When I was head of a records program in California I collected and
tracked salaries published on the records management and archives lists.
After compiling and sorting by institution type I came to an awful
realization: the salary survey hurt more than it helped.  Noting this, I
persuaded my HR and boss NOT use any salary survey they could find
relating to RIM/Archives.

I did this because I knew it would justify a 30-40k stand for them, when
I was seeking more than twice that (California cost of living!).

I did a lot of research and took a few tacks:

I asked that they look at IT salaries and management salaries. I wasn't
in IT, but I was working a lot with them and advising their directors on
best practices.  Additionally, I was a manager of people and as such I
wanted to be compared to other managers in my workplace, and not to
other _record_ managers elsewhere.

I took my salary and ran it through the cost of living calculator at
http://www.homefair.com/homefair/calc/salcalc.html and illustrated the
fact that while I was near the top of the _records manager_ category of
HR's data (they couldn't tell me where they got their data!) I was
making fewer adjusted dollars than an Arkansas entry level archivist. (I
was a records manager for a 3000 employee college campus).

I worked for a public institution and as such salaries are public
information. As you all can guess, the person fixing my pc made nearly
40% more and I made a great effort to illustrate that fact with my HR.

I worked hard to show myself as a compliance officer.  I used Peter K's
rain articles to illustrate the cost of non-compliance - I would forward
relevant articles to my boss as an FYI and note how I was working to
mitigate the risk. It helped that federal and state regulations, such as
USA PATRIOT, HIPAA and the amendments to the California Information
Practices Act (SB 1386) came on-line or received significant visibility
during my tenure.

To a certain extent I was lucky in that my boss was very sympathetic to
my cause. She went to bat for me and was able to secure a better salary
(it was her budget, and it was under duress, after all). However, I did
have to agree to take on more duties that at the time appeared outside
of RIM.

In the end I did get a significant raise, but not nearly enough to
afford coastal California.

That said, I learned a lot about HR and salary data and how HR's base
their pay on other institutions.  If the entire "industry" is paid
poorly it will take a lot of your time, understanding of your boss and
an open-minded HR to work outside of the data; but you have to get them
outside of that data.


- Chuck Piotrowski

-----Original Message-----
From: Records Management Program [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
Behalf Of John Annunziello
Sent: Thursday, May 12, 2005 1:00 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Records Management Salary Survey

"From what I have seen and remember of the Anaheim and Los Angeles RIM
manager jobs postings in the past couple of years, they are underpaid by
about 60%, in my opinion.  Again, this is taking into consideration the
high cost of living in that area."

I have to agree with Steven on this one.  Last week I returned from a
wedding in Southern California (Orange County) and was astonished at the
high price of living.  Food was twice the cost, gas was cheaper (high
CAN.
gas taxes) and average home prices of 563K.  You and your staff are all
underpaid for your area.  I used to have the same problem here until we
continually promoted records and their inportance to the organization.
Little by little, our salaries have continued to climb.  Sometimes its
just a matter of being a "sqweeky wheel".  We also brought in an EDRMS
which has helped us to manage info (and not just records) within the
organization.

Our salary structure is similar to yours but our cost of living is
substantially less.


John Annunziello
Records Information Specialist
Toronto and Region Conservation Authority
5 Shoreham Drive
Downsview, Ontario M3N 1S4
(416) 661-6600 ext. 5272
fax:  (416) 661-6898
[log in to unmask]

"Live life to the fullest, enjoy the little things everyday"

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