Want more money than you’re currently making? If your goal is to stay in your current job, working for your present employer, you’ll need to ask for a pay raise. Planning and preparation are key when you ask for a raise. So are timing, your employer’s pay practices, and the market-based pay rates for your job.
Steps in Asking for a Pay Raise – Research an Appropriate Pay Raise
Your goal at this step in asking for a pay raise is to know your employer’s pay practices and the market pay rate for your job.
-Familiarize yourself with your employer’s pay practices. If the standard practice is to offer salary increases once a year after an annual review, you are unlikely to receive a raise at any other time.
If your company offers more frequent increases, you’ll have more luck asking for a pay raise. Listen to your employer. If the employer announces that the pay raises will be four percent across the board, you are unlikely to negotiate more money.
Research the market pay rates for your job. Getting information has never been easier, although you’ll want to take care with online projections and salary calculators. They rarely reflect your local market conditions including the number of open positions in your area. If you are already paid above your market pay rate, negotiating a pay raise can be difficult. Read your employee handbook. The handbook may present the process whereby pay raises are granted. If a policy or a process exists, your best bet when asking for a pay raise, is to follow the process exactly. Network with other employees in similar jobs in similar industries to determine your salary competitiveness. Professional associations also do salary surveys and provide networking opportunities with people in similar jobs.
Prepare Your Presentation for the “Ask for a Pay Raise” Meeting
Once you’ve done your pay research in the above steps, you should have a good idea about how competitive your pay is in your industry.
Next, you need to look at your work contributions to determine how you will present the request for a pay raise to your boss.
Or perhaps you’ve determined that your pay is competitive. Ask yourself why you deserve a pay raise because you will need good data to support your request for a pay raise. Determine whether the topic of the meeting you schedule is to ask for a pay raise.
Maybe it’s smarter to ask your boss what you need to do to qualify for the highest possible pay raises and bonuses in the future if you cannot justify a higher salary now.
Make a list of the goals you have accomplished for the company. Determine how their accomplishment has helped the company.
Document costs savings, productivity improvement, superior staff development, important projects achieved, above-the-call customer service, and ways in which you have contributed more than your job required. Documented, these accomplishments may justify a pay increase.Make a list of any additional responsibilities you have added to your job. An increase in responsibility, more employees supervised, or special projects are often grounds for an increase if you ask.Set a pay increase goal, in your mind, that appears to reward the contributions and additional responsibilities you have documented.Learn about negotiation from books, resources, networking, and friends who have successfully negotiated a pay raise.Set up a meeting with your immediate supervisor to discuss your compensation. You will not want to ambush your supervisor. If the supervisor is unprepared to discuss an increase with you, nothing will happen at the meeting. Your boss will also want to do his research with the Human Resources staff and his own industry sources.
Above all,a successful negotiation for a pay raise is always based on your merit and accomplishments. A successful negotiation is never based on why you need additional money. Keep this in mind.While your employer may care about you, providing additional money to fund your chosen lifestyle is not their responsibility.
Be straightforward in addressing your request for a raise to your supervisor. Tell the supervisor you are asking for the raise at this time because of the accomplishments and contributions you have made, and the additional responsibilities you have taken on. Be prepared with your documentation.Tell your boss the specific pay raise you’d like to see. Be prepared to present your research that supports your request.If the boss tells you he cannot provide a pay raise currently, ask what you need to do to make yourself eligible as soon as raises are available. Remember that a difference exists between an employee who is performing the job as expected from a superior performer and an employee who is truly giving the employer superior performance.
Pay raises are based on the second.If you are using an offer from another employer to negotiate a pay raise with your current employer, be prepared to fail. Plus, in your negotiation, the employer learns that you’re looking and career development, training, plum assignments, and other opportunities may cease to come your way.
This can occur even if you receive the requested pay raise. The employer hates to be held hostage – and the employer will remember. It’s a vicious cycle, once begun. Likewise, threatening to quit if you don’t receive a pay raise is counterproductive and unprofessional. Plus, the employer may take you up on your offer. Instead, quietly and professionally go about your job search, if you have determined a pay raise merits changing employers.
Requesting a raise, even when you have planned and prepared, can still be somewhat scary.
Asking for one without planning and preparation is a waste of time. Your boss isn’t going to want to have that pay raise conversation with you again unless something changes at work.
Requesting a pay raise gets easier as you learn to plan and prepare. A successful negotiation or two helps, too. You build your confidence that asking for a raise is a task you can do. And, you increase the possibility that you will achieve your maximum income potential in your chosen field.
