3 ms·

There is great political risk in requesting a raise. Many employers would take offense and consider it an insult, and for some reason, after you've gone to that

There is great political risk in requesting a raise. Many employers would take offense and consider it an insult, and for some reason, after you've gone to that substantial political risk, a lot of employers seem to think that their employees should be content with raises of 2-5%. If you do get a raise, the counteroffer issue is still valid; your employer is given cause to question your loyalty and may be more suspicious of your contributions moving forward. This sentiment has been expressed by MS CEO Satya Nadella and I'm sure it's popular in other management circles. Ironically, it's generally less offensive as well as much more effective at getting a real increase in take-home pay to go out and get an offer from an external employer.

jsmthrowaway 10y ago
> Many employers would take offense and consider it an insult, If they do, flee. Business is business and if people are getting offended about business, something is wrong.
- cookiecaper 10y ago
  Easy to say, but not how it works in the real world. If you walk in to your boss's office and accuse him of underpaying you, he's going to feel hurt. That's the natural reaction. Telling him "business is business" is not likely to improve his feelings. Business would be better named "pampering giant babies", because that's what it is. Despite the mythology that we're programmed with, most of the work of being in charge is managing peoples' feelings so that they stay favorable to you. There is a ton of room for mistakes as long as everyone likes you, and very little if nobody does. Thus, the whole of business training can be summarized with "be as popular and well-liked as possible". They try to dress it up fancy and act like they do something better than that, but they don't. The most important thing in anyone's career is what their boss and their boss's bosses think of them. Only slightly less important is what their peers think of them. Work performance is essentially a non-factor in career advancement, so it actually is really important to manage this kind of thing carefully. Asking directly for a raise is confrontational and inelegant. Subtly demonstrating that you deserve a raise and making your boss believe it was his idea is how you actually get one without alienating anyone. That's a lot of work, so most people just jump to another employer instead.
  - kobigurk 10y ago
    I don think it applies to all levels of employment. As a software developer in a team, with a junior manager, you have a lesser ability to do this demonstration. The junior manager doesn't decide your salary anyway, and this feedback loop of 2-3 hops takes too long.
  - eloisant 10y ago
    That's because they way you ask for a raise is not by "accusing him of underpaying you", and saying "business is business", there are nicer ways to bring it. You don't have to be confrontational and inelegant. Typically, you wait for your yearly or quaterly review, tell him what great stuff you did for the company, how you will contribute again in the future then tell him you feel like a raise of x percent or n dollars would be appropriate. You don't say "you're underpaying me", but "the value I bring to the company increased, so I deserve more than I did last year" I've never seen a boss get offended for it, at worst he'll make excuses like "sorry I can't right now, but at soon as things get better I'll think about you". And nowadays in many companies, if you never ask for a raise you never get any. Your boss assumes you're happy with your pay, so why give more?
    - cookiecaper 10y ago
      Yeah, annual employee reviews are undoubtedly the sanctioned time to bring it up. The boss won't be offended if you wait until then because they're expecting your compensation to be a point of discussion in that meeting anyway. However, you'll find that since they're expecting it, they have their hand-wavey excuses ready and won't take the request seriously. I'm sure a lot of people "ask for raises" in those routine reviews. So if you do sit on your hands for 11 months so that you only ask your boss at the time when he won't find it offensive, you're still most likely going to walk away with nothing or a pittance, since as I said, bossess appear to believe any raise in excess of 5% is outrageous (again, a large bump is like an admission that they're cheapskates, so they don't like doing it). On the other hand, most programmers can go out and get a new job offer within 2-4 weeks, and unless they're at the top of the pay scale for their industry and area, probably get a 20-40% pay bump. Which option is more attractive?
  - 10y ago
Clubber 10y ago
>your employer is given cause to question your loyalty and may be more suspicious of your contributions moving forward. This sentiment has been expressed by MS CEO Satya Nadella and I'm sure it's popular in other management circles. Haven't they laid off around 20,000 people in the past few years? Seems like MS as a company wants to have it both ways, as I'm sure many do.
jsprogrammer 10y ago
Most employment contracts do not consider loyalty. Typically, either side has the explicit right to terminate the relationship at any time, for any reason.

jsmthrowaway 10y ago

> Many employers would take offense and consider it an insult, If they do, flee. Business is business and if people are getting offended about business, something is wrong.

cookiecaper 10y ago
Easy to say, but not how it works in the real world. If you walk in to your boss's office and accuse him of underpaying you, he's going to feel hurt. That's the natural reaction. Telling him "business is business" is not likely to improve his feelings. Business would be better named "pampering giant babies", because that's what it is. Despite the mythology that we're programmed with, most of the work of being in charge is managing peoples' feelings so that they stay favorable to you. There is a ton of room for mistakes as long as everyone likes you, and very little if nobody does. Thus, the whole of business training can be summarized with "be as popular and well-liked as possible". They try to dress it up fancy and act like they do something better than that, but they don't. The most important thing in anyone's career is what their boss and their boss's bosses think of them. Only slightly less important is what their peers think of them. Work performance is essentially a non-factor in career advancement, so it actually is really important to manage this kind of thing carefully. Asking directly for a raise is confrontational and inelegant. Subtly demonstrating that you deserve a raise and making your boss believe it was his idea is how you actually get one without alienating anyone. That's a lot of work, so most people just jump to another employer instead.
- kobigurk 10y ago
  I don think it applies to all levels of employment. As a software developer in a team, with a junior manager, you have a lesser ability to do this demonstration. The junior manager doesn't decide your salary anyway, and this feedback loop of 2-3 hops takes too long.
- eloisant 10y ago
  That's because they way you ask for a raise is not by "accusing him of underpaying you", and saying "business is business", there are nicer ways to bring it. You don't have to be confrontational and inelegant. Typically, you wait for your yearly or quaterly review, tell him what great stuff you did for the company, how you will contribute again in the future then tell him you feel like a raise of x percent or n dollars would be appropriate. You don't say "you're underpaying me", but "the value I bring to the company increased, so I deserve more than I did last year" I've never seen a boss get offended for it, at worst he'll make excuses like "sorry I can't right now, but at soon as things get better I'll think about you". And nowadays in many companies, if you never ask for a raise you never get any. Your boss assumes you're happy with your pay, so why give more?
  - cookiecaper 10y ago
    Yeah, annual employee reviews are undoubtedly the sanctioned time to bring it up. The boss won't be offended if you wait until then because they're expecting your compensation to be a point of discussion in that meeting anyway. However, you'll find that since they're expecting it, they have their hand-wavey excuses ready and won't take the request seriously. I'm sure a lot of people "ask for raises" in those routine reviews. So if you do sit on your hands for 11 months so that you only ask your boss at the time when he won't find it offensive, you're still most likely going to walk away with nothing or a pittance, since as I said, bossess appear to believe any raise in excess of 5% is outrageous (again, a large bump is like an admission that they're cheapskates, so they don't like doing it). On the other hand, most programmers can go out and get a new job offer within 2-4 weeks, and unless they're at the top of the pay scale for their industry and area, probably get a 20-40% pay bump. Which option is more attractive?
- 10y ago

Clubber 10y ago

>your employer is given cause to question your loyalty and may be more suspicious of your contributions moving forward. This sentiment has been expressed by MS CEO Satya Nadella and I'm sure it's popular in other management circles. Haven't they laid off around 20,000 people in the past few years? Seems like MS as a company wants to have it both ways, as I'm sure many do.

jsprogrammer 10y ago

Most employment contracts do not consider loyalty. Typically, either side has the explicit right to terminate the relationship at any time, for any reason.