$$$ KPO and CZM $$$: >100% "Return" on Salary

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Thursday, February 6, 2020

>100% "Return" on Salary

We are now in Cusco, Peru and will be visiting another Wonders of the World (Machu Picchu) tomorrow. We have already visited Chichen Itza in Mexico and you can read CZM's post here - RTW to Mexico - Chichen Itza.

CZM and I were given our annual compensation/new salary and bonus recently. It was a mixture of happy and sad news. CZM only had a 2.15% increment and no bonus! That's definitely worse than the 0.1 month bonus the civil servants are getting! As for myself, I was one of the top performers and got promoted this year with a 37.05% increment and 2.25 months bonus.

An increase in salary and promotion is all good but the unfortunate part was I also got moved to a newly created team as part of the organization change. What is so unfortunate? One of my favourite parts about my previous job was that I had to work in shift including weekends. I was working 4 days a week (3 weekdays + 1 weekend) regardless if there's any PH. On the other hand, my new role/team requires me to work on normal office hours (5 days, Mon - Fri). This actually translates to a 25% increase in my working days! Hence, I would argue that my effective increment is just 12.05%. In addition, my manager has also changed which means I would have to rebuild the trust and rapport. Oh well, life goes on...


With that, both our salaries have increased by >100% since we first started to work a few years ago. 124% increment for myself since 2015 and 163% increment for CZM since 2013. These increments are achieved from either changing company or getting a promotion. The percentages are meaningless without an actual number but the whole point is your salary increment isn't going to be linear and you should work hard to increase it especially at the start of your career when you still have the energy and time. The Woke Salaryman recently published this article which is pretty timely too - The Single Mistake Everyone Makes In Their 20s Trying To Build Wealth. Focus on the big win, increasing your salary if you are young. Seedly has this pretty comprehensive salary guide - The Ultimate Salary Guide For Singaporeans. For those that are below median income, do take some action to get yourself above it.

Salary Spreadsheet
I have a spreadsheet to project our salary increment and track the actual increment. Based on our starting salary and an assumption yearly increment of 5% (I thought this is conservative but CZM thinks otherwise), it would have taken me 17 years and CZM 20 years to reach our current salary.


Ministry of Manpower (MOM) published a summary table on Singapore Median Gross Monthly Income From Work (Including Employer CPF Contributions) of Full-Time Employed Residents. For the year 2019, it is at $4,563 including the employer CPF or $3,802.50 without employer CPF.

I will be using the 2016 median income ($4,056) as an example in the spreadsheet (because it was created then and I am lazy to change the numbers), excluding the employer CPF portion ($3,467) because who does that! Imagine people negotiating with HR for a higher salary with X% increment based on their current salary including the previous employer CPF contribution. lol.



The cells highlighted in yellow are for you to input manually, everything else is formula linked. The spreadsheet projects your yearly salary based on an assumption of 5% increment. The "Salary Projection" projects based on your first drawn annual salary while the "Revised Projection" projects based on the latest "Actual Salary" specified by you. As you can see, it would have taken this imaginary person 6 years (31-25) to reach his current salary (27-25).

You can get the google spreadsheet here - $$$ Salary Projection $$$

All the best to our readers! Hope you get a nice increment too!

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