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.