Negotiating a Raise (Part 4 -- What NOT to do.)

In the last few posts, I've been talking about ways to think about your salary and how to determine what you should be paid. Today, I'm going to talk about a few topics to avoid when discussing salary with your boss.

Let's look at some tactics that I've seen employees use and talk about why they aren't effective.

"The cost of living has gone up, so I need more money."

While it is important that you be able to provide a certain standard of living for your family, you have to remember that the value that you provide to your employer isn't necessarily tied to the cost of living. It is common for some employers to give "cost of living raises", but they certainly don't have to. If it has been a number of years and no one in the company has received a salary increase, you certainly could ask for this, but cost of living is something that affects everyone equally and so this is really an argument that your company's standard is too low in general. This may be true, but unless you are voluntering to be the union rep for your co-workers, this argument won't get you a raise.

"It's been years and I haven't gotten a raise, so I deserve one now."

You get paid for the value you bring to your company, not for the number of years of service you have provided. Significant tenure with a company may have helped you learn a number of skills that could add value to the company (as we talked about in part 3 of this series). If that is the case, then stick to those facts. (For example, "Over the last two years, I've learned how to do customer implementations and I often fill in for our implementation staff.") But it's the skills and eperience you've added over those years that your employer will pay for, not the number of years. This is one case where time doesn't equal money.

"I'm the only person in the company who knows how to do X, so you better give me a raise."

First, shame on your employer for creating a single point of failure and letting it be you. Second, shame on you for allowing it to stay this way. Saying this to your boss is basically a threat -- nobody likes to be threatened. It also indicates that you are not a team player and really only looks out for yourself with little regard for the company and your co-workers who must depend on you for the company to continue to function. If it sounds like I'm being harsh, you're right. There is no place for this kind of nonsense in any company.

If you find yourself in this position, you need to point out the issue to your employer and either offer to train someone else, offer to create documentation on this task, or suggest another solution that doesn't depend only on you. Helping your company solve this sort of problem, makes you much more valuable than being an employee who hordes information and won't teach others because they somehow think it adds job security.

"I am the best person in my department, so you should pay me more than everyone else."

This statement breaks a couple of rules. One, its really none of your business what the other people in your department make. Two, your salary isn't determined by comparing how well you perform compared to others. If you really do outperform other people in your department, gather some statistics and use those to cast a positive light on yourself without dumping on everyone else in your group. For example, "Over the last year, I have consistently processed an average of 25 help desk tickets per day. That's 40 percent of all the help desk tickets in our group."

"I work harder than anyone else in my department."

This statement has all the same problems as the last one, plus it focuses on the wrong thing -- how hard you work. Focus on the value you deliver instead of how hard you work.

"So-and-so is making $X, and I should be making at least that much, too."

Whether "so-and-so" is a cousin, friend, or acquaintance, this doesn't really mean anything to your employer. You need to focus on the value that YOU deliver to YOUR company. If you are talking about a coworker, be warned -- it really isn't a good idea to talk salary with your co-workers. Trust me, no good can come of it. Remember, your pay is based on your market value and the value you provide to your company. Using the data from one other person to determine what you should be paid would be like a politician declaring he was going to win an election based on the result of polling a single person. It's just one data point -- and it may be irrelevant anyway.

"If you don't pay me $X, I'm going to quit."

This is equivalent to the classic line of "take this job and shove it..." It's a threat. It's poor business etiquette. And it burns a bridge. If you truly believe you should be paid more, but you can't come to terms with your employer, perhaps it is time to move on to another job. But stating it like this does nothing positive. If you are going to quit, do it politely and if your employer really wants to keep you around, they might offer you more money, but don't count on it.

Remember, when discussing salary with your employer, stick to facts that are relevant to your value and the value you provide to the company. What do you think is the best way for you to express your value to your employer?

Photo credit, Lara604

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Negotiating a Raise (Part 3 -- Your Value to the Company)

At the risk of sounding like Lumbergh from Office Space, today we're going to talk about the value you can add to your company above and beyond the things listed in your job description and how you can use this to add dollars to your paycheck.

In a recent post on project management, I talked about how start-ups usually have a small number of very focused people who all pitch in to make sure that everything gets done. As a company grows, jobs tend to get more specialized. Everyone doesn't do everything any longer. This is a necessary evolution in the life of a company, but sometimes employees go a little too far in this direction. The last thing any manager ever wants to hear from an employee are the words, "That's not in my job description."

Often, there are tasks that need to be done or tasks that should be done that aren't really part of any job description at a company. One great way to make yourself more valuable to a company is to make those tasks part of your job description. Of course you need to make sure you get all of your regular work done too. But if you see something that needs to be done, and you can do it, pitching in to get things done makes you that much more valuable.

If you are one of those underemployed people I talked about in part two of this series, adding value is a great way to help make your replacement value closer to your market value. (Read part one to learn about your market value.)

Another factor to added value is the amount of experience that you may have at a particular task or piece of technology. Most companies have some sort of esoteric process or technology that really isn't used anywhere else. The people who know this technology very well are more valuable to a company than anyone else out there who has an otherwise similar skill set.

One thing to beware of here is the temptation to horde knowledge. Being the only person who knows how to do some specific task or run some certain piece of technology constitutes a huge risk for a company. If you think that not training anyone else or making management aware of this problem means you have greater job security, you're wrong. From a manager's point of view, you look like someone who is not a team player and someone who can't be bothered to help the company manage a serious risk. The best thing you can do is help your company manage this risk by offering to train others, create documentation others can follow or suggest an alternative solution that doesn't require such specific knowledge.

Another great way to add value is to learn a new skill that can be used at your job immediately. Learning a new skill that makes your more marketable and adds to your market value, but doesn't necessarily make you more valuable to your current employer.

Here's a great example. One company I worked for, needed a back-up person to handle some implementation tasks, but we couldn't quite justify the cost of hiring a new employee. Another employee volunteered to get the training needed and be the backup until we had enough business to justify hiring a new person. That added value.

As a manager, I have always thought about added value when determining salary increases. It's not something you start thinking about the day before you ask for a raise though. It's something you need to think about every day of your career.

In the next post, I'll talk about some things not to say when asking for a raise and then I'll wrap it all up in one final post on the subject.

In the mean time, I want to hear about how you add value to your company as an employee. I'd also like to hear how managers think about added value in their employees. What's the best example you have seen of added value in your career?

photo credit, Karyn Rachtman

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