Seven Ways To Negotiate For A Higher Salary

1. What value you bring in?

Be very clear about how you are going to add value to the business objectives and deliverable s. Once you have the clarity on the linkage between your own deliverable s and the tangible business outcome, it becomes much easier to justify the basis for negotiation and one becomes confident of the compelling reasons to look forward to a higher salary.

2. Overcome fear/shyness:

Probably, the most common reason why one doesn’t ask for a higher salary is for the fear of being rejected, fear of coming across as demanding or fear of resentment from one’s boss. One has to overcome this fear and bring in self-confidence to justify the case of asking for a higher salary. This can only be possible when someone has substantial data and facts captured from research as mentioned earlier, which helps in an objective and professional discussion around salary increase.

 

3. Last drawn salary as the baseline:

 

Most often any new salary offer gets pegged to the last drawn salary. It is only fair that the current salary should be treated as the baseline for further increments. However, one needs to keep in mind the additional competencies required to manage the challenges and deliverables of the new role. This will help justify the indicative increase on the last drawn salary. 

 

4. Negotiate the CTC components: 

 

In most cases, negotiation happens over CTC (Cost to company), which in most cases, is divided between fixed and variable parts. However, it is very important to comprehend and if required, negotiate on the various components of your CTC, which might help in arriving at a better take home salary.

 

5. Be realistic and reasonable: 

 

One should be realistic about what you are asking for. The negotiation discussion should not be perceived by the organization that the employee is demanding and greedy, something which is unreasonable and unjustified. It is always appreciated when the employee creates a platform for objective and factual discussion, which leads to a mutually agreed outcome.

   

6. Do homework on market benchmarks, compensation trends: 

 

Take inputs from professionals and recruitment consultants, the state of business operations and the compensation structure of the organization in order to assess its percentile positioning in the market compensation. One should use this data to take an informed stand prior to the salary negotiation. 

Some of the important research areas will be to find out the range of market salary for the position offered by the new organization, or the role in the current organization based on experience and qualification; and, the market trend specific to the industry/sector.

7. Overcome the fear of rejection and resentment and bring in self-confidence while asking for a higher salary.

Though difficult, it is necessary that employees at all levels overcome the fear of rejection while asking for a salary hike. Let’s find out the trick of doing it the right way… 

Salary negotiation happens either when an employee explores a new job opportunity, or during the yearly performance assessment meetings in the current organsiation