Asking for a raise is never an easy job to do. If you are anything like me, then you will feel that your manager should give you a raise all by himself, without you having ask for it. Asking for a raise might seem like you are begging for something, that you deserve, but it’s not quite like that. In a perfect world your manger would give you everything that you need, all the extra free days and a chair massage when you need it, but we are not living in a perfect world.
In a business world it’s completely normal to ask for a raise and it’s completely normal that your manager will not give you everything that it’s in your mind. First, because no one can’t really read your mind and second, the staff expenses are a major financial burden for every company and no manager wants to increase that part.
So, to ask for a raise, it might fairly help sticking to some basic principles:
#1 Come out with the facts, not with emotions
Your manager don’t really need to (and also shouldn’t) know why you need extra money. Prepare yourself not to speak from emotions, because if you do so, the conversation will most certainly not go in the good direction. Come into the meeting with positive attitude and present the facts, don’t discuss how you think you are stressed because of the work or how your wife will deliver your first baby and how bloody you will need need that extra money. There is no manager that really wants to get involved in your personal issues and no manager will take you seriously if you’ll just blabber about how much pressure you need to put with in the work. We all have pressure in the work and we all have personal issues. Definitely we would all use some extra money to help us cope with everyday life battles easier. But if you want to ask for a raise, you should present the facts why you deserve it and what the company would have out of it.
#2 Discuss, not argue
Never come into a such meeting with negative attitude, where you are prepared to fight or to make threats, such as: “If you don’t give me a raise, I’ll quit”. You will definitely not get anywhere far with such attitude. Be positive, list facts and leave your emotions aside for personal life. Business life does’t have much space for personal emotions and for arguing. Be professional, speak about facts and with positive attitude.
#3 Show your value
Highlight your accomplishments and emphasise what kind of value have your accomplishments brought to the company. I know you might think that the manager have must noticed that already and probably they have, but they don’t want to give more as anyone asks, as they have to protect the company’s financial status.
#4 Do your research
Don’t just speak out of your head, don’t just blabber about some approximate information. Do your research and study the trends for similar job roles and geographic areas. There are two websites that I like to use in order to calculate the worth of specific job and both are pretty accurate, considering that they cover most of the regions worldwide. When I need to make a research about how much someone is worth, I usually use both, compare the values and take some middle range from both. The first one is Salary.com and the second one is PayScale. If by any chance you don’t like either of them, use any other research, just make sure to do the research and to use objective results.
#5 Be ready to hear “no”
This is probably the worst thing that can happen to you when you are asking for a raise. But hearing “no” will not kill you and it certainly doesn’t mean that you have no other option then to quit your job. Of course if you feel miserable in your job, you should never even asked for a raise in the first place, because it will probably not solve the core issue and you should quit already a long time ago. But, if you are not miserable in your work and you have good starting points for a raise, then hearing “no” will be also a good opportunity to revise your strategy. Analyse what went wrong in the discussion and use that for a next discussion about the raise. Don’t get battered, learn from your mistakes. If you don’t make it the first time, try again. And again, and again….
So, to summarise most important points: stay positive, smile, be nice and present facts. Stay blessed!
