Best way to ask for a raise?

[bank5]

I'm curious to hear how people have gone about asking for raises.

I think the worst way is to say is I need more money because my expenses are going up.

IMO, a much better approach is to assess your performance and figure out which career band you fall into. Or for smaller companies sites like salary.com and glassdoor.com might give you a feel for salaries in your area.

I realize it's not the best time to ask for a raise, so this year I'm going to ask for additional vacation time instead.

 

[ls99]

Sorry I do not have an answer.

I had never asked for a raise, in any j*b, ever. I always lived by a cartoon I saw in my twenties:

Shows a boss behind an ornate desk telling a poor peon, - frankly, if you were worth more then what we pay you, you'd be out there getting it. I did have several empl*yers as a result of my attitude.

 

[brewer12345]

Generally agree with LS. If you deserve a raise and your current employer cannot see that, go get a current market bid for your services. Then again, I tend to think of myself as a consultant who only has one client at a time.

 

[Zero]

A lot depends on the size of the organization. In a very small company, say 10 employees, then going in to see the boss and using something like "I need more money to help make ends meet." is probably not that bad an approach if it's honest. And that boss might know if that is true or not.

In a large organization, say a division of MegaCorp with 5,000-10,000 employees there is usually a "pool" percentage for raises which represents a performance of "meets expectations". And, having been part of that process of deciding my employees raises, it seemed to be fair and work well IMHO.

So asking for a raise in that environment was tougher, because the inputs generally represented the immediate manager, project mangers who knew your performance level and HR judging your worth to the company in comparison to other companies.

Bottom line: If you feel you need the raise, I'd try this one.

Ask for a meeting (gives the boss time to practice NO) and firmly say, " I would like to discuss an increase in my salary because I feel my performance and contribution level warrant a higher salary." Be prepared to give examples.

He can only say NO. That is unless the company is looking for ways to cut staff.

Good luck.

 

[ziggy29]

In a large organization, say a division of MegaCorp with 5,000-10,000 employees there is usually a "pool" percentage for raises which represents a performance of "meets expectations". And, having been part of that process of deciding my employees raises, it seemed to be fair and work well IMHO.

Yeah, that's what my employer does. Of course, this year and probably next year as well, that "pool percentage" is zero...

 

[Zero]

Z29, saw that happen a few times during my sentence. Hard to tell an employee, "hey, you did exactly what we asked of you, NO RAISE for you."

We had a 4x4 matrix: Pay rank in your grade versus Perfomance
.............Far exceeds.....Exceeds.....Does Not Meet....Under Performs
75-100%....1%................0%..............0%.....................0%
50-75%......2%................1%..............1%.....................0%
25-50%......3%................2%..............1%.....................0%
0-25%........4%................3%..............2%.....................0%

This is about what the last one I saw looked and rough math would say the majority would fall into the center and so average raise looks less than 1.25%. AND, that was back several years.

I cannot imagine why my old MegaCorp would even go thru the process. Seems like lots of time and effort could be saved by saying, look everyone gets Zero now and but in the future when money is available, any injustices will be remedied.

Maybe only reward the lowest paid and highest performers.