I’m not rewarded for being more productive than my peers. How should I handle it?

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THE QUESTION

I work on a team of five customer service agents. We all complete the same task for the same pay. It wasn’t until a few months in that I realized that I was doing the job more efficiently than my peers. I complete 10 or more tickets per day, whereas everyone else does six or seven. So I slowed my pace to match my peers, but now my boss is asking why I haven’t been completing as many tickets as I used to. It seems unfair to me that I’m not rewarded for doing more work. There is no bonus structure, commission or incentives otherwise for me to work faster. How should I handle this situation?

THE FIRST ANSWER

Keka DasGupta, founder, Art of Life-ing and board chair, CERIC, Toronto

When you’re outperforming your peers, equal compensation can certainly feel unfair. To handle this situation, I’d ask you to consider recalibrating your mindset.

Imagine this isn’t work, but a classroom where you’re earning a 90 per cent average, until you discover the class average is only 65 per cent. Do you purposefully downgrade your work to match everyone else and make things fair?

I’m guessing your instinct says: probably not.

You’d want to keep up that momentum to ensure future opportunities surface, based on your high-performance record.

Work needn’t be any different. As you’re building a career, even unrelated, stop-gap jobs where you showcase above-average performance give you bragging rights to tangibly prove to future employers that your work ethic, internal motivation and capability are stand-out traits.

For your personal brand, what do you want to be known for in the long run? Use every job as a building block toward that vision.

Ultimately, you’re not punishing your employer by reducing your output. That protest against unfairness is punishing you personally by making you compromise your own standards.

The fairest thing you can do for yourself is to keep building experiences that serve your future, and that may mean going back to your original pace at work.

THE SECOND ANSWER

Susan Power, founder and CEO, PowerUp Leadership, Halifax

The day you started producing 10-plus tickets while everyone else did five, that number became the baseline your boss expects every day after. Pulling back to protect yourself doesn’t read as fixing an unfair setup. It reads as a performance drop, and you end up doing less work and taking the hit, still unpaid for what you were doing before.

Your instinct about fairness holds up. With no bonus tied to output, working faster hands the company your extra hours for free. But quietly slowing down doesn’t fix that. It buries the one piece of evidence that could get you paid more: proof of what you can do.

Your boss isn’t going to raise this the way you need it raised. Say it first.

When the numbers come up, don’t defend the slowdown. Name what caused it. Try, “You’re right, my numbers came down. I’d been doing more volume than the team for the same pay and I want to understand how that gets recognized here.” One sentence turns performance into value.

Ask for something specific and bring your numbers, whether that’s a raise, a title change or a team lead role. Include the exact count, the timeframe and what it would cost the company to replace that output. Managers act on a number faster than a fairness argument.

If nothing moves, keep working at your paid pace and use the time back to build your visibility and skills so your next ask comes with a stronger case.

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