Something missing?
If You Are Underpaid, Read This!
If it were payday and your
paycheck hadn't made it to your bank account yet,
you would call your Payroll
department and ask them why not.
You'd say "Was there a delay getting the paychecks
out?
I don't see my paycheck in my bank account, and I need it to pay some
bills this weekend."
With luck, your colleagues in
the Payroll department would take your concern seriously.
Everybody has to get
paid!
You wouldn't hesitate to
sound an alarm if your paycheck went missing one Friday.
Yet many, if not
most, working people are hesitant and fearful to tell their bosses
"I'm underpaid!"
Lots of people are underpaid
at work.
The lousy economy gave employers a great excuse for underpaying their
employees.
Sadly, many people took jobs
at substandard pay levels,
and haven't made it back to their market pay yet.
Many of them have never asked for a raise.
They are waiting for their
employers to bestow pay increases on them.
That is a losing strategy!
No one is looking out for
your career except for you.
Where your pay is concerned, the same thing is
true.
How would your manager know you're underpaid if you don't say
something about it?
If you are underpaid but not
egregiously so, you can talk to your boss about it like this:
BOSS: So Alan, you had a
question for me? I got your voicemail.
YOU: Oh yes, thanks,
Rosemary. Listen, I know that our annual reviews aren't until June,
so I
wanted to put a bug in your ear way in advance.
I'm hoping to see a bump in my
pay level this year,
since I took on the database project and now I'm doing
Joslyn's job as well as my own.
BOSS: I hear you, but Joslyn
was just a part-timer...
YOU: That's true, but in
terms of impact, if someone isn't running the backup schedule
and the
maintenance on our systems we'd be toast.
I just wanted to get you thinking
about it -- if the company is giving out three percent increases
like last year
I'm going to slip further behind the market and I don't want to do that.
I like
this job. I like working with you. I want to stay here.
BOSS: Okay, I understand.
What sort of raise are you looking for?
YOU: Well, a three percent
raise would be about twenty-four hundred dollars,
so if that could be six to
seven thousand dollars instead, I'd be happy.
We're only talking about a
difference of forty-five to fifty-hundred dollars per year - not a huge
sum.
BOSS: Could we split the
difference?
YOU: Here's the question. Do
you think I deserve to be paid the market rate for the work I do?
BOSS: It's hard to get
approval for more than the standard increase. Let me think about it.
Unless you are working at a
minimum-wage job, getting a raise above the standard level
is not usually
something that you can accomplish in one conversation.
You have to do your
research, make your case, and keep at it.
You have to let your manager
know that getting you to the appropriate pay level
for your responsibilities is
not a trivial matter, but a fundamental leadership activity.
If you are grossly underpaid,
you can take a different approach.
In that case, you'll back up the truck
and have a broader conversation with your manager,
because now you're not
asking your manager to grant you a pay increase all by himself or herself.
Instead, you're asking him or
her to campaign on your behalf with the higher-ups
who will have to approve
your salary upgrade. (If your boss is the CEO, that's a different story!)
Since your boss will be
selling other people on your pay bump, you'll need to equip him or her
to sell the idea of your pay raise to other people. This is called
"Selling the seller."
First, you'll get your boss
on board with the idea of keeping you happy -- and keeping you glued
to your
seat, especially now that the economy is getting better and jobs are more
plentiful.
Once your boss is bought into
the notion of improving your pay,
then you and s/he can strategize about how to
sell the idea of your pay increase to other leaders.
Here's the seven-step process
for Selling the Seller
when your boss will not be the only person who has to
approve your pay increase.
Conduct your own research on
market salaries using Payscale and Salary.
Calculate (the best you can,
using your knowledge of your organization
and making assumptions the rest of
the time) the cost of the Business
Pain you
relieve for your employer.
Often the cost of the pain you relieve dwarfs your
actual salary,
even when benefits are baked into it (adding about 40% to your
employer's cost for having you around).
Create a one-year Roadmap for your
position. What will you accomplish over the next 12 months at work? What big,
expensive and annoying problems will you solve?
How will you make a difference
for your employer dollars-and-cents-wise, customer-satisfaction-wise
and in
other ways? Include your assumptions and calculations in your Roadmap (or as an
addendum).
Propose a new salary level to
accompany your Roadmap.
You're asking your boss to sign up for both your
12-month Roadmap and your new, beefed-up salary level. Here's what you
get, Boss : these results! Here's what I get: my market compensation level. If
there are other things you need (equipment or training, for instance), include
those things in your Roadmap, too.
Invite your boss to a Roadmap
Meeting to talk about your plan and your proposal. Walk through your proposed
annual program with your boss, and share your salary expectation, too. Get your
boss's reaction and feedback to your Roadmap. Until your boss agrees that
you're due a salary increase, you'll be in selling mode. Once your boss is on
board, then you and s/he are in selling mode together!
If your boss says "I'd
like to give you a raise, but I can't do it," ask "How can we look
forward to create a Roadmap that will get me to my salary goal over time?"
Don't let your boss off the hook if his or her initial reaction is "No
dice." If your boss can see you reaching your compensation goal by hitting
various milestones, then what are those milestones and what timeframe are we
talking about?
If your boss is completely
against the idea of raising your pay, withdraw. That's fine. You've learned a
lot of things at this job that you can carry with you to the next one. Thank
your boss for his or her time. After work, go home and launch a stealth job
search. With or without your hoped-for pay increase at your current job, your
muscles are growing!
Questions and Answers
What if I can't find a closely comparable job to my job in Salary
and Payscale?
Check these databases using
other job titles that correspond or overlap with your job responsibilities.
Keep in mind that not everything you do on the job is included in your written
job description, if you have one!
You should get paid for what
you deliver and for your positive effects on your employer, whether your
contributions are described in your job description (or suggested by your job
title) or not.
Are there good reasons for an employer to pay under-market pay
rates -- for instance, if they have a great working atmosphere or good
benefits?
Remember that the market pay
level is the average of the rates other employers
are paying their employees
for similar jobs to yours. Real data sets the market.
An employer whose message
is "Look at the nice atmosphere here!
"We have a great
culture. That's why we pay less than other employers do for similar
positions"
is not a Human Workplace. Benefits and working atmosphere are
great things,
but people deserve to be paid the market rate for their services,
and there is no business or human justification for paying less than that rate
-- not unless you've got an ownership stake in the company.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/you-underpaid-read-liz-ryan
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