How to Ask for a Pay Rise From Your Employer

How to Know You Should Ask for a Pay Rise

“Do I deserve a pay rise?” Ask yourself! It’s the first step you should take before sending a pay rise email to your manager. Is it worth this rise? Be honest with your answer, as it’ll be acceptable if the answer is yes or no; you should be the first performance observer of yourself as an employee. This saves a lot of time you could waste for nothing.

Have you observed progress in your productivity and skills? Has your direct manager offered you positive feedback lately? Have you spent more than a year in the same occupation without any modification related to the salary? Is your salary below the average? Then, the time has come to ask for a pay rise.

In addition, there are some signs you need to know that make asking for a pay rise a must. They vary between internal and external signs:

The Market Pays Same Position a Higher Salary

When you are sure that your position of the same experience in other companies receives a higher rate in addition to similar other compensation benefits, this makes you take action. Is this a special case for your occupation? Or it’s a general case related to any other position in the company? In either case, you have to ask for a pay rise. 

Your Responsibilities Have Expanded Over Time

Your boss might increase your duties gradually to evaluate how you could deal with them. Finishing every task successfully lets you gain your boss’s trust and more duties. As long as this work adds to your experience and skills, it will definitely be a good opportunity for development. However, your salary rate should meet your job tasks. If tasks exceeded your job description, this would mean a pay rise.

You Are Getting Hired at a Higher Salary

To some employees, receiving a job offer from the current employer’s competitor could be a new start at a new place. Others could use the job offer as a pushing tool to request a pay rise, in case they’re a distinctive team player and don’t want to leave the place. If the current employer doesn’t afford the newly offered salary, they wish you good luck!

Your Performance Is on Fire

You are in a stronger position when you have exceeded your career goals in the past few months. Your boss can not let you down and turn off your engines; he will do a pay rise to avoid losing your high performance.

How to Know You Are Underpaid

Using an online salary calculator is a practical way to determine if you are underpaid or not. Based on your job title, years of experience, industry, and qualifications, the online salary calculator will show you the actual wage that your input meets.

You can also explore the web to find the average salary your job specifications are worth. In addition, if the company hires a new employee to be your colleague next to your desk, you have to check the offered salary if it is available in the job ad.

Some countries suffer from high inflation rates. The constant salary indicates that the employee is underpaid. This needs a salary rise policy that suits that economic problem. In this case, the pay rise could keep the value of the old salary, and the employee could cover all the expenses he has been used to paying.

How Often You Should Ask for a Pay Rise 

If you’re a new employee, you should wait at least six months to ask for a pay rise. This period allows the employer to get to know your skills and experience. However, most employers implement a pay rise after one year of employment.

Then, the pay rise should occur every year in the month that the first pay rise happened.

What’s the Best Timing to Request a Pay Rise?

There are many good times that you can utilise to ask for a pay rise. The manager provides highly positive feedback when you have a one-to-one meeting for a performance appraisal or annual performance review. Wait till the meeting ends. If he didn’t mention a pay rise, open this topic; strike while the iron is hot. 

The previous meeting should precede a follow-up email, in which you would discuss the main reasons for the pay rise quote from the manager’s talking points, illustrate the projects you were assigned and achieved success in them,

and clarify your strong characteristics and skills that directly turned into added value to the company.

Asking for another meeting on this issue will strengthen your situation, where meeting your boss again will allow you to negotiate in a better way, capture his reactions, and forecast his actual intention.

How to Ask for a Pay Rise

According to a Financial Reporter Study, only 50% of men asked for a pay rise once in their lives, while 37% of women took this action. The others didn’t do it as they were shy or didn’t know how to. They are a few easy steps:

Ask the Pay Rise in Person

After recognising the pay rise that meets the market, you’ve to schedule a meeting with the manager responsible for salary determination. The meeting could be an online video call or at the office.

Making pay rise discussion a long email thread or communication software conversation is useless. It needs a face-to-face meeting where you can illustrate your argument.

Keep the Positivity in Your Discussion

Tell your story related to the company, your role, the challenges you faced and overcame, and the time you spent working for the company. Then, showcase your achievements.

Are there any career goals you approached during this period? If so, mention how the organisational culture and environment helped you. Keeping a friendly, positive tone is essential.

Illustrate your achievements confidently, and support them with facts and results. For example, “My Marketing campaign achieved a 90% conversion rate”, “I exceeded my deals sales by 25%”, “I achieved 95% customer satisfaction on my supporting calls”, etc. 

Always Be Ready for a Pay Rise Negotiation

You should have a good command of negotiation skills for a pay rise, focus on the facts, not the goals, and mention the achievements you did in the job, not the vision you will achieve in the future. Support the facts with numbers and statistics to show the positive effect that you were part of. Simultaneously, don’t overvalue yourself, as exaggeration always causes a negative impact. 

Be confident and respectful of eye contact if you’re talking with an HR manager or your direct manager. Preserve strong body language gestures.

There is an extra tip you can utilise perfectly; add 20-30% to the targeted salary. This margin makes the negotiation process easier on stable ground.

What Is the Average Pay Rise in the UK?

Due to the recent high inflation rates, UK’s salaries are lagging. Expenses of living became much higher than the way that salaries can meet. 

According to the Office for national statistics, between March-May for a pay rise in 2022, the average rise in total pay, which includes regular pay and bonus, is 6.2%. However, by adding inflation rates, total pay decreased by 0.9%, which makes average total pay rise by 5.3%. 

By comparing the private and public sectors, the average total pay rise for the private sector was 7.2% from March to May 2022, and for the public sector, it was 1.5%.

How to Write a Pay Raise Request Letter/Email

Like any email or letter you write, it should have a compelling body, an attractive clear subject line, and a direct objective. At the beginning of the email, you should introduce yourself, your job title, department, and the period you have worked. 

In the email core, you should clearly mention the reasons for this request. Arrange the data you want to illustrate in bullet points to be easier to understand and digest. The email illustrates the pay rise in 4 parts:

1. An introduction that prefaces the request
2. what is a reasonable pay rise you are sure that you deserve?
3. The proof that supports your request
4.  A positive statement about your future with the company

A Pay Raise email request example

Dear [Manager’s name],

I hope you are doing well, sir. I am writing to you asking for a formal review of my current salary. As a [your job title] at [your employer], I have taken on a number of additional responsibilities during the past (X) years and have an excellent performance record.

I believe my achievements with the business, along with dominant market average salaries, will demonstrate justification for an increase of [X%] in my annual pay. 

My role has developed since starting with [your employer]. Added duties now include [Duties not mentioned in the job description]. I have recently achieved the following:

• Documented achievements with clear dates and effective outcomes to the business bulleted in points, where your role and contributions no one can deny.

I would like to express my gratitude towards working at the company – and how I’m looking forward to contributing to its continued success in the future.

I look forward to discussing the matter with you further.

Yours sincerely,

[Your Name]

Topics You Shouldn’t Mention on a Pay Rise

You can’t indicate the hard-living status, as it’s away from professionalism and lowers the value your job adds to the company. You can’t threaten your manager and put them in a situation that says it’s the pay rise or a resignation. 

To whom Should I Ask for a Pay Rise?

You should inform your manager of the pay rise request in all conditions. So, if he is the decision maker for such a topic, this is the only way. 

If an HR manager is responsible for pay raises, your request should be received by him through your direct boss, whom the HR manager asks about you. Maintain a positive relationship with your boss, even if you have decided to leave the company.

What if the Pay Rise Request Was Refused?

It’s never been the end of the world for a rejection. Respect his decision and ask him politely for a pay rise integrated plan. This plan includes steps that cover your weaknesses and goals you should achieve to deserve the rise. This behaviour should be adopted when the main reason for refusal is poor performance.

Create any window for negotiation to have some benefits instead of the pay rise you want. You can ask for a bonus, private means of transportation, flexible work hours, …etc. This behaviour is usually connected to situations when the company states that there is no room for a rise based on current financial difficulties the company passes through.

Whitecollars helps employees with their careers to achieve their goals, reach the positions they deserve, and always make the right decisions at the right time. The career counselling services we offer are always available to guide you along your journey. Try them now!