Oct 24 2008
Overworked and Underpaid
pix of sunset in Winthrop, Maine by Jess Haberman
Based on our scenario, you have approached your boss because you feel you are underpaid and he says, sorry, nothing can be done. Your first instinct is perhaps to jump up and down on your chair, screaming and name calling, begging him to reconsider because they are about to foreclose. I say, don’t go there…
Granting a pay increase is justified for different reasons, but one of them is not because you spent too much money. Make the justification business related. You can argue you just earned your graduate degree and are now in a higher pay bracket. You can talk about exemplary performance (if this is true) and how you succeeded in increasing revenues by 10% or reducing waste by 14%, etc.
This is not a personal issue, it is a business decision. Give him business reasons for helping you get that raise. This could include the salary data you scraped up, the record of great performance and the ever so slight hint that you may have other offers lurking in the distance. If they want you to stay, things just might go your way.
