I agree with **Quercus **regarding the travel costs. Being allowed to live in a different city is a benefit to you and one which is costing the company money (as they have to pay for your periodic trips to head office). Perhaps you could negotiate a fixed monthly allowance for travel (with the understanding that it will be for one trip per month of two days duration, for example). If they give you Four Seasons money and you stay at Motel 6 you could pocket the difference. Just make sure the agreement is in writing.
Regarding the bonus, most companies will include it in the offer letter. It may be indexed to corporate profitability, but that should be clearly explained in the letter. They may have good intentions, but without something in writing it would be foolish to factor a bonus into your calculations.
One final tip - plan what you will say if they don’t budge. A good face-saving tactic is to say you are disappointed, but will discuss it with your spouse. Call back later to accept the job, saying that you and your spouse sat down and were able to trim a little more fat from your household budget. Let them know that you are willing to make a few sacrifices because it is such a great opportunity.
Yup…In a previous job I had 2 bosses (they were 2 owners). One was very hands off and didn’t like to get involved with things. The other pretty much ran everything.
She had a tendency to think we were stupid - she would have all these bonus programs to motivate us but would never deliver. A wise person might have thought that we all had brains and so she would have to deliver sometime…but nope…she would establish all these bonus programs and NEVER deliver.
This would extend to things like tuition reimbursement. She would establish tuition reimbusrement…it looked good in the company handbook…but whenever it came up she would always deny it for some reason.
She also had a conversation with me after work and over a beer that the employees ‘seemed to not be motivated by bonus programs…’ Well DUH! I don’t think she realized that the employees were living, thinking people.
She got nailed once though. It was GREAT! She went on vacation for 3 weeks. It just so happened that the bonus program triggered during this 3 weeks and the accountant (who had no liking for this owner) followed the bonus program.
Remember…these were LAVISH bonuses…they could be because the owner never intended to actually give them…and so to make them as motivating as possible they were LAVISH!
The accountant followed the program and issued the checks. Mine was for something like $7800 for a QUARTER (3 months). The owner came back a day early and was there at the check giving out meeting. She went CRAZY! She started ranting that the bonuses couldn’t be given out because of x, y and z. She even tried to forcibly take back checks from employees…even getting into a tug-of-war and the check ripped in half.
The second owner, who was very hands off, had to grab her and take her out of the room and had a long animated discussion with her. She came back and said the check were good but was not happy…not happy at all. For months afterword she was pissed off all to hell.
This is nonsense. You are not being “allowed” to live in a different city. You are being hired in the full knowledge that you already live in a different city. It is not a benefit. If they direct you to go here or there, whether it’s to the home office or to a client’s office, it is a travel expense that they should bear.
Well, many employers and employees can negotiate whatever they want, but the standard model is that getting from your home to the company office, and the costs therof, is your problem, not the company’s. If you want to live in another country, fly in to the office every morning and fly back every night, that’s up to you, but you’re buying the tickets. Whereas, sending you somewhere other than the office is the company’s concern, and they should buy the tickets or reimburse you.
If the OP maintained an office and commuted routinely to work, that would make sense. But if the OP is routinely working from home, and coming in for some kind of periodic… strategy sessions or something, that is work-related travel that the company should be picking up.
Some jobs are bonus driven the way waiter/waitressing jobs are driven by tips.
Waiters/waitresses judge their income on the expectaton the type of place they work in, and what kind of tips they’re likely to get.
Not all jobs do this, but sales jobs do this commonly.
The OP seems a bit concerned in “setting the tone” for the future and you have a valid point. And it works both ways, if I am offered 45k and ask for 50k and get it, that means to me the company is not being really upfront. They’re trying to get the cheapest employee. So then I’d be thinking “What else are they cheating me or using me on.”
And the flip side works to. A manager might say "OK he asked for 50K we have him 45K will he only give 90% to his job?
As a manager one thing I learned is if people think they are being paid well they work for it. I had one PBX operator that was making minimum wage, back in 1998. I hired her for $8.00/hr and she was like “WOW that’s a lot.” Now every other PBX operator made more than that, due to the fact they’d all been their over five years. But the thing remains, she felt she was being paid well (at least compared to her last job) and she worked for it.
I think there is a valid concern for “setting the tone” as the OP brought up, but it goes both ways and there is no real way to answer. It’s how each individual reacts
I’m going to disagree with Boyo Jim. Please let me explain my reasoning…
Let’s say the job the OP will be performing is work $50k a year to the company. Putting aside negotiating tactics for the moment, that is the most they will pay. Specifically, that is the highest “total employment cost” they are willing to incur; any more and they will be losing money. They should be indifferent, though, as to whether they pay someone local a $50k salary or someone remote a $45k salary and a $5k travel allowance / expenses.
Admittedly, it is debatable whether the OP views (or should view) the travel reimbursement as a benefit, but from the company’s perspective it is most certainly a cost. With that in mind, I think it is perfectly reasonable for the company to reduce his salary (vs. what they would offer an equivalent local hire) by the amount of the travel expenses. Of course, we don’t know exactly what they are willing to pay a local hire, so they may be inflating the estimated travel expenses to low-ball the OP.
This may actually be the case, as not providing a written bonus offer does make the company look a little disingenuous.
Certainly travel is a cost. But it is not a benefit to the OP, and should not be considered part of a compensation package to be negotiated. Well, no more so than travel to any other site the company does business with. There’s not necessarily anything wrong with telling the employer that they can save some money by putting you up at Motel 6 rather than the Hyatt, but it’s not something that you should change your salary demands over.
OTOH, If they have a reasonably generous per diem and you can keep the unspent portion, that would be a benefit to the OP worth negotiating.
Well, I met with them yesterday. Per the advice here, I didn’t bring up travel, and neither did they, so that stayed off the table. They brought up the bonus, but after pointing out the fact that the bonus wasn’t in the contract, they backed off on that. So all went well on those two items.
Unfortunately, they didn’t budge on the salary. Which sucks, but they did offer me health insurance. I didn’t mention this in my OP, but it’s a small company and they haven’t historically offered health insurance, a factor which I was well prepared for and budgeted into my salary request. Weeks ago at my last interview, there was a vague promise for a group policy at some point in the future, but since it wasn’t in the contract, I figured it was back to plan A. Apparently they figured differently, although I’m not sure how I was supposed to know that. And I definitely didn’t know that “in the future” meant a couple of weeks from now.
Long story short, I told them that was great news, and as soon as they gave me some info on the plan and wrote it into the contract, I was good. I sort of felt a general attitude of, “What, you don’t trust us?” when I asked for it in writing, but I don’t feel bad about that at all and I think they understand now. I’m looking for something from them next week and hopefully I can have a job by Thanksgiving.
Thanks for all the replies everyone, this thread really helped me think through the whole process, and I felt very prepared yesterday because of it.
I disagree. If they prefer a local candidate, they’re free to hire one. They’re choosing not to, so the consequences of that decision are on their head, not their employee’s.
I would, at a minimum, stand firm on your original figure. In my experience, a lowball salary offer invariably turns out to be a red flag for deeper issues in that working environment.
There’s this. Don’t underestimate the value of working in a job you actually like.
The problem is you don’t really have a lot of leverage in this economy. It will cost you more in opportunity costs associated with finding a new job if you walk away from an offer.
If they won’t budge on salary, look for other opportunities where they can provide you additional benefits or perks (like the health insurance you mentioned.)
If I don’t want to pay MSRP for a car, am I cheating someone?
Everyone wants to get a good deal. If a potential employee is worth at most $50k, it’s not unethical for the company to offer $40k. A person who is making $30k might go, “Wow, that’s a lot!” and take it – great, we saved $10k a year.
A company that does not offer everyone their highest offer is not a cheat, they’re acting intelligently.
Now on the other hand, if a company makes an offer that is ridiculously low – like offering someone whose peers are making $70k a year a first offer of $30k, well yeah, I’d have lot of distrust in that situation. I did have companies who approached me even after knowing what I make and what I would accept at a minimum and who offered me 5 to 10k less than I made at the time, and I turned them down flat. I figured that by lowballing they were hoping someone desperate or hoping to wiggle up to no more than my current salary, and as someone leaving for being underpaid, no dice. Mostly I find that this happens with recruiters, who don’t have as much of an interest in finding a candidate who will actually stay for the long haul. I guess it doesn’t cost that much to make a call, ask a ton of questions like it’s an interview and then say “Oh yeah, this is a contract job for $7/hr” and hope that one person in a hundred won’t laugh and hang up.
Absolutely, Druid. If I run a business and offer everyone really high salaries, I’m not going to be in business very long; if I lowball everyone, I’m going to have a staff of rejects and disgruntled workers looking for the next job. There is a balance to be struck between what the employee will accept and what the employer will offer.
