That's a fair point, but as an employee if I'm forced to use job offers to argue for a fair wage, you are increasing the chances that I will find an offer that I decide to take without challenging you with it.
As an employee, if I have to battle with management for a fair wage by leveraging other offers, you aren't an employer I will show the tiniest shred of loyalty to when I find even a slightly better offer, and I would struggle to justify giving two weeks notice instead of quitting on the spot.
You are painting a picture where management takes an adversarial stance to interactions with their employees. This does not sound like a healthy work environment to me.
- I was giving advice to someone asking how to ask for a raise. Asking for a raise is always going to be somewhat adversarial. Either it's a really small company, in which case money is likely tight, or it's a large company and budgets have been set, so raises outside the normal cycle are always going to be difficult.
- As a manager, I try to preemptively ensure that my most valuable directs can't pull this on me. I've got the industry data and I use it during the prescribed EoY period to suggest adjustments that I feel compensate them above what they would get offered elsewhere. I've recommended giving devs $10k+/yr in addition to their normal EoY raises simply because I thought there was a chance they're getting down near their market rate.
If I err, it's on the side of caring too much for my team and I try to take care of them whenever possible. But asking for an off-cycle raise is going to require a sell job on my part and I need them to give me the ammunition necessary or it isn't going to happen. That's just the way things are when you're at a large organization with a reasonably-sophisticated budgeting process.
Perhaps that's the other nugget to offer someone looking to get paid more...timing is really important. Management may be completely sympathetic to your request and agree that you should be paid more, but basically have their hands tied in terms of giving it to you. If you're asking at a time when salary adjustments are common, getting a larger adjustment will likely be easier, especially if it's tied to an above-average review.
Comments
That's a fair point, but as an employee if I'm forced to use job offers to argue for a fair wage, you are increasing the chances that I will find an offer that I decide to take without challenging you with it.
As an employee, if I have to battle with management for a fair wage by leveraging other offers, you aren't an employer I will show the tiniest shred of loyalty to when I find even a slightly better offer, and I would struggle to justify giving two weeks notice instead of quitting on the spot.
You are painting a picture where management takes an adversarial stance to interactions with their employees. This does not sound like a healthy work environment to me.
Two points:
- I was giving advice to someone asking how to ask for a raise. Asking for a raise is always going to be somewhat adversarial. Either it's a really small company, in which case money is likely tight, or it's a large company and budgets have been set, so raises outside the normal cycle are always going to be difficult.
- As a manager, I try to preemptively ensure that my most valuable directs can't pull this on me. I've got the industry data and I use it during the prescribed EoY period to suggest adjustments that I feel compensate them above what they would get offered elsewhere. I've recommended giving devs $10k+/yr in addition to their normal EoY raises simply because I thought there was a chance they're getting down near their market rate.
If I err, it's on the side of caring too much for my team and I try to take care of them whenever possible. But asking for an off-cycle raise is going to require a sell job on my part and I need them to give me the ammunition necessary or it isn't going to happen. That's just the way things are when you're at a large organization with a reasonably-sophisticated budgeting process.
Perhaps that's the other nugget to offer someone looking to get paid more...timing is really important. Management may be completely sympathetic to your request and agree that you should be paid more, but basically have their hands tied in terms of giving it to you. If you're asking at a time when salary adjustments are common, getting a larger adjustment will likely be easier, especially if it's tied to an above-average review.