Last fall, I agreed with my company that I would forgo a raise this year. In exchange, I was promised some commission-based opportunities. For various reasons those opportunities have not materialized, and I now need to ask them for a raise after all.
How does one go about this sort of thing in light of my agreement to forgo a raise?
Short answer, I’d speak with your manager. I’d imagine that they were involved in the original agreement, and would be your first step in negotiations…
That said, I’m not brave enough to ask for a raise, I have a hard enough time providing enough pressure to move from a contractor to a full-time position.
<insert grumbling about outsourcing of positions to India, for overnight support, unneeded, rather than US daytime support :mad: >
Don’t.
Ask for the commission opportunities you were promised. If they say they can no longer offer that, then you just have to point out that your offer to forgo a raise also no longer applies.
Often the only way you’re getting a raise in this environment is to provide your boss with one (or more) of the following:
- Job offer at a higher rate (especially at a competitor if you’re not under a NDA)
- Information that regulatory agencies would find interesting
- Photographs the boss’s spouse would find very interesting
Mind you, this comes from the guy who was just informed that the “great year” we’ve been having was wiped out in one month. This is after the fact that we’ve had plenty of layoffs, people leaving, and plant shutdowns. So the bonus is history, and next year’s raises won’t be as generous as the 3% we got last year.
So no, I’m not bitter or anything. :rolleyes:
I think LionelHutz405’s idea is the best one, especially since you were promised that. I don’t suppose you have it in writing? But, yeah, I think you should go to the boss and say “Hey, I was wondering…” and let him defend himself.
It’s less direct than asking for a raise straight out.
The problem with that is that they aren’t not offering it any more. There just haven’t been any opportunities and there may not be any for another year or two or five (despite the fact that when I agreed not to have a raise last year, they said there’d be a ton of opportunities and I’d be working on the first by the beginning of this year).
So if I did that, I’d end up without a raise and stuck in the same place that I am now.
- Be worth the salary you are going to ask for
- Be prepared to find employment elsewhere if your current company is not prepared to pay you what you’re worth
- Ask.
It sounds like the commission stuff is just BS to avoid giving you a raise.
Fuji is right. If you are not prepared to leave, you really have no leverage. From your employer’s viewpoint its ‘why should I pay you more to do the exact same job just because you are a year older?’
It’s very unusual to get a significant raise without changing companies or at least demonstrating you could get more by doing so.
I did interview with another company a few months ago, but didn’t get the job.
A year ago when we had the original discussion, I made it clear that I couldn’t continue to live on my current income. Should I make that point again, saying that I understood when I accepted their alternative that commission-based work is risky, but that I had expected to see *something *in less than a year?
I’m not looking for a huge raise, just something to keep up with the cost of living. We’re a small company and have no annual COLA-type of thing. Some of the employees have gone years without *any *change in their salary.
But, I think, **taxi78cab ** is just looking for a cost-of-living increase. You know, 2 to 5 % or so. Don’t most companies do this?
I certainly wouldn’t stay in a company that didn’t at least give me a tiny raise every year.
I’m not going to stay here forever. But I really like what I do, I like the people I work with, and there are other benefits - flexibility, getting to go to certain events, a trip to Vegas every year for the company convention, etc.
So for now I just want enough to get by for another year or two until I can find a job that I will still enjoy and that will pay better.
Not that I would dare criticize your decision, taxi78cab. Didn’t mean to come off as snarky if I did.
If I was going to be snarky to you, it would be via e-mail. 
Being a manager I have the following to offer:
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Do research for what your position pays outside of your company. Have that documention and references in hand. (salary.com is a good place to start)
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Compare your skill sets to those of your peers. Do you go “above and beyond” the call of duty that would put you in a class of your own?
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Have past reviews ready for review. Did you get a performing rating or a leading rating? If you scored “meeting expectations” chances are HR will not be impressed with giving you a mid year raise. If you are a new hire, do you have any customer’s that have said “thanks for all the help! You rock!” type communications…bring those.
One of my employees approached me last week with “I deserve more money because I work harder”. I agree the employee is exceptional and is above and beyond all of his peers. He works longer hours and takes pride in his work; a true lead. The problem, where is the documentation that you “work harder” in order for me to go to HR to have a raise approved, I need to show them exactly why you are one of the exceptional employees that deserve more money. So help your boss, help you. It is not always up to your manager to delve out raises. He/She will have to justify a mid year pay raise to others.
Be prepared. Show him what you bring to the table. Show him that you are being proactive in advancing your career. Remember one thing…no one cares more about your career than you do.
That sounds like great advice for someone in a bigger company, Tiggrkitty. But here we don’t have performance reviews, and the person I’d be approaching is the president of our 22-person company. (My company’s partners with a larger multi-national firm, but we operate independently of the bigger company.)
And because the company’s small, I do what a whole bunch of different people would do in a larger firm - database management, market research, marketing, occasional financial analysis, info management, IT/IS-type training, etc. So it’s hard to research what my pay should be because these different positions would all be tracked independently, not together. If I did look up these positions, do you think I would be able to just average them?
Also, again I’m not really looking for a big performance-based raise, just enough to cover cost of living increases.
I thought you said these commissions were promised to you. If that’s true, and you really can’t live on what they’re paying you, I’d try to get another job offer. If you can’t, then you’ll just have to take whatever your current employer is paying, and if you can, show it to your boss and tell him he has to cough up a raise or let you go. No hard feelings - just cold economics.
What was offered to me was the opportunity to earn commissions by working on special projects above and beyond my normal work. Now, when this was offered to me, I was told that there were lots of these projects coming up and we’d start on them right away. That was last fall and I haven’t seen one since, despite asking regularly if there were any for me to work on.
So no, the commissions weren’t promised, there was always risk involved, but it sounded when offered like there would be ample opportunity to work on these special projects.
(I should make clear that I didn’t turn down a raise for this opportunity; it was take this opportunity or take nothing. The only relation to a raise last year was that I went to ask about a raise at that time and this was the solution they offered.)
taxi78cab wrote
No. If you’re negotiating anything with anybody, don’t talk about what you want and why you need it. That’s important to you, but irrelevant to them. It’s like if you went to the store and the clerk said, “buy this shirt; the electric bill is due tomorrow”. You couldn’t care less about his electric bill. What you want to hear is why the shirt looks good on you and how the price is right, etc. You want to hear about things that make the shirt more important to you.
And the same is true here. Talk to them about why you’re a great asset to them.