Today T-Mobile announced that they will be raising their minimum wage to $20 per hour across the entire company. However, there’s a catch for some employees.
The news was shared today on the T-Mobile newsroom, and the post implies that all employees will have a base pay of $20 an hour. However, according to the internal email we received here at The T-Mo Report, quoted below, that $20 is actually the minimum take-home pay. This means that employees who already make the equivalent of $20 per hour after commissions and “spiffs” (a small bonus for selling a certain service or item) will not see much of a change.
Team – I have two pieces of exciting news to share. Let me get right to the news: First, and effective December 26th, we are increasing our universal hourly rates by $0.50 per hour for the Mobile Expert position across all markets. Normally, we would communicate compensation increases in January, but for our Mobile Experts who serve our customers face-to-face day in and day out, I wanted to communicate this news right away. All other employees throughout the Company will be eligible to participate in our upcoming annual compensation review. That process kicks off next month. In addition to the hourly wage increase for Mobile Experts, we are announcing that we will be paying ALL T-Mobile employees a minimum of $20/hour effective December 1st. While some employees, including Mobile Experts, have a base hourly rate under $20/hour, all employees have a total target compensation (including incentives) of at least $20/hour. This news means that if any employee’s total earnings (combined base pay and incentives) is less than $20/hour for any given month, we will supplement those earnings to ensure they total $20/hour. Most of our Mobile Experts perform well above $20/hour in total earnings (base pay and incentives) with a significant number of frontline employees routinely earning over $30/hour, but for any person who happens to be under $20/hour in any period of time, again, we will supplement earnings to $20/hour. I’m sure you may have some questions particularly process-related, but hang tight because your leaders are going to host a call early next week to provide you an opportunity to have all your questions answered, including any and all specific scenarios. In addition, a HUB article outlining all of these details, including FAQs, will be published later today. Our future has never been brighter at T-Mobile with multi-year growth areas that our competitors simply don’t have. Our mission is to be the best in the world at connecting customers to their world. And when we’re at our very best, with the nation’s most talented group of people, we will achieve our vision of becoming #1 in customer choice and #1 in customers’ hearts as America’s most loved brand. These investments are to say thank you to an incredible group of people that I simply adore. You have inspired us as you’ve physically worked in our stores to serve our customers every single day with the excellence that they deserve. From me to you, thank you and Happy Holidays to each of you and your families. Jon Freier President, T-Mobile Consumer Group
The internal email does, however, state that Mobile Experts will get a 50 cent hourly increase in their base pay. Those base pays vary depending on tenure and location, but all Mobile Experts will see the 50 cent increase regardless of their current rate. Perhaps this will help ease the pain of extra work caused by walk-in customers who have ordered online.
Also mentioned is an upcoming annual compensation review taking place in January. Employees who are not Mobile Experts will be able to participate in that process.
Some employees, however, aren’t happy. One user on Reddit, who appears to at least be a store manager, complains that the rate increase isn’t enough. They state that the roughly 3.5% raise doesn’t come close to matching the rate of inflation for this year, and that competitors AT&T and Verizon have higher pay. The user also complained that T-Mobile did not share this information with employees early enough, sending the email mere hours before publicly sharing the news online. This didn’t give them enough time to discuss the pay changes with employees.
Whether a Mobile Expert or not, having a minimum take-home rate of $20/hr is pretty good, but it isn’t great compared to similar jobs. With all the businesses struggling to find workers due to low pay lately, T-Mobile is signaling that they are ready and willing to pay a fair wage.
According to the email, the changes are effective as of December 1st.
