Companies are great at telling you when you can't ask for a pay rise.
The thing is they never quite tell you when you can ask for a pay rise.
That's why let me fix that.
If the door is closed now, when does it open?
Well, if the answer is vague, then personally, I believe
the door is always open.
You just have to have the confidence to ask.
Remember that job where you never had to ask for a pay rise?
Yeah, me neither.
While some psychologists might tell you there's never going to be enough money
to fill that void, let's just focus on having enough money so that we can
buy a few more beers or a nicer bottle of wine at the end of the day when you
finally step away from that keyboard.
How does that sound?
Nice.
So to quote Jerry Maguire, show me the money.
Now there's plenty of reasons why you might be asking for more money.
So let's list a few of them.
Number one, it's been a long time since you asked for a pay rise.
Number two, you've grown a lot since you've joined both
in skills and experience.
Number three, you've taken on more responsibility through the year, but
no pay rise came when that happened.
Number four, you realized your colleagues are paid a lot more than
you are for the exact same job.
Number five, you deserve it.
Thinking about the reasons why you're asking beforehand is quite important.
Quite often your employer will ask why you asking for this?
And when you're on the spotlight that coming up with valid reasons
is actually quite difficult.
So collect your thoughts, do some prep.
Let's take each of the reasons we just gave in turn and discuss
them a little bit further.
If it's been over 12 months since your last pay rise, then
you've effectively had a pay cut.
Inflation is really.
But before you ask, you should have your numbers ready to prove this.
If you've gained skills and probably experience along the way, you should
be able to recall those quickly.
Recalling them is the first step, but then you also need to be able to
illustrate how those skills, how that experience benefits the business.
If it's of no benefit to the business, why should anyone pay more?
Taking on more responsibility should be a quick win.
It's hard to argue against that one.
I would clarify with your employer how happy they are with your
performance before you do the ask.
If they're happy with your performance and they've previously asked you
to take on more responsibility, it's time to talk money.
When a colleague's paid more than you for doing the exact same job,
that's a tricky subject to navigate.
Many employers don't like discussing salary, certainly
not somebody else's salary.
So this can be very frustrating.
Attacking the subject directly can generate a lot of animosity.
So, it's better to do some preparation beforehand.
It's also risky for your colleagues.
A better approach is to ascertain your employer's happiness
with your performance upfront.
If there's negative performance, it's a difficult starting
position to negotiate from.
After that, if they're happy, you can politely inform your employer that you're
aware of a pay discrepancy and that in light of them being happy with your
performance, you'd like that playing ground to be leveled up a little bit, but
you have to approach this respectfully.
This is not a time to be forceful and demanding.
Lastly, if you deserve a pay rise, you need to have your ammunition ready.
Clear, succinct reasons why you deserve a pay rise.
They should be listed and evidenced.
Preparations are often overlooked for this.
Focus on the preparation and the reasoning and the money
will kind of look after itself.
Remember, you're taking something here, taking something that's
probably not going to be freely given, so no one likes to lose.
So don't make this an argument, make your case and justify it, and
then you have to accept the outcome.
Except the outcome?
I can't believe what I'm hearing!
Did I just say that?
Well, yes, you do have to accept it at least on the surface.
I mean, you still have to work there, but if you can listen to how your employer
responds, whether it's just particularly bad timing for the request, or you
haven't quite justified it enough, in which case you can go back and rework
what you've said, then that's one thing.
But if your employer really doesn't value what you're doing there, then
that's a valuable lesson in itself.
And it's probably time to start looking for another role and do you know?
I know just the place where you can go.
Let's go back to the previous scenario where you do actually feel like you
are valued in the company, but the timing was wrong or the evidence wasn't
there for you to get the pay rise.
So what can you do next?
Is the pay rise on hold temporarily?
What's the timeframe for that?
What is the criteria for getting that pay rise?
And are you happy with it?
The big one is, is money the only variable?
Now it's quite common for companies to trade money for time, but
if you can't trade with money, maybe you can trade with time.
People do this with more days off per year, maybe less working days per
week, less working hours in a day.
There are lots of ways to do this.
Sometimes it's often easier to negotiate time than to negotiate money.
Maybe your line manager has a fixed budget, but they can
flex the time a little bit.
If all goes well, you've hopefully had a friendly and professional
exchange with your employer.
And, with some hope, you've agreed a path forward.
If it didn't happen, try not to be too negative at this point.
There's no point in creating tension in the atmosphere when
you still got to work there.
So if it didn't happen, you wanted cash or time, but you've come
out with neither, maybe what you have come out with is knowledge.
You now know more about the people you work with and to have
a true measure of the landscape.
That's valuable information, and will help you on your own with
journey, whether that's staying put and accepting the status quo, or
maybe looking at greener pastures.
Now talking to greener pastures.
If the grass really is greener and it's time to look elsewhere, then you
need to apply this knowledge so that when you're there and negotiating
for your next position, you're negotiating from a position of strength.
You now know what you want and probably had to get it.
So top three takeaways, I would say for negotiating your salary.
Firstly, if no one's telling you when the door is open to negotiate
salary, you have to open that door.
Number two, do your prep.
It's inevitable that when you get into the room to negotiate money, they're
going to ask for reasons and evidence.
You need to have your justifications ready, because you're going
to forget during that pressure environment in the negotiating room.
Number three.
Consider that you don't always have to negotiate money.
Maybe that's off the table for now, in which case there are other things.
Consider negotiating your time.
Well, thanks again for watching.
I hope you've got some value and I hope you're now getting paid a lot of money.
If you like the video, you know what to do and I'll see you next time.
Take it easy.