Know what your worth!

How far are you going to let your boss beat you down before you come out feeling like a loser? You have to go into this negotiation knowing what is the least you are prepared to settle for. Otherwise you may come out with nothing. It’s no good saying, ‘Can I have a pay rise please?’ and then, when your boss declines, saying, ‘Oh well, it was worth a try’, and leaving.

It’s up to you to decide what your bottom line is. Maybe your personal expenses have increased and you need to get a minimum pay rise to cover them. Or perhaps you simply feel that you don’t want to work for an organization that won’t recognize your worth. Maybe you want a bare minimum of a 20 per cent rise, or perhaps you’d settle for an undertaking to give you a rise in six months if you reach an agreed performance target. Your bottom line may be well below the figure you’re really aiming for, or it may be the same figure.

The important thing is to know your bottom line and then stick to it. And, of course, decide what you’ll do if your boss refuses even that much (although if you’re realistic, you’ve done your homework, you’re worth more than you’re paid and you negotiate competently, there’s no reason for your boss to refuse it). If you’re not ready to hold out for the bottom-line figure, there’s little point in negotiating. If you don’t hold firm you might as well just say ‘How about it?’ to your boss on the off-chance they up your salary without argument.

By the way, whatever you do, don’t give away what your bottom line is. ‘It’s for you to know and them to find out’, as they say. At least, let them think they’ve found out by beating you down to it. But if you’re canny, they won’t ever haggle you down that far. If your boss finds out what your bottom line is, they won’t stop until they’ve ground you down to it. So don’t let them find out until they reach it. At that point you can, if you wish, say ‘That’s my absolute bottom line’.

And don’t, whatever you do, cry wolf. If you insist you’ve reached your bottom line and then subsequently agree to drop below it, your boss will quite reasonably disbelieve you when you finally claim – truthfully – that yet another figure really is your bottom line. And if they don’t believe you, they’ll keep trying to batter you down and the pair of you may never reach an agreement that works for you both.

Leverage? What Leverage?
You might be thinking that you have nothing to negotiate with unless you’re prepared to hand in your notice. If you’re not, all your boss has to do is flatly refuse any rise, and that’s that. Not so. You’re here because you are worth more than you’re being paid. That extra value is your leverage. We’ve seen that threats don’t work, but you can always find other ways of phrasing the point you’re making. For example: ‘I feel I’m worth more than I’m earning because of all the extra hours I put in. If those extra hours weren’t going to be rewarded, I would have to ask myself why I work them.’ You’re not threatening to work to rule, but your boss can see that you have bargaining counters too.

When you ask for a pay rise your boss may agree to everything you’re asking for, or to most of it, or to a small percentage, or to none at all. But when it comes to promotion, either you get the job or you don’t. Occasionally your employer might create a new intermediate post for you, but generally a no is precisely that. No.

So what do you do? You have the option of leaving, of course, and you might decide to do that if you feel you want to move up the ladder and there’s not likely to be another opportunity here for a while. But most people who miss out on promotion still choose to stay in the organization. Assuming you want to stay -at least for the moment – how do you handle being turned down? There are two important steps you can take to make sure that you still benefit from the situation, even though you haven’t got the job you wanted:

• Ask why you weren’t appointed to the job.
• Ask for a pay rise.

Why didn’t you get the job?
Fix up a meeting with your boss, following all the guidelines for asking for a pay rise: preparing your case, and setting up a good half hour to an hour in private with them. Begin by asking for the reasons why you missed out on the promotion. You felt you were a strong candidate, and you’d like to know what your boss considered were your weak points so that you can work on them. That way, you’ll stand a better chance next time.

If your boss tries to flannel you, and tell you you’re wonderful but the successful candidate was even better, explain that this isn’t very helpful: ‘I really want to know where I was weak, or where they were stronger than me, so that I can improve my chances next time there’s a possibility of promotion. I appreciate that you don’t want to hurt my feelings, but you’ll be doing me a favor if you give me feedback that helps me in future.’

Get your boss to be as specific as possible about any areas where you may have failed to make the grade:
• qualifications
• skills
• experience
• interpersonal skills.

Make a written note so you can’t forget what they’ve said, and then make it your mission to work on all these areas ready for the next promotion opportunity. There’s no point arguing with your boss about their opinions of you. For one thing, the decision is made now. And for another, if they perceive that you are weak, that’s what counts: they make the decisions on promotion. It doesn’t matter what you think.

If your boss has, say, three reasons for not promoting you yet and you argue defensively and vociferously with the first one, they may decide not to bother to mention the others and thus save themselves an unpleasant row. Few people enjoy criticizing others, so make it easy for them. Otherwise you may never find out all the things you need to know to improve your chances next time.

Swallow Your Pride
Whatever happens, make sure you are pleasant and co-operative with the person who gets the job you wanted, even if you now have to work directly under them. They may be a previous colleague or someone from outside the organization. Either way, by taking the job, they only did what you would have done yourself in their position. No matter how strongly you believe they are the wrong person for the job, if you behave badly towards them in any way, you will be seen as petty and mean-spirited. This image will do nothing for your chances of promotion, salary increase or anything else in the future. Be magnanimous, however, and you’ll score big brownie points.

Ask for a pay rise
You’ve just gone through the whole process of demonstrating your value in order to earn the promotion. You may have missed out there, but you’ve almost certainly shown that you are at least some way better than the job you’re doing. So capitalize on this opportunity to get your salary increased, according to all the principles we’ve already covered.

And let’s not forget that you have the psychological advantage here. I’m not suggesting you ask for a rise you don’t deserve, but there’s no denying that this is good timing. Your boss has already turned you down for promotion. They’re going to feel dreadful if they don’t even give you a pay rise in compensation. Of course, they may be prepared to feel dreadful. But if you’ve got a strong case for a rise, it would take a pretty hard-headed boss to refuse you just now.

No chance?
And what if there’s no chance for promotion? Maybe you work for a small company, or in a ‘flat’ organization. Or perhaps it’s just that no one above you shows any sign of leaving, so the opportunity doesn’t arise. If this happens, don’t despair. You simply need to create a new job for yourself and make sure you get the salary and the job title that reflects the added responsibilities and achievements.

You’re going to need a strong case and good negotiating skills to get what you want from this meeting. But there’s something else you need on top of this: psychology. The aim is to persuade your boss that they want to give you a pay rise, and the better you handle the human side of the meeting, so to speak, the more likely they are to feel co-operative.

Don't get this stressed!

None of the guidelines for handling the meeting are complex behavioral techniques. It’s simply a matter of acting in a positive and pleasant way, and avoiding anything that will put your boss’s back up. The result will be a strong, clear and well-presented case for a rise (or whatever else you want) which your boss will be keen to support. This enthusiasm on their part will be a big help when they go on to talk to their own manager to OK your rise.

You don’t need a book to tell you that you’ll have more success if you’re pleasant than if you’re belligerent, but it is helpful to have a list of dos and don’ts to maximize your chances of coming across as a deserving special case whom your boss would like to reward fully. So here it is.

Things to Do
By and large, your best approach is to be yourself. It’s tough enough going into a negotiation over something as important as your salary or position, without feeling that you also have to remember a list of things you are or aren’t supposed to be doing. So read through this list, and take note of any areas where you feel you are weak, but don’t get hung up on getting it perfect. Be yourself and avoid getting things very wrong. But don’t panic that a single poorly worded phrase is going to lose you a couple of thousand pounds a year, because it doesn’t work like that.

Know Your Boss
Different people approach issues in different ways. Some of us are logical, some are cynical, some are touchy-feely, some are intuitive and so on. Think about which kind of approach your boss tends to adopt, and then help them by presenting your case in this way. Your written document should be clear-cut and factual – it has to do the trick for managers further up the organization too – but the terms in which you couch your arguments at the salary review can be tailored to meet your boss’s natural style. For example:

• If your boss is the logical, rational type, and maybe also a stickler for keeping a tight control on the budget, you’ll need to show plenty of figures that clearly demonstrate the monetary value you contribute to the organization.

• Cynical or wary bosses are going to want evidence to back up any figures you provide, especially those that benchmark your salary against outside organizations.
• The boss who likes to make fast, intuitive decisions won’t want to be bored with detail, so you’ll need to make sure you bring out all the key points fast.
• Some bosses respond well to emotional appeals. This doesn’t mean emotional blackmail or self-pitying whining, of course. But explaining that you feel undervalued will cut a deal more ice with these bosses than with many others.
• Underassertive bosses will need plenty of good, clear, strong arguments to give them the courage to argue your case to their own boss.

These are just a few examples to give you the picture. You should find the key to your own boss’s style if you think about the kind of proposals they tend to accept or turn down, and the way in which they prefer information to be presented.

Getting the Measure of Them
If you think about it, you can tell how your boss is likely to respond to a request for a rise by the way they respond to other requests. Think about their response to proposals, to ideas put to them in meetings, and to other requests such as for compassionate leave or new office furniture. And consider not only how they respond to you, but also how you’ve seen them respond to other people.

Be Positive
A positive attitude is far more attractive and encouraging for other people to deal with. It puts them in a good mood, and that’s just what you want right now. So don’t tell your boss you’re fed up and miserable about your salary; find a positive way of expressing how you feel (without being positive about your current salary, of course).

The way to do this is to be positive about everything else, and to imply that your salary is the only blot on the otherwise beautiful landscape that is your working life. So tell your boss that you enjoy your job, that you find the challenge of it inspiring, that you like the people you work with, that you see a good future for yourself in the company, and so on. Your only gripe is that you don’t feel your salary reflects your full value.

Listen
Your boss is going to have a point of view to express, and perhaps examples of your performance to discuss, in the course of your salary review. If you don’t listen properly, dismiss their opinions or interrupt before they’ve finished speaking, they will be riled and irritated – not a mood likely to incline them to up your salary. So you need to go into the meeting prepared to listen properly and show you are listening:

• Make eye contact.
• Relax, but lean slightly towards them.
• Show you’re listening with sounds and phrases such as ‘Mmm’ and ‘Yes, I see’.
• Repeat back key phrases to them so they can see you’ve understood: ‘So you set the wages budget by the end of July each year.’

Don't stress out!

It is important to listen attentively to your boss, not only to avoid irritating them, but also so you can effectively counter any arguments they make against giving you the rise you want.

Listen Up
If the guidelines for listening all sound like a lot to remember without looking awkward and stilted, there is an easier way: Just concentrate genuinely on what they are saying and the body language will look after itself.

Things Not to Do
So those are the key positive behaviors that will help to win your boss over. But there are also certain negative behaviors that will actively deter your boss from giving you what you want. There are classic ploys or characteristics that far too many people use, to their own detriment, and the most common and damaging are outlined here.

Don’t Whinge
Whingeing is negative and depressing to listen to. It also implies a criticism of the person you’re whingeing to – if they haven’t done anything about it they are responsible for all your ills. So don’t come up with a long list of complaints about how dreadful your current remuneration is. And don’t whinge when you compare your salary to other people’s (in or out of the company), or you’ll simply sound envious. Envy is not a reason to give someone a rise.

If you allow yourself to be labelled as a whinger, you instantly reduce your value to the organization – and this is not the moment to be doing that. You also run the risk of coming across as a permanent whinger, and permanent whingers constantly complain about their salary (without necessarily adding value to themselves to justify a rise). It’s not a label that will help you with this pay rise or the next.

The thing about whingers is that they go on about the past and the present -you can avoid sounding whingey (if you suspect that you may be at risk of it) by focusing on the future: the value you will be bringing to the organization over the next months and years. It’s much harder to whinge about the future.

Don’t Make Accusations
You’re not going to endear yourself to your boss if you say, ‘You promised at my last pay review…’ or ‘You said my salary would go up by more than it did…’, and so on. This doesn’t mean you can’t draw their attention to past undertakings, but don’t put your boss on the defensive. Point out politely that ‘when we last discussed my salary, we decided it would be worth reviewing it again around now …’or ‘I had understood that my salary would be increased by at least 6 per cent at the last review, and I was disappointed when the increase was only 4 per cent’.

If your boss is going to be swayed by a reminder of past promises, a polite memory-jog will be sufficient. If they are not prepared to fulfill their promise (and you don’t have a written guarantee), making belligerent accusations will simply cause them to dig their heels in further, I’m afraid.

Usually what happens is that your boss genuinely has a different recollection of what was agreed. Either one of you has misremembered the conversation, or there was a misunderstanding at the time. If you accuse your boss of reneging on a deal they really don’t think they made (whatever the actual truth of it), you are only going to make them angry, which is counter-productive to the object of the exercise – getting your pay rise.

The real point is that what matters is to agree with your boss that you are worth more than you are being paid. If you can achieve that, you have established that you deserve a pay rise, no matter what was or wasn’t said last time. So swallow your frustration when your boss has memory loss – real or imagined – and get on with the more relevant task of proving your worth.

Get it Down
If there seems to be a disagreement about what was promised in the past and you want to be sure the same problem doesn’t arise again, note down the salient points of this review as minutes or as a memo and copy them to your boss. That way you’ll both know for next time.

Don’t Blackmail
Never say, overtly or implicitly, that you will look for another job if you don’t get your pay rise. It is quite pointless, whatever the circumstances:

• If your boss doesn’t believe you, your credibility will be undermined along with your claim for a rise.
• If your boss does believe you, they will resent the threat and this will put them off giving you what you want. They may be prepared to let you go.
• If you don’t really mean it, your boss may call your bluff by saying, ‘If that’s the way you really feel, perhaps you would be better off looking for another company prepared to pay more than we will.’ Now you’re in trouble, and you’ve completely undermined your request for a rise.

The stark fact is that few of us are as irreplaceable as we’d like to think we are, and your boss may be far more likely to call your bluff than you anticipate.

‘Ah but’, you may be wondering, ‘what if I really am intending to leave if I don’t get what I want?’ Well, even in that case, there’s still nothing to gain by blackmail, and it can still backfire. The mere fact that you are negotiating over pay means that you would like to stay with the organization, even if only on your terms. If blackmailing gets you what you’re after, you still end up with a relationship with your boss that has been soured by what your boss will see as underhand tactics. This will do nothing for your future requests for pay rises, promotion or extra benefits or perks.

There is only one technique that really works in this situation, and it doesn’t involve blackmail. You start by giving your request for a pay rise (or whatever it is you want) your best shot, and giving your boss and their managers every opportunity to reward you appropriately for your contribution to the organization. If they refuse, you go out and get yourself another job – one that you fully intend to take. Then you hand in your resignation and explain to your boss, pleasantly but firmly, that their decision to offer you less than you feel you are worth has led you to find yourself a job with an organization more prepared to recognize your value.

If there is any chance that your employers might be jolted into paying you more they will make a better offer at this point. Perhaps they didn’t realize that you were such a hot prospect, or maybe they didn’t realize how strongly you felt. Or, very likely, they thought they could get away with offering you a more modest pay rise. If they don’t make you an offer, it is because they would rather let you go than pay you more, in which case you’re better off in your new job. It should be obvious that it is extremely rash to use this technique if you’re not serious about leaving unless you get your rise, since you may well end up doing just that.

Don’t Blow it for Next Time
Remember that whether or not you get the rise you want, you still have to work with your boss. What’s more, you want to lay the groundwork for getting a good pay rise or promotion next time round. So don’t behave in a way that is likely to be detrimental to your working relationship or you’ll undermine your own position.