articles | 26 May 2023 | GRS Recruitment

Bills, Bills, Bills | How to negotiate a pay raise

An important part of being satisfied in your job is being paid what you are worth. However, often people know they are not being paid their worth but are plagued by fear or self-doubt when it comes to negotiating a pay rise. Take full control of your career by overcoming this obstacle!

A common mistake employees make when trying to negotiate a higher salary is failing to provide evidence as to how their value surpasses their current pay packet. Successfully securing a pay rise depends on two main factors – clearly quantifying your contribution to the company and building a bulletproof case. Below you will find six tips that will help you prove you deserve more money and ask for a pay rise.

Research salary data for your position

Before you go onto ask for a pay rise, consider learning what a normal salary range is for your position and your level of experience. Sites such as glassdoor.com can aid you in getting a free salary report to see how your current salary compares to similar positions elsewhere. LinkedIn is also a great resource for this too. You can either review job posts on the sites or use LinkedIn’s own average salary ranges listed on job posts. You can always ask the team at GRS to take a look at your CV and provide you with a realistic salary goal for your position and experience.

Reflect on your achievements

This is one of the best ways to convince your employer that you deserve a raise since you can highlight your specific accomplishments that helped the company achieve its goals. Describe how your accomplishments have positively impacted your department and company as a whole – and potentially provide some quantitative data and statistics showing these achievements. It is hard for any manager to reject a salary raise request when presented with good figures. As well as this, showing the work you have done for the company and the efforts you have put in to help it also illustrates that you are a loyal worker.

Remain authentic and professional

It is important to remember that the first impression is always important, hence why it is vital that you keep it professional and authentic all the time. Try not to be tempted to use any forceful or threatening method to ask for your pay raise. Instead, you should organise how you will ask for it. Do not be greedy or arrogant, or put others down to make yourself stand out. As well as this, do not compare yourself to your colleagues. Regardless of the outcome, remain calm and collected because getting overwhelmed will certainly not act in your favour.

Focus on how the raise would positively impact your performance

Pay raise negotiations should be based on what the raise is going to do that will improve and boost your level of production and therefore performance. Look at the negotiations as a partnership between you and your manager and not you against your manager. Consequently, you will easily lower the pressure and make yourself feel at ease and calm. Moreover, make sure you are confident and maintain eye contact during the negotiation process. Your body language will say a lot.

Understand the other party in the negotiation

Evidently, your managers job is to provide you with useful feedback and support for your professional development, however, they also have other competing priorities such as meeting business targets, managing your peers, balancing budgets, and progressing their own career. By paying attention to announcements the company makes, as well as announcements in weekly meetings that talk about the firm’s business objectives, you can get a sense of what their priorities may be. Make notes of what your manager highlights or praises when things are going well and any concerns they express when things are not going so well. These cues may show up during team or one-on-one meetings, or in departmental updates. If you note down the work that you do that specifically supports the priorities you identify, you can mention these in your negotiation later.

Be specific

It is always great to start your salary negotiations with a specific figure in mind, as it shows your potential or existing employer that you have done your research and are confident in your value as an employee. They will most probably be impressed that you are taking initiative. Remember, you can always begin your salary negotiation by stating a higher figure than you are hoping for, and then compromise on a lower amount if necessary. As well as this, talk about specific goals you would like to achieve for the company in the future, in order to show the employer that you want to boost your performance and help the company succeed as much as possible.

We do hope that this aids and assists you in achieving your target salary, but if it is time to move on reach out to the team at GRS today by calling +357 24342720 or +356 27780664 to identify the best opportunities for you.

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