Negotiating With Your Boss For a Raise: Five Effective Approaches to Try

In this episode of the Conflict Skills Podcast, host Simon Goode delves into five strategic approaches for negotiating a raise with your boss, focusing on various conflict types: data, interest, values, structure, and relationship. Through professional examples and personal anecdotes, Simon illustrates how to effectively prepare for these conversations.

website: simongoode.com
email: podcast@simongoode.com

Transcript

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Well, hello, and welcome back to the Conflict Skills Podcast. I'm your host, professional mediator, Simon Goode. In today's episode of the podcast, I'm going to be talking about 5 different options that you can use to ask your boss for a raise. Now, this is obviously a topic that's useful for a lot of people if you'd like to earn more money for doing the same job and the same work that you're already doing, then, you know, obviously stay tuned, and I hope that some of the tools will be useful for you. But I decided to do this topic or to choose this topic for the episode today after a conflict resolution training that I did a couple of weeks ago. It was actually with a Korean company, and I was explaining the different five types of conflict. We're looking specifically at construction, so going through a different couple of case studies around a particular person on-site that thought that things should be done the way that they wanted it to, and we were discussing options for a site manager responding, for example, particularly when they were rubbing other people up the wrong way or it was causing issues with the work that needed to be done. Anyway, as I mentioned, this was a company that was established by people from a Korean background, and most of the staff group were also Koreans, and I really like South Korea. I've lived overseas in Korea. I lived in this city called Busan for a couple of years teaching English when I first got married, a bit over, probably almost 15 years ago now, actually. So I'm familiar and I've gotten to know a little bit of, you know, the Korean culture to some extent, and I have an incredibly warm soft spot myself for Korea and Koreans. I find them just really lovely to work with. I appreciate the differential and respectful attitude that they often bring to professional relationships, but at the same time, there is obviously such a strong work ethic, for example, of not avoiding hard work. They're obviously willing to go above and beyond a lot of the time. And this particular business, their their business model seemed to be about taking a really light touch approach to solving problems for their clients. They were doing a lot of last minute kind of work, like if storms had come and damaged something in a building, they would come in on Monday and get it fixed as soon as possible. And they would come in almost like these positive fairies behind the scenes that would just sort out what need to be sorted and then send you the invoice at the end, and they were saying that this had been such a successful business model for them and they were gradually expanding the number of repeat clients that they had, etcetera. Anyway, Koreans often have quite a strict hierarchy or a structured hierarchy in terms of the leadership within their organization. I can remember this was quite jarring for me when I first arrived in Korea and I was getting trained in terms of the different curriculum and stuff that we were going to be using to teach English. And, of course, me, you know, I have a big ego, so I think that I know best, so even on probably literally day 1, I was putting up my hand saying, I think this would be a better way to do it. And I can remember almost this look of incredulousness on the instructors. It's like, what are you doing? Like, you're a student. You're a low level employee. I'm a manager here. Kind of like shut up and do what you told, and I think, actually, that was the expectation. It was a top down leadership style. These decisions had already been made, and they weren't particularly interested in looking for options for optimizing things. They just wanted me and everybody else in my role to be doing it like we were supposed to be. And so, this took some adjustment for me and as I moved into leadership roles within the Korean business, I was working as the head teacher for the last 12 months at the school. I was almost playing the middleman between the Korean manager who had this top down leadership style with the other foreign teachers who probably anticipated a little bit more of a collaborative approach. So as part of this hierarchy, it's pretty uncommon for leaders and managers to admit that they have anything wrong. And so when I was doing this workshop a couple of weeks ago with this Korean company, I was surprised, to be honest, when the director that I can't remember if it was the director or the general manager, but the boss effectively said that they weren't sure what I meant by these 5 types of conflict. So the I was explaining this tool, the 5 types of conflict that are often referred to, data, relationship, values, interest, and structure. So these are the 5 different types of conflict, and I often talk about this as an in in an inbound sense, like maybe you're a manager and you see some conflict going on between 2 staff. I really like these 5 types of conflict tool for dealing with those kind of situations because it helps us to, I guess, apply a lens to analyze and understand what's going on, which then helps us to develop options. But you can also use these 5 types of conflict tool in a proactive sense. And so in the session, I was incredibly impressed by this Korean manager's willingness to admit that they didn't understand something fully, and this was reasonably early on in the training workshop. And I noticed it had this dramatic market effect of, I think, encouraging the other participants in the group to ask questions and admit when they didn't understand something. And the discussion throughout the rest of that workshop was incredibly helpful. People were, I think, somewhat willing to share their experiences and maybe even when they weren't sure that they'd done something right, and it meant that the conversation was incredibly productive and the feedback, certainly, at the end of the session was very positive. So I love that. I love the fact that this Korean manager was willing to almost admit that they didn't understand something, and it set a really helpful precedent for their staff being able to do the same thing rather than pretending that they understood even when they might not fully get their head around it. But I also, in the moment, felt a wave of what would you call it? Like anxiety or self consciousness or something? Because I just explained something and then one of the participants put their hand up and said, I don't understand. And I have to admit that there was a tiny part of me that was, like, self focused. Oh, my goodness. I've messed this up. I've done this wrong. I'm always mix mixing up my words, like, I'm not exactly sure what the specific story was that I was telling myself, but it was probably something negative about myself. So I have a little ego, a tiny bit of me, that wants to rectify the scales and balance the ledger in that respect too. So I thought this could be a nice opportunity maybe to get back at the boss for asking a question that made me feel silly in the moment, and I'll help their staff develop strategies for asking them for a raise down the track. Now, I'm not sure that this would be a particularly useful thing for these staff in this situation given the fact that, you know, I'm somewhat familiar with the business structure and the boss, etcetera, and I wonder if there is much opportunity for negotiating a raise in their role at the moment, but this could be something that they use down the track. So I'm gonna talk about these 5 different types of conflict and specifically looking at that topic of how we can prepare for a conversation where we're wanting to negotiate with our boss for a raise. Now I think the first type of conflict that I would start with is data. Here, we're wanting to look at the facts. So as I'm preparing for a negotiation with my boss, I might talk about facts about how much I've worked, like how many hours I've put in. I could talk about the outputs, like the projects that I've delivered or the amount of success that I've had or maybe the benefits that this has generated for the company, like the, the accounts that I hold have brought in, you know, $1,500,000 over the past 5 years or something like that. I could talk about industry standards, like, that could be a data element that I refer to. You might not be aware of the fact that graduates now get paid this, and actually that's quite close to me despite the fact that I've got now 7 or 8 years of experience, something like that. So So we could talk about facts in terms of the context, in terms of my input, in terms of how long I've been in the role or some type of qualification that I've got since then, or I'd particularly look for opportunities for highlighting change. Like this was a fair arrangement when I first started here. This was the salary that you offered me and I accepted it, and I'm not here to dispute that. It's not like I've got a chip on my shoulder and I've been sitting here feeling resentful. At the same time, given the fact that these things have changed, I was hoping for an opportunity to maybe just renegotiate and get on the same page moving forward. We could talk about facts in terms of expectations as well, like this was what you had in mind or this was what we anticipated that I would be doing. Actually, as it's turned out, I'm performing at this higher role or I've needed to do more travel or whatever the thing is that has been different than what you expected. You can also use data conflict to ask for metrics. Like, maybe you could ask your boss, what would you need to see from me in terms of deliverables to consider me for this senior role, or what would you need to see from me in terms of a track record that would give you confidence that I was worth the investment of paying for this course that I want to do or something like that, like putting me through an MBA. We could finally talk about data regarding the process, like, maybe we haven't had a chance to discuss my career over the past 12 months or it's been over 12 months since I've had a salary increase. And so as such, I wanted to find time to touch base if possible. So here, we're trying to, I guess, talk about the information, talk about the context or what's going on, but what we don't want to do is to give our boss the impression that we're criticizing them. As soon as we come across as either complaining or whinging or maybe even telling them that they've done the wrong thing, like, this has been unfair for a long time now and it needs to change, of course, the natural invitation is that our boss would take on the adversarial role. They'll get in a debate. They'll explain why actually it is fair or why I don't realize what's actually going on or something like that. So I don't want it to be me against you. I would like to use language, I guess, that's collaborative where possible. Could we find the time to discuss this? I'd like to know your thoughts. Could we go through options? I'd like to make sure we're on the same page, that kind of thing. The second type of conflict that you could consider is interest conflict. So this is thinking about what's important for you. So when we're talking about a raise, what do you want? Like, how much money and how come? What kind of a difference would that actually make for you if you get that raise? I think probably for a lot of people, when they go in for a negotiation about a raise, they don't actually have a tangible idea in their head about what they're going to propose. It's almost like I'm gonna see what I can get. I'm gonna get as much as I can, and that's not a very strategic way to prepare for a negotiation because, of course, you're never going to have any idea as to how much value that you've potentially left on the table. So you should think clearly about exactly what amount of money that you want and why. Like, what difference would it make? Is that to do with the increased costs or you wanna save for a holiday or it's, you know, some type of industry benchmark or something like that? Like, we really do need to think strategically about this, and I know for me, I haven't been in a position for a few years now where I've needed to earn a certain amount of money to pay the car lease or the credit card bills or whatever. But for me, I had an idea in my head about how much money I wanted to earn by the time I was 50, for example, and so I needed to make sure that my trajectory was on track for that. Now that's not necessarily going to inform specifically the amount of money that I need to ask for, but it does give me information about the minimums that I should accept. And if I'm not going to get a dollar amount increase, then what I'm looking for in terms of my interest is the capacity for growth. So it might be a company paying for me to do qualifications or mentoring or giving me a higher level of experience that would give me a more diverse portfolio in terms of my resume or networking opportunities where I can get in touch with senior people from other companies that might potentially be looking at hiring me in 3 or 4 years' time. So I would think clearly about all of the other things that I want as well as dollars. And with the dollars, how much do I want and why? And then that might even give us some information about what we should propose, like, how urgently do you need to get it or would you be satisfied with a small incremental increase over the next few months or do you want a bonus arrangement, or, like, what kind of thing are you actually looking for? We should also think about interest conflict as well, though, in terms of what does our boss want and what does the company want. Now, I think about it at different levels, like the individual decision maker, my boss, what's in it for them? What kind of person are they? What resonates with them? Are they aspirational and they're a rising star and want to make sure that they're getting credit for projects or is it an ego driven kind of person that it is pride and reputation that's important to them? Maybe for them, they just want to minimize work and headaches and they're approaching the end of their career and, you know, they're not so driven. They're actually wanting to make sure that they can leave the office at 5 PM no matter what. So then I would offer them different things, like, if you're willing to approve this raise or if you'd consider me for this opportunity, then I would be willing to take on more of a leadership role, which would mean that you can focus on more big picture planning. I really like that way of, talking to managers and directors and company owners as well, by the way. Like, I would I'll take some things off your plate, and that would free you up for the bigger picture strategic thinking. Like, I know what I'm actually going to free up their time for is probably playing golf, but, of course, we can't say that to them. Of course, you would want more time out, whereas people really like the fact that you say to them, wouldn't you like more time to focus on strategy? Thanks, Simon. That's a really great point. I do need to focus on strategy more. I I should probably consider you for that senior opportunity, something like that. So what do they want? And maybe you can ask them the right questions to say, look, what what do you need to see from me? What kind of things are going on in the team? Where do you see the priorities at the moment? And then within the organization, you know, at a team level or a division level or a company level, what's important to them? What's on the radar? What does the sector look like at the moment? Is there a lot of change happening? Is there a new bunch of legislation? And then we would think about how we factor into this. In other words, why are you important to your company? Maybe you do have a real life for detail or you've got a high level of experience or you've got some really good soft skills in terms of communication, and we want to basically highlight both of our interests. For me, because I've got a young family support, I need to make sure that I'm being paid in line with industry standards. At the same time, I know that we've got a number of changes happening within the team at the moment, and you're probably wanting to make sure that you can hold on to your more senior staff so that there's a bit of stability during this time of a lot of change. As such, I wanted to talk about salary. This is what I had in mind. What do you think? The third type of conflict that we could use and leverage is values conflict. Now, this might be values that the boss or the company has talked about themself like. I know you're a person that really wants to make sure that people have paid fairly or you want to make sure that there's consistency across the organization or I know for you, succession planning is something that's really on your radar given the fact that you've seen other departments get caught short when their staff have left or something like that. Like, what is their value? Is it fairness or honesty or transparency or supporting people? And I'd say to them, look, this is one way that you could do this. How does that sit with you? And then in your value, you should often, I think, to be honest, communicate commitment. Now I think this is a very bizarre thing that's emerged in modern organizational culture that we think that we should be like a family and, like, even my wife at the moment, she's driving up to do an interview for a raise in her position. And she needs to demonstrate things like commitment to the organization or how you've contributed to the culture and all this sort of stuff. And for me, I just wanna throw up in my mouth when I hear all this stuff, like, I just think if you pay me to do my job and I've done my job, then what else do you want? Like, do you know what I mean? Do you need some type of emotional connection or something like that? But, obviously, for many organizations, this is a strong value that they hold, and so you will want to communicate something along the lines of you being willing to toe the line at at the least. But I would find a way to say something about how you can integrate this. Like, I know within this organization that, commitment or contributing to culture or something that's important, here are some of the ways that I've done that or that I'd be prepared to do that moving forward. And then on your end, I know this is one of your values, and surely you would wanna support your staff or pay us fairly or recognize the contribution that I've made or something like that given that this is one of your values. The 4th type of conflict that we could leverage is structure. And here we could think about simple reward structures like, if I can do x, then can I have y? You know, if I'm able to bring in this new account, then can I have this bonus? What do you think? And negotiating that ahead of time, obviously, would be more likely to be successful than trying to do it retrospectively. But even saying things like, could we meet sooner, or could we consider options for, maybe negotiating my salary outside of the normal structure that we would use given the fact that I'm managing a program that's different to the other managers or something like that. Like, there might be elements of structure that you can use to refer to to justify the fact that you're getting a raise or there might be options that you could propose in terms of structure, like more frequent increases or some type of a metric or KPI that you could use. And then finally, we could use options for relationship conflict. You are the best boss I've ever had. Have I ever had a chance to tell you what a wonderful shirt that is and how great that color looks on you? Like, we could use all of the schmoozy type of relationship stuff, like, take them out for lunch. To be honest, I think I actually asked people, I'd really value your opinion, you know. You're somebody who I hold in incredibly high esteem, and you're really a role model for me, so I'd love your input in terms of the things that I should be focusing on to progress in my career. So, you know, it's like I see you as important. Let me invite you to play a part in this as a little bit of a problem solver and you can have a bit of engagement to buy in with my own career progression. But sometimes it is saying something, like, look, I just wanna be transparent and at the moment, the salary is not in line with what I need moving forward. I don't have any plans to leave and I haven't begun to apply for jobs. But at the same time, I'm not sure how long I'm going to be able to stay here under the current conditions. So, look, it doesn't have to be today or or even this week necessarily, but could we organize the time over the next 2 or 3 weeks to discuss salary and pay arrangements? So here, we're looking at leveraging some of the goodwill that we have between us. There might be a high level of trust or you do know each other, especially if you've got a relationship outside of work. I think you need to tread a little bit carefully here because you don't want to introduce the idea that there's some type of nepotism or, you know, you're being rewarded for something that's not in line with your work performance. So the focus of the requests and of the conversation has to be about performance, but I guess it's almost like behind the scenes or in between the cracks. We look at leveraging the relationship stuff, like go out for a coffee instead of meeting in a formal meeting room. It might just change the vibe and change the tone, and so as you go through that process of negotiating with your boss, you might be able to get to a more positive outcome than you would otherwise if it was more of a formal adversarial, you know, structured kind of a process. Sitting in a big formal meeting room, for example, it's just different, isn't it? So how does that sit with you thinking about that topic of how to prepare and how to ask your boss for a raise and some of the options that we have for negotiating that, looking at those 5 different types of conflict, the data, interest, value, structure, and relationship? I'd love to hear your thoughts. If you're listening on a pod on a platform like, Apple or Spotify, please feel free to leave a comment. I'd love to hear your thoughts around what resonated, and is it useful, or maybe that sounds completely like it's not your style and you've got no idea how this would work for any other people. And what would you like to see in a future episode of the podcast? Is there a particular topic that you'd like me to talk about? A scenario that you find challenging? A particular personality that's difficult where you work? I'd love to hear your thoughts. You can shoot me an email, it's podcast at simongood.com. I've just finally set up my website, my new website. I've moved over to the new one just this week, so you can see it's sort of a bit different format, and I've actually added a section with episodes of the podcast, and I'm going to include some new resources that I'm uploading as well. I've just put one up about some breathing techniques for managing stress, and I'm writing an article at the moment on the 5 different types of apology. So if you'd like to get some access for some of those resources for dealing with conflict, whether it's related to workplace or conflict outside of work, you can check out my website. It's simongood.com, so sim0ng, double o, d e.com. But aside from that, thank you very much for listening. If you're preparing to negotiate a raise, good luck, and I hope that you're able to get as much value as possible, and I'll hope to see you again in a future episode of the podcast. Bye for now.