Asking for a pay rise: Five top tips

For a lot of people, conversations about pay and compensation can be challenging and uneasy. When surveyed, even those who reported that they felt they had an open and constructive relationship with their line manager said that they were nonetheless apprehensive when it came to pay rise conversations. 

However, we live in a society where quite often, if you don’t ask, you rarely get. So, here are our top five tips to prepare yourself for your pay rise discussion.

1. It is just business 

Of course, pay and rewards can be a very emotive and stressful topic, but to have a constructive discussion, it is best to leave emotions at the door and instead bring facts. If you have booked the meeting with your line manager in advance, then make sure you are feeling emotionally and mentally prepared so that you can get the most out of it. If you are in the unfortunate position whereby you feel significantly financially undervalued, then keep calm and try to communicate this calmly and articulately. 

2. Come prepared 

It is always best to have done your homework before entering a pay rise conversation to ensure you keep the conversation factual and merit-based. This could be a list of achievements since your last pay rise, a series of completed projects or just a demonstration of how your skill set has evolved. It is also worth noting whether your role has changed and highlighting any additional responsibilities.

If you have an up-to-date copy of your job description, then you can use this as a template to demonstrate how well you are performing. It is also useful to think of examples where you may have gone ‘above and beyond’ what is expected of your role. This may include mentoring, stretch projects, or similar.  

3. Know your worth  

The best way to understand where you sit compensation wise, is to benchmark your role. The more specific information you can get pertaining to your skill set, sector, or qualification the better. Most recruitment firms and consultancies should be able to provide this information. This insight can be really useful in highlighting to your line manager that you are prepared. When looking at this information, it is also valuable to look not just at basic salaries, but benefits packages, and other perks to give you a more holistic view. 

Related Article:  Salary & Skills Guide for finance

4) Liaise with HR

If you have an HR department, or an HR business partner, then you can also use them as a source of knowledge and advice to tackle this. They may be able to share company and market insight with you as well, which will help you further prep for the conversations ahead. Ultimately, HR departments don’t want to lose or disengage employees, so if they are a resource that is available to you in your organisation, use them.

5) Understand it can be a springboard 

As much as we all hope for immediate results, appreciate that this may take some time. Different organisations have different internal processes and timescales for pay rises, so there needs to be a mutual understanding that things may take a little time to change. Equally, these conversations can, and should, open further conversations about progression or potential growth. It is not uncommon for a line manager to identify development areas or learning opportunities that could be a part of a pay increase. Remember this is still a positive outcome as they clearly want to invest in you and are showing that there is flexibility.

If you would like to discuss your career opportunities in the market, get in touch with your local Michael Page Finance office today or create a MyPage account to make the most of our Job Match tool. Alternatively, if you are looking to hire skilled finance professionals into your team, submit a job spec here and we will connect you to one of our specialist consultants in your local market. 

Jessica Timelin 
Operating Director, Michael Page Finance