14 ms·

I imagine this is good advice in some places, but as a line manager, if you pull this on me I'm more than likely to shake your hand and wish you luck in your ne

I imagine this is good advice in some places, but as a line manager, if you pull this on me I'm more than likely to shake your hand and wish you luck in your new job. In a lot of places, having a talk with your manager about your salary before going off and actively looking for other offers is going to go down a lot better. Most line managers worth working for, value their teams and will fight for them if they are unhappy, without the threats. And TBH, if your company has to make cutbacks in the future and you've shown you're willing to up and leave at the drop of a hat, you're name's likely to get further up the redundancy list than you'd probably like.

robert_foss 9y ago
I can empathize with a response from a line manager like that. But from the point of view of an employee, if you go into a salary discussion with no recourse to getting a flat no, you're not doing much more than voicing the fact that you are discontent. It seems to me that you, scarylam, would be a good line manager to work for. But the reality is that most would not fight for you. Especially not when the two options being weighed are spending more money or having a somewhat dissatisfied employee, and maybe losing them later. If the employee has some form of recourse the decision is very different. Spending more money or losing a part of your team now.
Chris2048 9y ago
> I'm more than likely to shake your hand and wish you luck in your new job. Sounds like it's still good advice if you won't fight for your employees to stay. The alternative to being upfront with your manager is just leaving when you think you can do better - many managers would prefer not to have the surprise. > you're name's likely to get further up the redundancy list Not my experience. In some cases, the employees able to leave easily are the better, or underpaid ones.
boomboomsubban 9y ago
>In a lot of places, having a talk with your manager about your salary before going off and actively looking for other offers is going to go down a lot better. Most line managers worth working for, value their teams and will fight for them if they are unhappy, without the threats. This doesn't agree with the research here, and your first statement doesn't agree with your second. If you value your team, they shouldn't end up unhappy with their salary, and they shouldn't be thrown under the bus for exploring what they're worth outside the company. The tamest threat to fire them reinforces the point.
- statictype 9y ago
  You can value your team and still be running on fumes and not be able to currently pay them what you think they should get. There's no contradiction in that.
  - humanrebar 9y ago
    You can also value your employer and expect your compensation to grow at a certain rate. Most line employees don't have enough influence over the business plan to point out that, say, it only works if the company can live with a high turnover rate or with keeping salaries low. None of this is personal. It's actually a big ask for someone to get paid under market rate or work on horrible legacy systems for years. Managers shouldn't take it personally if they ask for something big and don't get a yes.
  - Mtinie 9y ago
    In that case you can be disappointed that your business can't do right by the employees you lose while at the same time being happy for those people for finding new places of employment that can pay them what they are worth.
    - bitexploder 9y ago
      A good business would have a line of communication open to employees about it's financial state anyway. They would not come to you with a competing offer, there would be no need.
    - statictype 9y ago
      Yes, of course. I was only pointing out that underpaying staff does not equate to not respecting them.
  - Retric 9y ago
    The basic idea of capitalism is some ventures / companies will fail. Trying to hang on by underpaying people is generally just forestalling the inevitable and closing up shop early is generally better for all involved. That said, if your growing etc and just have a cash crunch then stock is generally an option.
werber 9y ago
I agree with telling your manager and hr you want to discuss your salary before dropping other offers on the table, but have the offers.
- auserperson 9y ago
  Yeah, their offers will be shit if you don't have something else to show. It's just the way it is.
watwut 9y ago
> I imagine this is good advice in some places, but as a line manager, if you pull this on me I'm more than likely to shake your hand and wish you luck in your new job. In a lot of places, having a talk with your manager about your salary before going off and actively looking for other offers is going to go down a lot better. Most line managers worth working for, value their teams and will fight for them if they are unhappy, without the threats. That is not my experience at all. Saying that I am leaving brings salary pay raise offer immediately, asking for pay raise brings vague promise for pay raise if this or that, yadda yadda. I cant recall manager raising salary proactively to anyone, ever. It is not that they would not value their teams, but they do see world in a business negotiation way and see it as their job to manage expenses too. The threat of disloyalty being punished if there are cutbacks does not seem like all that much threat to me. There are so many factors in the decision, including who likes who and who drinks with who, that this is just a tiny drop in the bucket. Nevertheless, when there are cutbacks, having recent experience with job search and idea about how much money you can get elsewhere helps way more then theoretical sympathy - it reduces stress even if you are one of those who stay.
auserperson 9y ago
If the person that can be easily employed for more money gets in the redundancy package, they get money from redundancy and a new job. You clearly underestimate the potential of your employees. I'm not fucking scared of getting fired, I know how good I am.
baruch 9y ago
To counter that, as a former line manager if an employee just came to me and said he wanted a raise I could only give him so much consideration (big company). If he wanted to get more he'd need to have leverage like a competing offer so that I can go in to the HR team and be able to push them to give me approval to give him more and they would need to go their own managers to get that approval. Of course, said employee better be good at his job to get this treatment. If you are obnoxious or merely just barely good enough it will be an easier way to get rid of you than go through the hassle of big company firing procedure. Though I have to admit I never was in this situation as a manager, I did give fair share raises out of the pocket money I got to distribute as raises between my employees.
gutnor 9y ago
> you're name's likely to get further up the redundancy list than you'd probably like. Sure but at the same time, that's only going to be one of the many elements that influence your position on the list. Actually, as far as redundancies go, being treated as an individual instead of being handled in bulk with specific project/team means that you are already rather higher up or a key employee for some reason meaning either your are a political animal or with a very good negotiation position.
richardknop 9y ago
you're name's likely to get further up the redundancy list than you'd probably like. Playing the devil's advocate, here's employee response which makes sense from his/her perspective: But I have job offer paying 30% more. I could actually get multiple offers like that from several companies. So I am not afraid of your threat of "getting further up the redundancy list".
- conanbatt 9y ago
  Then it's in both parties interest for the employee to leave.. everyone is happy at the end, provided the employer can replace the worker, and the former can get a better option.
  - richardknop 9y ago
    Yes. Hence why it's the best way to get a big raise to keep your salary in sync with the market and not stagnate. I was just trying to push against the idea that somehow it's wrong to accept a job offer which offers substantially bigger salary. Nothing wrong with that.
TurboHaskal 9y ago
> I imagine this is good advice in some places, but as a line manager, if you > pull this on me I'm more than likely to shake your hand and wish you luck in > your new job. Fortunately for us not all line managers have such inflated egos and don't take such requests down to a personal level.
- mamon 9y ago
  It's not ego, it's just "do not negotiate with terrorists" approach adapted to the workplace. If you make such concession for one employee, the next day you'll have 5 others with similar demands. EDIT: One more thing: the reason why it is often easier to get a raise by changing jobs instead of negotiating it in your current workplace is information asymmetry. Your current employer knows you all too well, so it is hard to convince them to pay you more. Potential new employer does not know that much about you, plus they are in need of new employee so they are more likely to give you more money.
  - pc86 9y ago
    Well if you're paying half a dozen people below market, that's sort of to be expected, isn't it? Management knows the market rate for a given role. Let's say a good-not-great senior developer (as in give them a code base and a quiet room and you've got substantive code on day 1 or 2) commands $100k cash comp to make the math easy. You take the job for 10% below market for whatever those reasons happen to be. Maybe your last job was only $95k but this one has a much better vacation/retirement package. If you go to your boss after 6-12 months of being a good senior dev and a good employee (meaning all the admin nonsense that comes along with being an employee - meetings, timely communication, generally not being an asshole, etc) and say that market rate is $100k, you're getting paid $90k, and you'd like $100-105k, they know that's a fair ask. Whether they are willing and/or able to actually pay you that ask is another thing. My point being that there's nothing "terroristic" about asking for what you're worth. You can do it without a competing offer, but often times a competing offer is the easiest way to get something close to a market rate number.
    - 9y ago
michaelt 9y ago
if your company has to make cutbacks [...] you're name's likely to get further up the redundancy list than you'd probably like. If the company's going down the pan, what does it matter if I'm made redundant in the first tranche or the last? I'm going to need a new job anyway, just in the latter case I've put in a few extra months where there was no money to give me a raise no matter how well I performed.
- lostboys67 9y ago
  First batch might get better terms than waiting till the company goes bust owing you pay
  - gvb 9y ago
    Even if the company doesn't go bust, the severance pay gets stingier and stingier on every round of reductions.
  - softawre 9y ago
    Are you making the argument for being a shitty employee allaround?
- lr4444lr 9y ago
  I hear you, but the lost wages when the change comes too suddenly can be worse for a lot of people. Being among the later to be let go gives you some time to prepare.
- conanbatt 9y ago
  What I would add is that as well as there is an "internal knowledge fee" there is also a "good employee/risk fee". An employee ready to jump ship quicker than his peers means that his value is reduced to the organization, precisely because the long term value of the "internal knowledge fee" is reduced! I agree with the OP's tactical move, but strategically I'm not so sure the mindset is the correct one. Maybe I was lucky, but I always had managers that stuck their necks for me. Full-time employment is not a consulting job that is fire & forget.
ugh123 9y ago
I think you typify the type of manager that cares more about the bottom line than the value you get out of good employees. Maybe it wasn't spelled out as clear in the article, but much of the point is that the employee is more valuable to retain than to simply re-cycle for someone lessor or equal pay. Wouldn't care to work for you at all.
- abalashov 9y ago
  Managers are paid to look after the bottom line. The good ones do their best to balance that with treating their people well and fostering loyalty, but no balancing act ever goes entirely smoothly -- yet that's the one they're paid to perform. Businesses aren't charities or good-will missions.
  - coolaliasbro 9y ago
    You're right that businesses presently are not charities or good-will missions, but perhaps they should be. The way most businesses are currently run (ie, as profit mills chasing growth at any cost) is detrimental to the environment, society, and the economy itself. Business for its own sake is stupid AF.
    - ruleabidinguser 9y ago
      Why not go and start your ideal business then?
      - Sharlin 9y ago
        http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/
    - abalashov 9y ago
      I would not necessarily dispute any of that, but it does contravene the assumptions from which the owners of most businesses are proceeding, not to mention their investors, shareholders and board members. :-)
crdoconnor 9y ago
>And TBH, if your company has to make cutbacks in the future and you've shown you're willing to up and leave at the drop of a hat, you're name's likely to get further up the redundancy list than you'd probably like. Wouldn't that be a good thing if you actually can get a job at the drop of a hat? If the company is doing badly then staying is probably bad for your career, plus you often get a redundancy payout. If anything, it's probably worse to be at the bottom of the list - that often means that you're viewed as a bargain - i.e. you're being grossly underpaid.
osrec 9y ago
Your advice seems a little unusual; perhaps you've had caring line managers in the past, but in my experience, the less they know about your grievances the better. If you suggest you are unhappy, your manager is likely to assume you are looking around anyway. Thus you end up giving your manager the upper hand in negotiations. If you don't have a back up offer in place, you are simply hoping that your manager is a nice person who deals with your issues fairly - but there is always a very significant chance your boss reacts badly to your dissatisfaction. Then where do you go without a backup?
_pmf_ 9y ago
> I imagine this is good advice in some places, but as a line manager, if you pull this on me I'm more than likely to shake your hand and wish you luck in your new job. A fool and his employees are soon parted.
wyclif 9y ago
without the threats I wouldn't dispute that seeking offers before a request for raise might not go over well (depending on the specific business), but I think calling it a "threat" is needlessly weaponizing salary negotiation in a market where everyone acknowledges salaries have been flat for a long time.
- repomies6999 9y ago
  I believe the flatnessof salaries applies to jobs overall. I would guess most people at HN work in IT where salaries haven't been that flat.
  - TheCowboy 9y ago
    Depends on which way you cut the data, looking at occupations, time period, and geographic location. I've looked and have found data and reports suggesting they're flat (keeping up with inflation) or slightly outpacing inflation. Some specific sectors and skills have seen significant growth. The number of people employed in IT services as a whole as increased which has likely helped keep wages more stable. It's still a good career as far as salaries go. One thing I've found that makes digging deeper challenging is the preponderance of titles and roles. Title inflation could disguise wage growth to some degree.
    - mdpopescu 9y ago
      You're in the West, probably the US; you already started high. Being from Eastern Europe, my current (net) salary is 100 times higher than 20 years ago and 2.5 times higher than 5 years ago. I expect things have stabilized for me too though :)
jacquesm 9y ago
> but as a line manager, if you pull this on me I'm more than likely to shake your hand and wish you luck in your new job. As your potential employee I'd be more than happy to shake your hand and leave. Very rarely does a company deserve employee loyalty, and you as a linemanager should at least try to earn your employee's loyalty by paying them what they are worth, rather than what you can get away with. Remember, you too have a boss, treat your subordinates like you would like to be treated.
- remline 9y ago
  Employees have an inherent need for loyalty to work and face considerable risk just for following their true worth to new companies and situations. This makes it impossible to adequately take employers up to your real market worth as a long term employee. Too many of your coworkers will accept 50% of their worth rather than risk stress and a crises if a change falls apart. So as long as the employer only needs a kernel of long-term employees only a union has the necessary leverage.
  - spacelizard 9y ago
    They also face considerable risk for sticking around when an employer has expressed interest in underpaying and overworking them or just outright firing them. If you're hiring people at 50% of their desired pay, then you're generally only going to get 50% of their skill. This is a double-edged sword. Employees also have an inherent need to accomplish things, and if you're not using them to their full capacity, that's also a risk of them leaving, or being completely checked out at work.
  - sidlls 9y ago
    I think the value of unions and professional organizations in these discussions is something that gets too little attention. One of the most important reasons software development is not like actual engineering is because the practices associated with actual engineering aren't valued in the world of software, even though the political components of employment (e.g. loyalty, longevity at a company) are considered signals of high(er) quality. The vast majority of developers simply don't have quality employment options for most of them to consider long-term (> 3-4 years) employment with a single company to be a good economic or career decision.
FussyZeus 9y ago
> I imagine this is good advice in some places, but as a line manager, if you pull this on me I'm more than likely to shake your hand and wish you luck in your new job. A serious question for scaryclam (or anyone who agrees with him): Why is this? Excluding a few people with dream jobs, I didn't get hired at Company X because I love what they do or I feel they add to the world in a meaningful way: you guys needed code written or systems maintained or whatever it might be, I needed money. That is the extent of our relationship. Even if we've worked together for a long while and developed a bit of a friendship, it seems like the whole stigma surrounding bringing job offers into a workplace is based on a few things that when said aloud sound insane: 1) That I would be willing to subvert my own potential success for the good of Company X, which seems at best like a weird trade-off and at worst like some sort of cult; 2) That Company X doesn't want other people in my department to see what they could be making elsewhere, in which case see #1 for each of them and add to it a line of disingenuity to it too; 3) That Company X already knows that there are better competing jobs in the area (or close enough to threaten them anyway) and are taking internal action to prevent those threats from costing them employees in mass by trying to prevent employees from knowing about them, instead of raising pay/benefits to be more competitive In any situation where a company is attempting to hide information of any kind, you can usually find a solid financial motive for doing so. I'm not saying that a company should always be paying everyone as much as they possibly can; obviously, each side of this table has their side to fight for. But if one of the sides is being dishonest about the facts then that side has already lost points going to that table; you say you'd fire me if I came to you with a job offer? Odds are that's known and I'm already on my way out, and whether you want to call it good or bad, that means you've lost me, and you're probably winding up to lose a few more.
pimmen 9y ago
Don't see it as a threat, see it as me finding out what the market value is of my labor and then informing you about it. I'm going to do due diligence before asking for a raise, if our company was launching a product and I found out what the market value of it was you would presumably be thrilled. I work as hard for myself as I do for the company, just like I know that the company works as hard for our customers as we do for our shareholders.
gaius 9y ago
you're name's likely to get further up the redundancy list than you'd probably like. But you don't make PEOPLE redundant, only POSITIONS. If you are using redundancies as cover to target individuals that have annoyed you, then you will be shortly staring at the business end of a tribunal.
- scaryclam 9y ago
  Sorry, I think you may have misunderstood me. If a company has 10 developers and needs to cut down to 7, then the folks who have actively been interviewing in the near past are going to be considered more of a risk, especially by HR, who are likely to be making the list. Hiring is an expensive endeavor, so if HR sees someone as a risk and they need to cut positions, you can bet that they're going to see it as a better thing to let employees who have a risk factor to them go than others who don't (on paper that is, no-one can know what's going to happen tomorrow). They definitely don't want to cut the staff down and then have to go into a hiring stage soon after, because someone who was getting itchy feet decided to walk with another offer anyway. This isn't about targeting people just because they want more money/fairer pay/more holiday/bonuses. It's just about how companies behave.
jaypaulynice 9y ago
>In a lot of places, having a talk with your manager about your salary before going off and actively looking for other offers is going to go down a lot better Business is business. If they find someone to replace you at a fraction of your salary they will do it at a drop of a hat. Your manager pbly gets a bonus for reducing spending...
djslakor 9y ago
> but as a line manager, if you pull this on me I'm more than likely to shake your hand and wish you luck in your new job. "Pull this on you"? You sound like a real joy to work for. This is expressly why I choose gigs where I'm working directly for an owner if at all possible. If you've created value, owners know how important you are and will take your request seriously as long as it's reasonable. In my career, I have received 100% of the raises I've requested ... at least a half dozen times. I've never once received a no or even negative push back. Owners were eager to retain me. Even if your intention as a "line manager" is to not give the raise, the right move is to at least feign consideration for a few days and show the employee his request at least matters enough to think about. Letting everyone know they'll immediately be shown the door if they dare request an increase would create a terrible culture. Clueless management.
- crusso 9y ago
  Letting everyone know they'll immediately be shown the door if they dare request an increase would create a terrible culture The person to whom you're responding explicitly drew a distinction between discussing a raise with your boss vs going to your boss with another offer that you have secured. I can see the importance of that distinction. To put the relationship in a different context: Imagine the difference between a girlfriend who says, "Hey, we need to discuss the amount of time you spend playing video games. I'd like you to pay more attention to me." vs "Hey, I don't like the amount of time you spend playing video games, so I've been talking to this new guy about being my boyfriend. Your move."
  - coldtea 9y ago
    >The person to whom you're responding explicitly drew a distinction between discussing a raise with your boss vs going to your boss with another offer that you have secured. Because it's only OK to ask for a raise when the boss has the upper hand?
    - crusso 9y ago
      Has the boss brought someone in to replace you and said, "Okay, Coldtea, we found someone to replace you at your job. He's as good as you and he'll take a 10% cut in salary over what we pay you. Do you want to take a pay cut so you can stay?" That would be the upper hand. Before that, it's just a discussion.
TACIXAT 9y ago
I'd much rather have an offer in hand in case I bring salary up and they shake my hand and wish me good luck.
thomascgalvin 9y ago
> Most line managers worth working for, value their teams and will fight for them if they are unhappy, without the threats. Agreed. I've already gotten my team the best raise/promotion that I could. If they can find better at a different company, I wish them well. And that's not sarcastic. I genuinely wish them well. It hurts to let a good employee go, and finding/training a replacement sucks, but we're all kind of stuck in this shitty US corporate culture together, and we have to look out for ourselves.
- naasking 9y ago
  > Agreed. I've already gotten my team the best raise/promotion that I could. Then again, this employee has just presented you with evidence that maybe your compensation isn't competitive, which is something you can bring to the higher ups to increase your budget. If you're not competitive, you'll have retention problems and business will ultimately suffer. So you got the best rate you could at the time with the information available, but competing offers could change that equation.
corobo 9y ago
> pull this on me make you do your job as a manager? > having a talk with your manager about your salary before going off and actively looking for other offers is going to go down a lot better because then the employee doesn't know the market rate and the manager can get away with giving a garbage raise. Of course that's going to go down better, it's less work for the manager to dig it out of the budget or their boss Edit: Made it a little less personal, my grudges are not with you.
mac01021 9y ago
> Most line managers value their team and will fight for them if they are unhappy 1) It's not a matter of being happy or unhappy. Just about everyone wants to earn as much as possible, the goal being to get as quickly as possible to the point where one no longer requires employment. 2) It's not possible to know how much the market values you without seeking other offers and seeing how much they'll offer you. 3) If one of your employees comes to you and says "I would like a raise" with no additional context, I can't imagine you're likely to offer them much. If they say "I need a raise or else I'm going to start looking at other jobs", I doubt you'll treat that much different from coming to you with an offer already in hand. As an employee with a manager like you, it seems like my best best is to get an offer first, and then come to you saying "I'm really happy here, but you're not paying me market rate, and I think I would also be happy at this other company that will pay me more."
- softawre 9y ago
  > the goal being to get as quickly as possible to the point where one no longer requires employment. Most people don't have this goal. I personally have it (FI/RE), but most don't, even most software engineers. This is pretty evident by the cars that they drive and the other money that they can be seen "wasting". Some happy medium is really what people want.
alain94040 9y ago
There is a way to do this right [1] -- true story. Do not actively look to quit, instead, inform your manager that you are getting inbound requests with specific numbers and that you'd rather stay, but the numbers are what they are. [1] https://medium.com/@alain94040/how-to-negotiate-a-raise-9166c977645a https://medium.com/@alain94040/how-to-negotiate-a-raise-9166...
unethical_ban 9y ago
As someone else put it well, it's a free market. The best way to know MY value in the market is to talk to other companies about openings and salary. So by coming to you, the manager, without doing that is to let you determine my market value without any other input. That's like the Ford dealer getting mad at me for going to other lots to find the best deal on a truck. Relationships are important, sure, but you have to understand: management is not typically the friend of the worker, nor is HR.
southphillyman 9y ago
Yea this has been my experience. I usually don't mention that I have an offer but just ask for a meeting and explicitly ask for more money. I never get it and just hand in my 2 weeks about a week after the meeting. Maybe if I revealed that I had an offer I may have gotten a raise but I don't want to work somewhere where I need to "have leverage" to get what I deserve and what's fair.
mcguire 9y ago
I'm not sure about most places since I've been a contract employee for most of my career, but at my last employer, a large government contractor, extortion of this sort was literally the only way to get more than the nominal raise. And TBH, if the company is making cutbacks, all of the competent people will be scurrying away first; you might as well be one of them.
fullstackhuman 9y ago
> Most line managers worth working for, value their teams and will fight for them if they are unhappy, without the threats. Most good line managers will recognise their employees contributions to the company and suggest a raise/additional compensation without needing to be prompted.
- scaryclam 9y ago
  Which is what the sentence you quoted means. Line managers aren't mind readers though so sometimes you'll need to talk to them about things.
coldtea 9y ago
>I imagine this is good advice in some places, but as a line manager, if you pull this on me I'm more than likely to shake your hand and wish you luck in your new job. Well, glad that people know that, so that they can wish the company good luck in getting second rate talent.
varelse 9y ago
I would get the data first before approaching you and then lie about whether I had already done so. It's the sort of white lie that protects both parties. If your dog died that day, you might just fire me on the spot. Or if I'm making close to market rate, I should STFU and stop trying to microoptimize. But if I have uncovered a huge pay discrepancy, you have already failed me. Both you and your HR department in fact. Sadly, I suspect that across many individuals, this is a winning strategy because most people don't actively manage their careers (to their detriment). If the company has cutbacks, everyone's head is on the guillotine and it's time to jump ship anyway before the signal hits the employment market.
jcadam 9y ago
> In a lot of places, having a talk with your manager about your salary before going off and actively looking for other offers is going to go down a lot better. This has got to be some of the worst career advice I've ever heard. I made this mistake once, at my first software job. My employer's response was to say "NO" and then proceed to make my life hell in an attempt to make me quit. With a wife, kids, and a mortgage, that wasn't an option for me. I was eventually fired (for poor performance, a mere 2 months after receiving an 'outstanding' yearly appraisal) and spent 2 months unemployed before landing my next job. On the plus side, the offer I received was higher than the raise I had requested from my former employer. So, my advice: Trusting your manager to be a reasonable human being is not worth the risk. You are absolutely satisfied with all aspects of your job, including your salary... right up until the moment you hand your boss a letter of resignation. Now if you have a large amount of savings (say 6 months - 1 year of living expenses), feel free to take stupid risks. Otherwise, have another job lined up when you ask for a raise... you don't have to actually tell your boss about it, after all.
- softawre 9y ago
  > You are absolutely satisfied with all aspects of your job, including your salary... right up until the moment you hand your boss a letter of resignation. Would you give this advice in reverse too? Ignoring lawsuits for a minute, as a manager - should you always tell your employees that they are doing fine, even if they aren't, right up until the moment you fire them for poor performance?
  - lovich 9y ago
    Probably not, but that's pretty common. But the point OP is making is that bringing up salary discussions with bosses can be a big risk. Employees only have one employer but employers have multiple employees. If you don't another job lined up and your boss decides to take punitive action against you for daring to try and get a better deal from them, then you are kinda fucked. It'd be nice if you could start the discussion with employers without having to worry about problems but our current economic/social system doesn't allow for that
johnward 9y ago
In my experience managers tend to have their hands tied as to what they can offer. You may get 3% if you ask for a raise. Companies tend to give managers more options when they are trying to keep an employee from jumping ship. This is all from my time with megacorps though.
naasking 9y ago
> Most line managers worth working for, value their teams and will fight for them if they are unhappy, without the threats. Demonstrating that you're undervalued is not a threat, it's feedback on how the market values your employees. You give feedback on how well your employees are serving the business right? Why shouldn't it work the other way around? Your work is not your family, this isn't personal judgment or criticism, this is just business.
threatofrain 9y ago
From my perspective, management often doesn't have the information or tools to be an ally or intermediate to his or her subordinates, and trying to curate that relationship is a one-man effort, unless you have great influence at company leadership. Some of the tools for a quid pro quo relationship that extends beyond mere money include being able to tell people about big moves so that their lives aren't caught off guard. Coworkers help each other out in this regard. But should management? People make their plans around timing, geography, and revenue from employment, and when management doesn't reveal big layoffs, big real estate changes, or other big restructurings, people have to up-end their lives. Management knows this, but values some things more, such as the company health. In doing so they set the tone of the relationship. Management isn't in the position to establish a rich and sincere relationship with employees. There's always an element of insincerity because management isn't telling you things that your coworker friend would, the coworker friend who calls you from another company after the layoffs, recommending you to hop ship to their company. Would management ever tell you to hop ship to Apple? One might argue that management ought never be in a position to establish such rich and sincere relations. One gossiping manager and you might trigger an early exodus. Or a wave of salary conversation. So managers ought not even know the very information which would help their employees stabilize their life against the uncertainty. Also, if leadership doesn't want a union, and plenty of world-class places don't like unions, what is management's position to play then? Obviously squash the union talk.

robert_foss 9y ago

I can empathize with a response from a line manager like that. But from the point of view of an employee, if you go into a salary discussion with no recourse to getting a flat no, you're not doing much more than voicing the fact that you are discontent. It seems to me that you, scarylam, would be a good line manager to work for. But the reality is that most would not fight for you. Especially not when the two options being weighed are spending more money or having a somewhat dissatisfied employee, and maybe losing them later. If the employee has some form of recourse the decision is very different. Spending more money or losing a part of your team now.

Chris2048 9y ago

> I'm more than likely to shake your hand and wish you luck in your new job. Sounds like it's still good advice if you won't fight for your employees to stay. The alternative to being upfront with your manager is just leaving when you think you can do better - many managers would prefer not to have the surprise. > you're name's likely to get further up the redundancy list Not my experience. In some cases, the employees able to leave easily are the better, or underpaid ones.

boomboomsubban 9y ago

>In a lot of places, having a talk with your manager about your salary before going off and actively looking for other offers is going to go down a lot better. Most line managers worth working for, value their teams and will fight for them if they are unhappy, without the threats. This doesn't agree with the research here, and your first statement doesn't agree with your second. If you value your team, they shouldn't end up unhappy with their salary, and they shouldn't be thrown under the bus for exploring what they're worth outside the company. The tamest threat to fire them reinforces the point.

statictype 9y ago
You can value your team and still be running on fumes and not be able to currently pay them what you think they should get. There's no contradiction in that.
- humanrebar 9y ago
  You can also value your employer and expect your compensation to grow at a certain rate. Most line employees don't have enough influence over the business plan to point out that, say, it only works if the company can live with a high turnover rate or with keeping salaries low. None of this is personal. It's actually a big ask for someone to get paid under market rate or work on horrible legacy systems for years. Managers shouldn't take it personally if they ask for something big and don't get a yes.
- Mtinie 9y ago
  In that case you can be disappointed that your business can't do right by the employees you lose while at the same time being happy for those people for finding new places of employment that can pay them what they are worth.
  - bitexploder 9y ago
    A good business would have a line of communication open to employees about it's financial state anyway. They would not come to you with a competing offer, there would be no need.
  - statictype 9y ago
    Yes, of course. I was only pointing out that underpaying staff does not equate to not respecting them.
- Retric 9y ago
  The basic idea of capitalism is some ventures / companies will fail. Trying to hang on by underpaying people is generally just forestalling the inevitable and closing up shop early is generally better for all involved. That said, if your growing etc and just have a cash crunch then stock is generally an option.

werber 9y ago

I agree with telling your manager and hr you want to discuss your salary before dropping other offers on the table, but have the offers.

auserperson 9y ago
Yeah, their offers will be shit if you don't have something else to show. It's just the way it is.

watwut 9y ago

> I imagine this is good advice in some places, but as a line manager, if you pull this on me I'm more than likely to shake your hand and wish you luck in your new job. In a lot of places, having a talk with your manager about your salary before going off and actively looking for other offers is going to go down a lot better. Most line managers worth working for, value their teams and will fight for them if they are unhappy, without the threats. That is not my experience at all. Saying that I am leaving brings salary pay raise offer immediately, asking for pay raise brings vague promise for pay raise if this or that, yadda yadda. I cant recall manager raising salary proactively to anyone, ever. It is not that they would not value their teams, but they do see world in a business negotiation way and see it as their job to manage expenses too. The threat of disloyalty being punished if there are cutbacks does not seem like all that much threat to me. There are so many factors in the decision, including who likes who and who drinks with who, that this is just a tiny drop in the bucket. Nevertheless, when there are cutbacks, having recent experience with job search and idea about how much money you can get elsewhere helps way more then theoretical sympathy - it reduces stress even if you are one of those who stay.

auserperson 9y ago

If the person that can be easily employed for more money gets in the redundancy package, they get money from redundancy and a new job. You clearly underestimate the potential of your employees. I'm not fucking scared of getting fired, I know how good I am.

baruch 9y ago

To counter that, as a former line manager if an employee just came to me and said he wanted a raise I could only give him so much consideration (big company). If he wanted to get more he'd need to have leverage like a competing offer so that I can go in to the HR team and be able to push them to give me approval to give him more and they would need to go their own managers to get that approval. Of course, said employee better be good at his job to get this treatment. If you are obnoxious or merely just barely good enough it will be an easier way to get rid of you than go through the hassle of big company firing procedure. Though I have to admit I never was in this situation as a manager, I did give fair share raises out of the pocket money I got to distribute as raises between my employees.

gutnor 9y ago

> you're name's likely to get further up the redundancy list than you'd probably like. Sure but at the same time, that's only going to be one of the many elements that influence your position on the list. Actually, as far as redundancies go, being treated as an individual instead of being handled in bulk with specific project/team means that you are already rather higher up or a key employee for some reason meaning either your are a political animal or with a very good negotiation position.

richardknop 9y ago

you're name's likely to get further up the redundancy list than you'd probably like. Playing the devil's advocate, here's employee response which makes sense from his/her perspective: But I have job offer paying 30% more. I could actually get multiple offers like that from several companies. So I am not afraid of your threat of "getting further up the redundancy list".

conanbatt 9y ago
Then it's in both parties interest for the employee to leave.. everyone is happy at the end, provided the employer can replace the worker, and the former can get a better option.
- richardknop 9y ago
  Yes. Hence why it's the best way to get a big raise to keep your salary in sync with the market and not stagnate. I was just trying to push against the idea that somehow it's wrong to accept a job offer which offers substantially bigger salary. Nothing wrong with that.

TurboHaskal 9y ago

> I imagine this is good advice in some places, but as a line manager, if you > pull this on me I'm more than likely to shake your hand and wish you luck in > your new job. Fortunately for us not all line managers have such inflated egos and don't take such requests down to a personal level.

mamon 9y ago
It's not ego, it's just "do not negotiate with terrorists" approach adapted to the workplace. If you make such concession for one employee, the next day you'll have 5 others with similar demands. EDIT: One more thing: the reason why it is often easier to get a raise by changing jobs instead of negotiating it in your current workplace is information asymmetry. Your current employer knows you all too well, so it is hard to convince them to pay you more. Potential new employer does not know that much about you, plus they are in need of new employee so they are more likely to give you more money.
- pc86 9y ago
  Well if you're paying half a dozen people below market, that's sort of to be expected, isn't it? Management knows the market rate for a given role. Let's say a good-not-great senior developer (as in give them a code base and a quiet room and you've got substantive code on day 1 or 2) commands $100k cash comp to make the math easy. You take the job for 10% below market for whatever those reasons happen to be. Maybe your last job was only $95k but this one has a much better vacation/retirement package. If you go to your boss after 6-12 months of being a good senior dev and a good employee (meaning all the admin nonsense that comes along with being an employee - meetings, timely communication, generally not being an asshole, etc) and say that market rate is $100k, you're getting paid $90k, and you'd like $100-105k, they know that's a fair ask. Whether they are willing and/or able to actually pay you that ask is another thing. My point being that there's nothing "terroristic" about asking for what you're worth. You can do it without a competing offer, but often times a competing offer is the easiest way to get something close to a market rate number.
  - 9y ago

michaelt 9y ago

if your company has to make cutbacks [...] you're name's likely to get further up the redundancy list than you'd probably like. If the company's going down the pan, what does it matter if I'm made redundant in the first tranche or the last? I'm going to need a new job anyway, just in the latter case I've put in a few extra months where there was no money to give me a raise no matter how well I performed.

lostboys67 9y ago
First batch might get better terms than waiting till the company goes bust owing you pay
- gvb 9y ago
  Even if the company doesn't go bust, the severance pay gets stingier and stingier on every round of reductions.
- softawre 9y ago
  Are you making the argument for being a shitty employee allaround?
lr4444lr 9y ago
I hear you, but the lost wages when the change comes too suddenly can be worse for a lot of people. Being among the later to be let go gives you some time to prepare.
conanbatt 9y ago
What I would add is that as well as there is an "internal knowledge fee" there is also a "good employee/risk fee". An employee ready to jump ship quicker than his peers means that his value is reduced to the organization, precisely because the long term value of the "internal knowledge fee" is reduced! I agree with the OP's tactical move, but strategically I'm not so sure the mindset is the correct one. Maybe I was lucky, but I always had managers that stuck their necks for me. Full-time employment is not a consulting job that is fire & forget.

ugh123 9y ago

I think you typify the type of manager that cares more about the bottom line than the value you get out of good employees. Maybe it wasn't spelled out as clear in the article, but much of the point is that the employee is more valuable to retain than to simply re-cycle for someone lessor or equal pay. Wouldn't care to work for you at all.

abalashov 9y ago
Managers are paid to look after the bottom line. The good ones do their best to balance that with treating their people well and fostering loyalty, but no balancing act ever goes entirely smoothly -- yet that's the one they're paid to perform. Businesses aren't charities or good-will missions.
- coolaliasbro 9y ago
  You're right that businesses presently are not charities or good-will missions, but perhaps they should be. The way most businesses are currently run (ie, as profit mills chasing growth at any cost) is detrimental to the environment, society, and the economy itself. Business for its own sake is stupid AF.
  - ruleabidinguser 9y ago
    Why not go and start your ideal business then?
    - Sharlin 9y ago
      http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/
  - abalashov 9y ago
    I would not necessarily dispute any of that, but it does contravene the assumptions from which the owners of most businesses are proceeding, not to mention their investors, shareholders and board members. :-)

crdoconnor 9y ago

>And TBH, if your company has to make cutbacks in the future and you've shown you're willing to up and leave at the drop of a hat, you're name's likely to get further up the redundancy list than you'd probably like. Wouldn't that be a good thing if you actually can get a job at the drop of a hat? If the company is doing badly then staying is probably bad for your career, plus you often get a redundancy payout. If anything, it's probably worse to be at the bottom of the list - that often means that you're viewed as a bargain - i.e. you're being grossly underpaid.

osrec 9y ago

Your advice seems a little unusual; perhaps you've had caring line managers in the past, but in my experience, the less they know about your grievances the better. If you suggest you are unhappy, your manager is likely to assume you are looking around anyway. Thus you end up giving your manager the upper hand in negotiations. If you don't have a back up offer in place, you are simply hoping that your manager is a nice person who deals with your issues fairly - but there is always a very significant chance your boss reacts badly to your dissatisfaction. Then where do you go without a backup?

_pmf_ 9y ago

> I imagine this is good advice in some places, but as a line manager, if you pull this on me I'm more than likely to shake your hand and wish you luck in your new job. A fool and his employees are soon parted.

wyclif 9y ago

without the threats I wouldn't dispute that seeking offers before a request for raise might not go over well (depending on the specific business), but I think calling it a "threat" is needlessly weaponizing salary negotiation in a market where everyone acknowledges salaries have been flat for a long time.

repomies6999 9y ago
I believe the flatnessof salaries applies to jobs overall. I would guess most people at HN work in IT where salaries haven't been that flat.
- TheCowboy 9y ago
  Depends on which way you cut the data, looking at occupations, time period, and geographic location. I've looked and have found data and reports suggesting they're flat (keeping up with inflation) or slightly outpacing inflation. Some specific sectors and skills have seen significant growth. The number of people employed in IT services as a whole as increased which has likely helped keep wages more stable. It's still a good career as far as salaries go. One thing I've found that makes digging deeper challenging is the preponderance of titles and roles. Title inflation could disguise wage growth to some degree.
  - mdpopescu 9y ago
    You're in the West, probably the US; you already started high. Being from Eastern Europe, my current (net) salary is 100 times higher than 20 years ago and 2.5 times higher than 5 years ago. I expect things have stabilized for me too though :)

jacquesm 9y ago

> but as a line manager, if you pull this on me I'm more than likely to shake your hand and wish you luck in your new job. As your potential employee I'd be more than happy to shake your hand and leave. Very rarely does a company deserve employee loyalty, and you as a linemanager should at least try to earn your employee's loyalty by paying them what they are worth, rather than what you can get away with. Remember, you too have a boss, treat your subordinates like you would like to be treated.

remline 9y ago
Employees have an inherent need for loyalty to work and face considerable risk just for following their true worth to new companies and situations. This makes it impossible to adequately take employers up to your real market worth as a long term employee. Too many of your coworkers will accept 50% of their worth rather than risk stress and a crises if a change falls apart. So as long as the employer only needs a kernel of long-term employees only a union has the necessary leverage.
- spacelizard 9y ago
  They also face considerable risk for sticking around when an employer has expressed interest in underpaying and overworking them or just outright firing them. If you're hiring people at 50% of their desired pay, then you're generally only going to get 50% of their skill. This is a double-edged sword. Employees also have an inherent need to accomplish things, and if you're not using them to their full capacity, that's also a risk of them leaving, or being completely checked out at work.
- sidlls 9y ago
  I think the value of unions and professional organizations in these discussions is something that gets too little attention. One of the most important reasons software development is not like actual engineering is because the practices associated with actual engineering aren't valued in the world of software, even though the political components of employment (e.g. loyalty, longevity at a company) are considered signals of high(er) quality. The vast majority of developers simply don't have quality employment options for most of them to consider long-term (> 3-4 years) employment with a single company to be a good economic or career decision.

FussyZeus 9y ago

> I imagine this is good advice in some places, but as a line manager, if you pull this on me I'm more than likely to shake your hand and wish you luck in your new job. A serious question for scaryclam (or anyone who agrees with him): Why is this? Excluding a few people with dream jobs, I didn't get hired at Company X because I love what they do or I feel they add to the world in a meaningful way: you guys needed code written or systems maintained or whatever it might be, I needed money. That is the extent of our relationship. Even if we've worked together for a long while and developed a bit of a friendship, it seems like the whole stigma surrounding bringing job offers into a workplace is based on a few things that when said aloud sound insane: 1) That I would be willing to subvert my own potential success for the good of Company X, which seems at best like a weird trade-off and at worst like some sort of cult; 2) That Company X doesn't want other people in my department to see what they could be making elsewhere, in which case see #1 for each of them and add to it a line of disingenuity to it too; 3) That Company X already knows that there are better competing jobs in the area (or close enough to threaten them anyway) and are taking internal action to prevent those threats from costing them employees in mass by trying to prevent employees from knowing about them, instead of raising pay/benefits to be more competitive In any situation where a company is attempting to hide information of any kind, you can usually find a solid financial motive for doing so. I'm not saying that a company should always be paying everyone as much as they possibly can; obviously, each side of this table has their side to fight for. But if one of the sides is being dishonest about the facts then that side has already lost points going to that table; you say you'd fire me if I came to you with a job offer? Odds are that's known and I'm already on my way out, and whether you want to call it good or bad, that means you've lost me, and you're probably winding up to lose a few more.

pimmen 9y ago

Don't see it as a threat, see it as me finding out what the market value is of my labor and then informing you about it. I'm going to do due diligence before asking for a raise, if our company was launching a product and I found out what the market value of it was you would presumably be thrilled. I work as hard for myself as I do for the company, just like I know that the company works as hard for our customers as we do for our shareholders.

gaius 9y ago

you're name's likely to get further up the redundancy list than you'd probably like. But you don't make PEOPLE redundant, only POSITIONS. If you are using redundancies as cover to target individuals that have annoyed you, then you will be shortly staring at the business end of a tribunal.

scaryclam 9y ago
Sorry, I think you may have misunderstood me. If a company has 10 developers and needs to cut down to 7, then the folks who have actively been interviewing in the near past are going to be considered more of a risk, especially by HR, who are likely to be making the list. Hiring is an expensive endeavor, so if HR sees someone as a risk and they need to cut positions, you can bet that they're going to see it as a better thing to let employees who have a risk factor to them go than others who don't (on paper that is, no-one can know what's going to happen tomorrow). They definitely don't want to cut the staff down and then have to go into a hiring stage soon after, because someone who was getting itchy feet decided to walk with another offer anyway. This isn't about targeting people just because they want more money/fairer pay/more holiday/bonuses. It's just about how companies behave.

jaypaulynice 9y ago

>In a lot of places, having a talk with your manager about your salary before going off and actively looking for other offers is going to go down a lot better Business is business. If they find someone to replace you at a fraction of your salary they will do it at a drop of a hat. Your manager pbly gets a bonus for reducing spending...

djslakor 9y ago

> but as a line manager, if you pull this on me I'm more than likely to shake your hand and wish you luck in your new job. "Pull this on you"? You sound like a real joy to work for. This is expressly why I choose gigs where I'm working directly for an owner if at all possible. If you've created value, owners know how important you are and will take your request seriously as long as it's reasonable. In my career, I have received 100% of the raises I've requested ... at least a half dozen times. I've never once received a no or even negative push back. Owners were eager to retain me. Even if your intention as a "line manager" is to not give the raise, the right move is to at least feign consideration for a few days and show the employee his request at least matters enough to think about. Letting everyone know they'll immediately be shown the door if they dare request an increase would create a terrible culture. Clueless management.

crusso 9y ago
Letting everyone know they'll immediately be shown the door if they dare request an increase would create a terrible culture The person to whom you're responding explicitly drew a distinction between discussing a raise with your boss vs going to your boss with another offer that you have secured. I can see the importance of that distinction. To put the relationship in a different context: Imagine the difference between a girlfriend who says, "Hey, we need to discuss the amount of time you spend playing video games. I'd like you to pay more attention to me." vs "Hey, I don't like the amount of time you spend playing video games, so I've been talking to this new guy about being my boyfriend. Your move."
- coldtea 9y ago
  >The person to whom you're responding explicitly drew a distinction between discussing a raise with your boss vs going to your boss with another offer that you have secured. Because it's only OK to ask for a raise when the boss has the upper hand?
  - crusso 9y ago
    Has the boss brought someone in to replace you and said, "Okay, Coldtea, we found someone to replace you at your job. He's as good as you and he'll take a 10% cut in salary over what we pay you. Do you want to take a pay cut so you can stay?" That would be the upper hand. Before that, it's just a discussion.

TACIXAT 9y ago

I'd much rather have an offer in hand in case I bring salary up and they shake my hand and wish me good luck.

thomascgalvin 9y ago

> Most line managers worth working for, value their teams and will fight for them if they are unhappy, without the threats. Agreed. I've already gotten my team the best raise/promotion that I could. If they can find better at a different company, I wish them well. And that's not sarcastic. I genuinely wish them well. It hurts to let a good employee go, and finding/training a replacement sucks, but we're all kind of stuck in this shitty US corporate culture together, and we have to look out for ourselves.

naasking 9y ago
> Agreed. I've already gotten my team the best raise/promotion that I could. Then again, this employee has just presented you with evidence that maybe your compensation isn't competitive, which is something you can bring to the higher ups to increase your budget. If you're not competitive, you'll have retention problems and business will ultimately suffer. So you got the best rate you could at the time with the information available, but competing offers could change that equation.

corobo 9y ago

> pull this on me make you do your job as a manager? > having a talk with your manager about your salary before going off and actively looking for other offers is going to go down a lot better because then the employee doesn't know the market rate and the manager can get away with giving a garbage raise. Of course that's going to go down better, it's less work for the manager to dig it out of the budget or their boss Edit: Made it a little less personal, my grudges are not with you.

mac01021 9y ago

> Most line managers value their team and will fight for them if they are unhappy 1) It's not a matter of being happy or unhappy. Just about everyone wants to earn as much as possible, the goal being to get as quickly as possible to the point where one no longer requires employment. 2) It's not possible to know how much the market values you without seeking other offers and seeing how much they'll offer you. 3) If one of your employees comes to you and says "I would like a raise" with no additional context, I can't imagine you're likely to offer them much. If they say "I need a raise or else I'm going to start looking at other jobs", I doubt you'll treat that much different from coming to you with an offer already in hand. As an employee with a manager like you, it seems like my best best is to get an offer first, and then come to you saying "I'm really happy here, but you're not paying me market rate, and I think I would also be happy at this other company that will pay me more."

softawre 9y ago
> the goal being to get as quickly as possible to the point where one no longer requires employment. Most people don't have this goal. I personally have it (FI/RE), but most don't, even most software engineers. This is pretty evident by the cars that they drive and the other money that they can be seen "wasting". Some happy medium is really what people want.

alain94040 9y ago

There is a way to do this right [1] -- true story. Do not actively look to quit, instead, inform your manager that you are getting inbound requests with specific numbers and that you'd rather stay, but the numbers are what they are. [1] https://medium.com/@alain94040/how-to-negotiate-a-raise-9166c977645a https://medium.com/@alain94040/how-to-negotiate-a-raise-9166...

unethical_ban 9y ago

As someone else put it well, it's a free market. The best way to know MY value in the market is to talk to other companies about openings and salary. So by coming to you, the manager, without doing that is to let you determine my market value without any other input. That's like the Ford dealer getting mad at me for going to other lots to find the best deal on a truck. Relationships are important, sure, but you have to understand: management is not typically the friend of the worker, nor is HR.

southphillyman 9y ago

Yea this has been my experience. I usually don't mention that I have an offer but just ask for a meeting and explicitly ask for more money. I never get it and just hand in my 2 weeks about a week after the meeting. Maybe if I revealed that I had an offer I may have gotten a raise but I don't want to work somewhere where I need to "have leverage" to get what I deserve and what's fair.

mcguire 9y ago

I'm not sure about most places since I've been a contract employee for most of my career, but at my last employer, a large government contractor, extortion of this sort was literally the only way to get more than the nominal raise. And TBH, if the company is making cutbacks, all of the competent people will be scurrying away first; you might as well be one of them.

fullstackhuman 9y ago

> Most line managers worth working for, value their teams and will fight for them if they are unhappy, without the threats. Most good line managers will recognise their employees contributions to the company and suggest a raise/additional compensation without needing to be prompted.

scaryclam 9y ago
Which is what the sentence you quoted means. Line managers aren't mind readers though so sometimes you'll need to talk to them about things.

coldtea 9y ago

>I imagine this is good advice in some places, but as a line manager, if you pull this on me I'm more than likely to shake your hand and wish you luck in your new job. Well, glad that people know that, so that they can wish the company good luck in getting second rate talent.

varelse 9y ago

I would get the data first before approaching you and then lie about whether I had already done so. It's the sort of white lie that protects both parties. If your dog died that day, you might just fire me on the spot. Or if I'm making close to market rate, I should STFU and stop trying to microoptimize. But if I have uncovered a huge pay discrepancy, you have already failed me. Both you and your HR department in fact. Sadly, I suspect that across many individuals, this is a winning strategy because most people don't actively manage their careers (to their detriment). If the company has cutbacks, everyone's head is on the guillotine and it's time to jump ship anyway before the signal hits the employment market.

jcadam 9y ago

> In a lot of places, having a talk with your manager about your salary before going off and actively looking for other offers is going to go down a lot better. This has got to be some of the worst career advice I've ever heard. I made this mistake once, at my first software job. My employer's response was to say "NO" and then proceed to make my life hell in an attempt to make me quit. With a wife, kids, and a mortgage, that wasn't an option for me. I was eventually fired (for poor performance, a mere 2 months after receiving an 'outstanding' yearly appraisal) and spent 2 months unemployed before landing my next job. On the plus side, the offer I received was higher than the raise I had requested from my former employer. So, my advice: Trusting your manager to be a reasonable human being is not worth the risk. You are absolutely satisfied with all aspects of your job, including your salary... right up until the moment you hand your boss a letter of resignation. Now if you have a large amount of savings (say 6 months - 1 year of living expenses), feel free to take stupid risks. Otherwise, have another job lined up when you ask for a raise... you don't have to actually tell your boss about it, after all.

softawre 9y ago
> You are absolutely satisfied with all aspects of your job, including your salary... right up until the moment you hand your boss a letter of resignation. Would you give this advice in reverse too? Ignoring lawsuits for a minute, as a manager - should you always tell your employees that they are doing fine, even if they aren't, right up until the moment you fire them for poor performance?
- lovich 9y ago
  Probably not, but that's pretty common. But the point OP is making is that bringing up salary discussions with bosses can be a big risk. Employees only have one employer but employers have multiple employees. If you don't another job lined up and your boss decides to take punitive action against you for daring to try and get a better deal from them, then you are kinda fucked. It'd be nice if you could start the discussion with employers without having to worry about problems but our current economic/social system doesn't allow for that

johnward 9y ago

In my experience managers tend to have their hands tied as to what they can offer. You may get 3% if you ask for a raise. Companies tend to give managers more options when they are trying to keep an employee from jumping ship. This is all from my time with megacorps though.

naasking 9y ago

> Most line managers worth working for, value their teams and will fight for them if they are unhappy, without the threats. Demonstrating that you're undervalued is not a threat, it's feedback on how the market values your employees. You give feedback on how well your employees are serving the business right? Why shouldn't it work the other way around? Your work is not your family, this isn't personal judgment or criticism, this is just business.

threatofrain 9y ago

From my perspective, management often doesn't have the information or tools to be an ally or intermediate to his or her subordinates, and trying to curate that relationship is a one-man effort, unless you have great influence at company leadership. Some of the tools for a quid pro quo relationship that extends beyond mere money include being able to tell people about big moves so that their lives aren't caught off guard. Coworkers help each other out in this regard. But should management? People make their plans around timing, geography, and revenue from employment, and when management doesn't reveal big layoffs, big real estate changes, or other big restructurings, people have to up-end their lives. Management knows this, but values some things more, such as the company health. In doing so they set the tone of the relationship. Management isn't in the position to establish a rich and sincere relationship with employees. There's always an element of insincerity because management isn't telling you things that your coworker friend would, the coworker friend who calls you from another company after the layoffs, recommending you to hop ship to their company. Would management ever tell you to hop ship to Apple? One might argue that management ought never be in a position to establish such rich and sincere relations. One gossiping manager and you might trigger an early exodus. Or a wave of salary conversation. So managers ought not even know the very information which would help their employees stabilize their life against the uncertainty. Also, if leadership doesn't want a union, and plenty of world-class places don't like unions, what is management's position to play then? Obviously squash the union talk.