How To Ask For And Get A Raise – Increase Your Salary Today
I know how to ask for and get a raise, yet I hate asking for a raise. It feels awkward, confrontational, embarrassing even and it risks rejection and not feeling appreciated. Asking for a pay rise is an emotional big deal for most of us. If we are going to put ourselves through the discomfort of asking for a raise, making sure the odds are firmly stacked in our favour of getting a raise makes a lot of sense.
A really important fact to appreciate – managers are used to being asked for a raise by their staff. Asking for a raise is a totally normal part of having a job. Your boss won’t think badly of you for asking for a raise or make your life difficult etc – unless maybe you are asking every week.
How To Ask For And Get A Raise – Increase Your Salary Today
- Meeting 2 fundamental conditions to get a raise
- 3 vital bits of preparation to do before you ask for a raise
- An example script of what to say when asking for a pay rise
- What responses to expect after asking for a salary increase.
You also have to know that it is 100% in the employers interests to pay you as little as possible while still keeping you motivated and staying with the company. This means the longer you stay in a business, the more likely you will become underpaid unless you regularly ask for a raise. If you stay in the same business for years, your long term pay increases are about half the level of someone who moves jobs every couple of years. A lot of this difference comes from staff not asking for a raise often enough.
Watch on YouTube
Listen on Podcast
2 fundamental conditions to get a raise
Employers will want to give you a raise when:
- The value you are delivering for the company has noticeably increased AND
- You are a good employee who your boss does not want lose which would mean they would have to go through the hassle, cost and risk of hiring a new person
If one of these two fundamental reasons is missing, you are unlikely to get a raise. If you are delivering the same value as last year, the company doesn’t have any extra money to share with you. When you deliver more value, the company has extra money to potentially share. More on how you demonstrate your value in a bit.
Replacing staff is a big cost to the company. Most bosses will try to avoid losing good staff and saying yes to a reasonable request for a raise is an easy way to keep staff.
Make sure you are a good team player, you make your boss’s life easier not harder, and keep yourself at least average or above in the team in terms of what you deliver and you are much more like to get a raise when you ask for a raise.
3 vital bits of preparation to do before you ask for a raise
To successfully ask for a raise, the preparation I think you must do is:
- Do your job market research
- Know how you are going to show your value in financial terms
- Demonstrate your performance relative to others
1 – Do your job market research
Collect proof of what the market in your area is paying for a person doing your job in a similar company. You need market research for two reasons:
- To provide proof of what other companies are willing to pay you if you choose to move jobs
- To subtly let you manager know you could and would be willing to move
Get a list of job adverts for your job offering higher salaries than you are being paid. The closer the jobs being advertised are to your job, the more compelling your request for a raise. Print these off so you can literally hand them to your boss.
Speak to recruitment consultants about the salaries being paid for your role in the market. Get the recruiters names and the agencies they work for plus the salary ranges they tell you. Create a summary printout to give to your boss.
2 – Know how you are going to show your value in financial terms
Translate as many of your achievements over the last year into financial numbers. You can do this for every one of your achievements, regardless of your role. Translate your achievements into one or more of these:
- Revenue or profit created
- Costs saved
- Time saved which you can then translate into costs saved by using a day rate for the jobs in question
- Efficiency gained, which can usually be translated into time saved and then into costs saved.
An example might be implementing a new expenses system successfully, which saves 50 man days a month across the business. This translates as 50 people times a £150 day rate resulting in £7,500 saved per month, or £90,000 per year.
Add up all the revenues and profits you have created, and the costs saved. Ideally, you want the final total to be 3 or more multiples of your salary. The higher the better. Put your calculations on another printout you can hand your boss when asking for a raise.
3 – Demonstrate your performance relative to others
The last piece of preparation is about showing how the value you create compares to others in your team and company. The company will only have so much budget allocated to increasing pay, so you want to get the proportional pay rise you deserve.
Compare your output and results to those doing a similar job. If you consistently answer more calls, or send more paperwork, or retain more customers, or save more time etc compared to others in your team, or in the business, you have a good argument to get a bigger salary increase compared to them. Do not to put others down. Prepare your case by focusing on showing how much more you deliver compared to the average person in this position.
The stronger your preparation, and the more value you create for the business, the more compelling the case is for you to get a raise. Your preparation will make it easier for your manager to give you a raise.
Always book a meeting room with your boss and discuss getting a raise in private. Speaking in public might put your boss in a difficult position which will make getting your raise a lot more difficult.
example script of what you might say when meeting with your boss to ask for a raise
“Thanks Debbie for meeting with me to discuss my salary. Please would you consider increasing my salary by £5,000 to £43,000. I appreciate that you will have to talk with others about this raise. I have prepared some useful comparisons and supporting data to help you understand the value I am creating, which you will hopefully find useful in these conversations.
Here are some market place salary comparisons to similar jobs I have prepared, and as you can see from these job adverts, I am currently being underpaid by at least £5,000. I have also spoken to these three recruitment consultants, and they tell me, if I were to move, I should be looking at a £5-7k salary increase as a minimum. They have also told me it is very much a candidate’s market and getting another job offer shouldn’t take long.
I have been at ABC for three years and am very keen to stay longer assuming we can come to a sensible agreement on pay and my development going forward.
Next, I would like to take you through my top 5 achievements delivered over the last year which demonstrate that I am adding in excess of £300,000 in value to this company as a minimum. My best achievement to date is… [and go on to describe each achievement briefly].
I would end the request by saying
I hope all this demonstrates that I deserve at least a £5,000 salary increase. Do you have any initial thoughts on my salary request?
The request should take a minute or two to make. Do not go into masses of detail or prepare a presentation etc. This is not needed. When you have done your homework, and you are a good employee doing a good job, getting at least a reasonable salary increase shouldn’t be particularly hard.
If you would like more examples of salary increase conversations, please take a look at the link in the description where you can get more free examples.
What responses to expect after asking for a salary increase
It is very rare to get a yes on the spot after asking for a salary increase. Your boss will have to speak to HR and their boss before saying yes to the raise you have asked for. Your boss might put forward a compromise offer so keep your counter arguments in mind if this happens.
Expect your boss to tell you they will get back to you with an answer soon. I would normally expect a couple of days. If they don’t come back to you within a week or so, bring up asking for a raise again and ask what the decision is.
When you are a good employee, delivering a lot of value and you are making a reasonable request for a raise and you have prepared well, I would expect 9 times out of 10 you will get a raise.
In summary
Asking for a raise is daunting for everyone. No-one wants to be told no, particularly when you are being underpaid verses the market or compared to what you are delivering for the company. A “no” feels horrible.
To make getting a raise a lot more likely, you should keep increasing the value you are delivering for the company AND be a good employee and team member, so your boss won’t want to risk losing you and having to go through the hassle, cost and risk of finding someone new. Then ask for a raise at least every year if you don’t automatically get given the raise you feel you deserve.
If you have any questions on “How To Ask For And Get A Raise – Increase Your Salary Today”, please email me at support@enhance.training and I will get back to you.
