Everyone is entitled to a pay rise at some point, whether you’ve met pre-arranged career milestones, consistently gone above and beyond taking on new responsibilities, or your salary needs to catch up with the times. Despite this, many of us feel apprehensive to ask our employer for a pay rise. This can be because we feel it would reflect badly on us, or we’re afraid our request will be rejected.
Here are a few steps you can take to shake the nerves and get the most out of asking for your pay rise!
Eligibility
There’s no real harm in asking for a pay rise if you feel you deserve one. What you’ll need is a strong point and evidence to justify an increase in salary.
For example, if you haven’t received a pay rise for over a year and you feel you deserve a boost, consider mentioning this to your manager and having a sit-down discussion.
If you’re not too sure that your work efforts deserve extra recognition, reflect on previous performance reviews, and highlight points to mention when negotiating a pay rise.
Confidence is key with this one. Initiate the conversation with your manager with confidence to set the tone and follow through. Remember, it’s okay if your request is refused as you’ve brought this issue to your manager’s attention and can bring it up again in the near future for further review.
Timing
Believe it or not, there is a good and bad time to ask for a pay increase.
The best times to ask is when your boss has a quieter schedule, in the face of positive financial results for the company, or when your being asked to take on more responsibility for example.
You’ll want to avoid asking for a pay rise on a Monday morning or Friday afternoon when your boss will be preoccupied with other things. Likewise, when there is financial turmoil within the company or a pause on recruitment and wage increases.
Reasoning
The best approach to take is to express to your manager why you’re valuable to the company and what you can feasibly offer in the future, alongside what your market worth. Use this as a talking point and probe as to how you and your manager can work to close the gap between your current wage and the market average.
Try framing your request as an investment and you could find you’ll get a very fair deal. You’ll want to avoid simply putting your request forward based solely on your persistence with the company. Managers should think you’re irreplaceable and not someone who is simply filling a role.
Play to your strengths and showcase your accomplishments to show your manager exactly why you deserve a pay rise!
Negotiation
A few simple tricks you can use to get the salary you want is to propose a specific percentage increase above what you’re actually looking for. This way, your manager may negotiate it down, and you’ll still leave the negotiation significantly better off. Avoid using percentages that sound like you’ve just randomly selected it. By being specific in your numbering, it suggests you’ve done your research and are very serious about your demands.
Encourage your boss to move their negotiations towards you by asking how close to your offer the company can go. This is a useful negotiation tip as it gives you a clearer view of what your employer is willing to move by.
It’s important to bear in mind that decisions on pay rises can take some time, so be patient and wait for a decision to be made before trying to negotiate further or bargain for better pay.
To conclude
With these tips in mind, it’s important that you always remain professional. Don’t ask for more than you know you deserve but don’t undersell yourself either. You are an asset, so it’s important to act like it! The worst your employer can do is refuse your pay rise request, so do your research, evaluate your own performance, and ask with confidence!
Disclaimer: All our articles and guides express the views of FINTEC recruit and do not constitute legal advice. Our articles provide general information and any third-party website links used are for the convenience of the reader, user or browser and we do not endorse content of third-party sites.