DON’T BEG FOR A RAISE. ASK NICELY
Saying “I need more money” is a win-lose: You win, your boss loses. You need to make your raise a win-win. Evelyn Murphy, founder of The WAGE project
With the job market on the mend, wages are poised for a rebound. But asking for a raise remains a sore spot for many employees.
More than half of the 700 professionals surveyed by staffing firm Robert Half — 54% — plan to ask for a raise this year. But 32% said they would rather clean the house than ask for a raise, while 7% and 6% would opt for a root canal or an audit by the IRS, respectively.
Lack of confidence, stress, weak negotiating skills and fear of losing their jobs hold people back, according to a study conducted last year by Salary.com.
Still, the labor market is tilting in favor of employees. The “quit” rate hit a seven-year high in March, and job openings hit a 14year high in April, according to the Labor Department.
Economists predict that more people could be in line for raises as employee retention becomes a priority. Wages are expected to grow 2% to 3% by the end of this year, according to a note by Paul Ashworth, chief U.S. economist at Capital Economics.
RESEARCH IS KEY
With proper research, negotiating a raise doesn’t have to be as painful as a root canal, experts say. More than a quarter of workers — 27% — have never checked their salary against market rates in the past year, the Robert Half study found.
“As the employee, you have to take on the responsibility to know your value,” says Evelyn Murphy, founder of The WAGE
project, a series of workshops that help women negotiate salaries. There are many online tools for salary research, including PayScale.com and Glassdoor. Murphy recommends any service that provides both location-specific and employer-supplied data. Research helps you present an objective argument during your performance review.
“What’s important is that you use language that is meaningful to your employer,” she says. “Say, ‘Your goals were to increase the number of clients, and here’s how my work did that.’ ”
CONFIDENCE COUNTS
Projecting confidence during performance reviews also helps, says Paul McDonald, senior executive director at Robert Half.
“Confidence is something that you can refine at every stage of your career,” he says. “It’s what gets you promoted or recognized, or gives people faith that you will carry the organization forward.”
But what if you do everything right and your boss still says no?
“It’s very important to just be quiet and listen after the ‘no’ has happened,” Murphy says.
“If you wait, that person has to fill the silence. If he or she says, ‘I just can’t do it, the company is in trouble,’ then you learn that. You have an option to say, ‘Look, I hear you, can we meet in a couple months to discuss this some more?’ ”