A salary is not the only reason you should accept or stay at a particular job. The overall benefits of working for a certain company may be very compelling as they might include medical insurance, life insurance, stock options, or performance bonuses. There are also the aspects that make the work environment a place you enjoy being in which need to be considered. These include company transportation, telecommuting opportunities, flexible hours, free lunch, onsite gym, massage chairs, haircuts, on-site acupuncture, tuition reimbursement and scholarships for employee’s kids.
Still, there’s no question that the salary is the number one consideration for the overwhelming majority of people when they are considering employment options. You are, after all, working for pay. The more money you are paid, the better the quality of life you can have.
An employer determines each worker’s salary based on the value they perceive the employee brings to the organization. That being said, the power to increase your salary is in your hands. There are deliberate actions you can take to ensure that your salary goes up on a regular basis.
Document Your Work Accomplishments
An employer’s goal is to pay the least amount possible for the best available skills. Ergo, don’t expect your manager, despite their best intentions, to necessarily remember the achievements that justify a pay rise. They, like you, are busy trying to get their own raise. The responsibility for tracking and documenting your work accomplishments falls squarely on you, and if you don’t do it, there’s a good chance that no one will.
Whenever you have a major win at work, write it down and retain the documentation that proves it. These notes will be a powerful addition to your arsenal during performance appraisals where you demonstrate the value you bring to the organization.
Accomplishments also come in handy in your resume if you opt to take your quest for higher pay outside your current workplace. Use an online resume maker such as ResumeBuild to quickly organize your achievements in an HR-friendly format.
Learn from Co-Workers
Each of your work colleagues knows something you don’t. You can tap into their expertise and use the knowledge as leverage for higher pay. It, of course, depends on their willingness to make time for you. Cultivate a relationship with a person of interest and request to sit with them for 10-15 minutes each morning for a week or two.
It’s not possible for you to shadow and learn from every single person at your workplace. The key is identifying the individuals who possess the knowledge, skills, and experience you’ll need to advance your career and subsequently increase your pay.
You likely won’t attain the same degree of mastery as your “mentor” immediately, but you’ll acquire enough knowledge to hold an intelligent conversation on the subject. Often, this broad-based knowledge is what organizations will look for when determining which of any two employees with equivalent qualifications to give a raise.
Learn New Skills from Outside Work
Your colleagues are a convenient and free source of knowledge. However, the knowledge you glean from your coworkers is unlikely to be sufficient to raise your salary on its own. In any case, it means you become just one more of several people in the organization who have said knowledge.
You can give your demand for higher pay greater impetus if you acquire skills from outside the organization. This could involve enrolling in online courses, attending evening and weekend classes, and participating in industry events.
Since a job promotion is one of the ways you can raise your salary, find out what skills and professional qualifications are required at next-level positions, then sign up for external courses that place you on the right career trajectory.
Find Out the Going Market Rate for Your Job
It’s easy to get so caught up in the rigorous routine of your job that you have hardly any time to think about anything else. This can cause you to be blind to what is going on out there as far as the average salary for your position goes.
By keeping tabs on what your professional peers are earning via sites such as Glassdoor, you can gather a wealth of knowledge that’ll help you make a compelling case to your manager when you ask for a raise. If you don’t know what your skill-level should earn, you could easily settle for far less than you deserve.
The higher your salary, the quicker you can realize your personal finance goals. Following these tips will give you a stronger position in salary negotiations. Nevertheless, there’s no guarantee that your employer will budge. In which case, you have to keep your options open and be prepared to change jobs if necessary.
short url:
