no communication happened. Well. yeah, bullshit. And that's it. But that's the thing is when I say bullshit, that's exactly what the employees are feeling. You don't fucking care. You're just money grubbing assholes. And now you're showing your true colors that you don't give a shit.
Brad Herda (:No, no, you got communication. You're doing a great job. We appreciate you, Steve.
Steve Doyle (:Why should I?
Brad Herda (:Well, because you're letting everybody tell their own stories. And so for all the leaders out there, whether you have one employee or thousands of employees, when you allow your team members to tell their own stories, to answer questions that have never been asked of you from your own voice, it is never going to end well for either side because it is always on your side of it as the leader.
Steve Doyle (:Correct.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Steve Doyle (:Correct.
Brad Herda (:you're going to say everything's all hunky-dory and rainbows and lollipops and you think everything is woohoo. Employee is going to have it brimstone and fire and all the sky is falling. The truth is it's always somewhere in between those things, but you want to have the conversation and communication to let that, to make that awareness happen.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Steve Doyle (:Yep.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm
Steve Doyle (:Yes. So yeah, there's the whole human aspect is what's missing in this scenario of just having a conversation with the people.
Brad Herda (:So to summarize, we have an organization that has for 10 to 12 months saying, hey, it's a great year, it's a great year, it's a great year, things are good, things are good, things are good. We give direct labor employees their bump in opportunity. We then send an email, line-siding your high-level and mid-tier managers.
Steve Doyle (:Yep.
Brad Herda (:because there's no communication and then all your employees receive all the information so we get to play whack-a-mole on Tuesday when the email shows up, hey guys, thanks for all your effort but you're getting nothing and good luck. Cool. And then we're gonna wait until Friday and send you out, guys, we really do appreciate you email along the way on Friday. my God.
Steve Doyle (:Yep.
Steve Doyle (:Essentially.
Steve Doyle (:Mm hmm. Yeah, as you go into the weekend, now people that just it made people more livid.
Brad Herda (:I can't even imagine those executives walking that floor to go ask somebody a question at an individual contributor level. You think you had a silo problem before? you had one, oh my God, you have just created the Berlin wall all over again between us versus them across all the levels because now your mid-tier managers are on, they're,
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Brad Herda (:you've alienated them as well because you didn't trust them with the information.
Steve Doyle (:Yes.
Mm-hmm. Yep.
Brad Herda (:And now they're sitting here, what the, okay, I thought I was trusted. I thought I could trust you with what was going on and now you've made my life hell and now I got, my God.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Steve Doyle (:Right. So, know, and in, in retrospect, obviously we can, you know, the time, the timing of this recording, we're in mid March. We know from the political, the political spectrum that's going on right now, we see some of the, you know, the more conservative side just, you know, toting that, Hey, let's send out an email. And it's, that's the new way we're going to do things. What it does, that right or wrong, what it does is it sends a message.
that you don't matter to your employees from your executive team. And again, if you're focused on just grounding and pounding and putting money into the business and putting money into the bank, okay, just know that has consequences and there are repercussions for doing it. We're not saying you need to go around and pat everybody on the ass and tell them they're doing a great job and everybody gets a fucking award.
Brad Herda (:Well, that would get you into different kind of trouble. That's going to get you different HR problems. That's going to cost you lot of money.
Steve Doyle (:Well, yeah. Well, yeah. Yeah, that's going to cut. But it's the you don't need to go around telling everybody they're a superstar. There's a balance.
Brad Herda (:But we did that because we all gave him fours and fives because we didn't give him the right review to begin with.
Steve Doyle (:Yep. There's a balance. What we're saying is that human connection, that one to one, not necessarily one to one, but in person, have them see you, have them hear what you're saying, provide the opportunity to ask questions. Because anytime that you go around and throw a mandate out, that's very impersonal. You're allowing everyone else to fill in that story.
create deeper animosity and disengagement in your business. And now not only are you suffering from lack of teamwork, lack of morale, you're suffering from low productivity. And that is going to cost you way more money than if you would have just given them their damn merits to begin with.
Brad Herda (:Correct.
Brad Herda (:Right. It's going to cost you lot more than 2%. Even if it was 2 % instead of the three or five or whatever they're accustomed to, you would have been far better off and it would have far, far greater pain, less pain for sure in that space. And for those leaders that might be young or old and haven't maybe listened or done anything to help themselves, go get the book or listen to the book, Crucial Conversations, to help facilitate those types of things. Cause you may not like it.
Steve Doyle (:Whatever.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Steve Doyle (:Yes.
Brad Herda (:But your job as the leader is to have that conversation and do it. And you're going to be as uncomfortable as shit to do it. but you got to get over it. You need to have the conversation in person with your people, with your team members, and you just can't pass the buck down to the next level. because that's not fair to them for decisions that you are making. Because now you're going to allow them to posture, Hey, Sally Smith.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Steve Doyle (:Correct.
Brad Herda (:It's not me, it's my boss that's doing that. So now I'm creating animosity across all levels of the organization versus just hearing it straight from the horse's mouth that this is what's going to happen.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm. Yep, absolutely.
Brad Herda (:So, all right, well, have a great weekend with that hypothetical, Steve.
Steve Doyle (:Yeah, no problem. It'll be yeah, I mean, it'll just be another weekend. So we're good because it is hypothetical. So it's easy for me. All right. Have a good one, You too.
Brad Herda (:Awesome. Correct. Alright, sir. Have a great weekend. Thanks.
