So what do you consider to be a decent increase?

[msrobbie]

Welcome, Colleen - - glad to have you!!



Yes, I agree that these 3%-5% amounts may not seem like much, but when it's an "across the board" percentage basis that your company uses to compute salary increases, that's the way it works.  



Here we go again . . . life is not fair, but I think most of that learned that in grade school, right?  We can hope for better and work towards that end.



Again, WELCOME!



Robbie

[countrigal]

One thing about working for the government is that you don't get raises of any sort with your evaluations.  And they also went to the "Does not Meet/ Meets/ Exceeds Expectation" rating but instead of everyone getting a "meets", the standard is Exceeds.  So my hours and hours of extra work, long hours, etc doesn't look any different on paper than those who come in and does their tour and goes home.  That's disheartening.  But I don't complain about not getting raises then because we get "step promotions" based on how long we've been at a specific grade.  These are annually when you are a Step 1, 2, 3, etc, but after Step 6 (I believe, but don't know since I've never made it there) they come every 2 years, then 5 years or something like that.  But then you know what you're raise will be in advance.  And in between you can apply and hopefully get a promotion.  The only raise that is across the board somewhat, is the raise that Congress approves for all the fed government annually.  This year it was ~3.5%.



The more I read postings like this stating the raises in the "outside world", the more I'm thankful I'm working for the government, even with all of it's problems.