Anyone go for the gold and request more than the usual 2-3% yearly increase?

NoNameNoob

If so, how did it work out for you?
All the others on our team (5 members) accepted the 2% raise without question. I was the only one to ask for higher, (5%), was denied but felt I had a strong case for it. It was worth it imo.

Priston

I would never specific how much of a raise I want. I would simply ask for a raise and take what they give me.

What if you ask for a 5% raise and they were ready to give you a 10% or 20% raise?

sj4088

Priston wrote: »

I would never specific how much of a raise I want. I would simply ask for a raise and take what they give me.

What if you ask for a 5% raise and they were ready to give you a 10% or 20% raise?

Lol. Not happening as a raise. They only way you get that much is through a promotion.

NoNameNoob

Priston wrote: »

I would never specific how much of a raise I want. I would simply ask for a raise and take what they give me.

What if you ask for a 5% raise and they were ready to give you a 10% or 20% raise?

I suppose all managers have different styles. Mine went through our yearly goals point by point and spoke about additional points from his perspective. He then provides a number of what the company feels is appropriate. Only after this do you get an opportunity to put in your 2 cents.

hurricane1091

My company only gives 3% at the most, but I legit believe I can quit in a year or so and get a 40% base salary raise, so I guess I'll probably have to quit huh?

Priston

sj4088 wrote: »

Lol. Not happening as a raise. They only way you get that much is through a promotion.

When our network administrator left I basically promoted myself (took over all network related issues) My new manager saw this and gave me a 20% raise then 11 months later another 40% raise. If I said no I only want 5% I'd be really underpaid.

xxxkaliboyxxx

Priston wrote: »

When our network administrator left I basically promoted myself (took over all network related issues) My new manager saw this and gave me a 20% raise then 11 months later another 40% raise. If I said no I only want 5% I'd be really underpaid.

You brought justifiable evidence that helped the business by taking over someone else's responsibility. As a manager, that is something I can take to corporate and justify the raise.

If someone comes to me with what new certs they have, perfect attendance and that they are good at their job, I would say good job and keep up the good work. What can I use to justify your raise? Your just doing what your suppose to do and what 100's of others would love to do for far less. I need some ammo or justification that impacts the business positively. Other wise I'll just call your bluff and have in the back of my head that you might be looking to leave for more money.

TheFORCE

My old job every employee in the company was getting a raise, this is a yearly raise to adjust for inflation, living standard etc etc. It was in the area of 2%-3%. Now everyone knows 2% on 40k is not the same as 2% on 100k. So i raised the issue and contact HR, they got back to me with a 5%. You got nothing to lose if you ask.

Danielm7

sj4088 wrote: »

Lol. Not happening as a raise. They only way you get that much is through a promotion.

Every company is different, I used to work for a small place that routinely did 10+% raises yearly because they were doing well and the employees worked hard and they wanted to reward them. Now in a F500, 2-4% on annual raises.

powerfool

I have had two instances where I got beyond the traditional raise. Once, I put in my notice and accepted a counter offer... so I got about a 15% increase. The other time, I had just taken on a new area of responsibility (took place of the old responsibilities, really a lateral move) but it was highly visible; I got about 5.5% raise which was normal, and then I was given another $5k on top of it because my boss wanted me to feel well compensated for the extra attention and scrutiny I would be receiving. These were at two different jobs. I have also received out of cycle bonuses twice. Beyond that, it has been the struggle for a 2-3% raise all of the time.

I really don't like the model of appraising performance annually and giving you a raise based off of that. It just seems demotivating. You bust your tail for a year in hopes of a positive review and despite doing very well, they always try to dwell on a couple of areas for improvement (like it is a means to help them justify the low increase that they are basically required to give you). I do look at bonuses like retroactive raises... and if I ran a company and could make the decisions, that is pretty much one of three ways I would handle bonuses. 1) You did really well, here is your raise, and here is a bonus that retroactively makes your past year equivalent to your new salary. 2) Some sort of system like the 13th month (a Philippine thing, as I understand it) where you get a bonus equivalent to one month's pay. 3) Something based on revenue that has a better scale for increases.

Right now, I have #3 in play, but the scale is horrible. The maximum is like 6% based on revenue... but at that level, I am generated 4x my salary in revenue... So, that is very little incentive to go beyond that. It saves the company money to have employees that want to work more hours... they don't have to hire as many contractors for flex work, and if it is routine, they don't have to hire more employees. Sure, not everyone is into that, but the folks that are are saving the company all of the fixed costs on top of salary for another employee, like insurance and the like. Plus, if you get to the point where you surpass the Social Security cap, you are saving them 6.5% on each extra $1 you earn rather than paying it to someone else. Really, that is about the only thing I don't like about my current job, so I am doing pretty good and can't complain about much else (other than the general review process and its lack of sort of real value).

EDIT: I guess to answer the question, I have never requested a larger increase... I have only expressed disappointment with an increase, and it has never yielded any results. The situations where I got something better were where I clearly was creating significantly more value and they knew I could likely find a higher paying gig any day of the week.

DatabaseHead

2-3% normally here (Fortune 500)

Received a 4.5% at a start up which was nice but left shortly after for this position.

My first year was ~5 months to the end of the calendar year, hit .9%.

The following year I was promoted so they rolled it up into my promotion, it was north of 20%.

This year we shall find out, we have lost a lot of people and I have taken on a lot of hats so we shall see if that means anything. I am expecting at least 2.5% hopefully 3%. Anything greater would be icing.

@OP - I have tried before but no dice....

Mike-Mike

powerfool wrote: »

EDIT: I guess to answer the question, I have never requested a larger increase... I have only expressed disappointment with an increase, and it has never yielded any results. The situations where I got something better were where I clearly was creating significantly more value and they knew I could likely find a higher paying gig any day of the week.

I am in about the same boat. I only really get big bumps by changing jobs or a promotion. For the most part i have complained about all my raises and got nowhere

Hammer80

I am sorry not exactly sure who started this trend but 2-3% raise is not a raise, all it is a match for inflation and cost of living. All this does is ensure that the dollar you make this year has the same buying power that it did the year before. This does not encourage people to go above and beyond or volunteer for projects due to no reward being offered. Yes people who actually want to be rewarded for their performance will jump ship every 1-2 years because these days this is the only way to get an actual raise and not be stuck in a salary quicksand. I can understand this being the trend on very low skill positions like customer service or flipping burgers but for mid to high skill this is ridiculous. Not sure what it's going to take for companies to realize they are not saving any money by doing this when they have to then pay to find a replacement and then pay to train the new replacement to the tune of $50-60k. That money would have been better spent retaining the valuable employee that you already had.

4_lom

I once walked into my boss's office and demanded a 15% increase. Told him if I didn't get it I would leave. I was a project engineer at the time. The company had recently been purchased and some of the helpdesk people from the parent company were making significantly more than me.

Short story, I got the raise. It all depends on how much you are worth to your company. If you're valued, they'll probably give you whatever you want, within reason.

NavyMooseCCNA

Raise? What is a raise?

RHEL

Our company has a "recommended increase" of 5% for a promotion to the next salary grade (or the bottom of the scale, whichever is more). I think that's crap since I regularly get 3.25%+ for being a high performer on my annual review.

What's the incentive to take on the next level and more responsibility?

chrisone

NoNameNoob wrote: »

If so, how did it work out for you?
All the others on our team (5 members) accepted the 2% raise without question. I was the only one to ask for higher, (5%), was denied but felt I had a strong case for it. It was worth it imo.

Now they know to avoid any issues with you to just give you 3-4% raises lol At least they now know you will be speaking with them regarding raises.

Hammer80

RHEL wrote: »

Our company has a "recommended increase" of 5% for a promotion to the next salary grade (or the bottom of the scale, whichever is more). I think that's crap since I regularly get 3.25%+ for being a high performer on my annual review.

What's the incentive to take on the next level and more responsibility?

There is none, you sir are essentially getting 0.25% for being a high performer, even with a salary of $100k a year this amounts to $20.83 extra a month, I bet you have spent more than that on headache medicine alone due to all the extra crap you had to do to earn that high performer status.

kohr-ah

We dont get yearly increases here.
That is why every job I go to the base salary I ask for I make sure is something I'd be happy with for 2 - 3 years assuming I get no increases.

DatabaseHead

I failed to mention this, while if you are Prime time player, you can get 5% MAX, usually 3.5% however...... We get a bonus depending what level you are. If you kill it they can most certainly kick in a multiplier against your initial bonus percentage. It's not uncommon for someone who gets 10% to get 20% for the year, assuming the company is doing well and the person really worked hard and delivered value.

NetworkNewb

RHEL wrote: »

Our company has a "recommended increase" of 5% for a promotion to the next salary grade (or the bottom of the scale, whichever is more). I think that's crap since I regularly get 3.25%+ for being a high performer on my annual review.

What's the incentive to take on the next level and more responsibility?

When an opening comes up, who do you think is going get that opportunity at the "next salary grade" up? Even if you don't move up in the same company, the more responsibility and experience you take on the better your resume looks for your next position and will get a nice pay bump that way.

hurricane1091

Boys, tell me this...

If I told you my base salary was literally at the very bottom when I look up my title on Glass Door, but I get a 10% bonus (potentially), how the hell do I grow some balls and walk in and get them to make my base salary what the average is? Mathematically, we're talking an impossible raise here. But if I told you that in the 20 months since I was hired, I got the CCNA:S (had RS coming into job), CCDA and CCNP, and started the CCIE (who knows if I'll ever get it, but I'm learning a lot). I've added F5 load balancing to my skillset, DMVPN, QoS, WireShark, BGP, etc. (I actually migrated us from ACE to F5, build a DMVPN lab with a Phase II design to actually be dynamic and used ZBF in the event we ever get approved for iWan, I am writing some QoS stuff for the new VDI environment going up, etc). Just added literally a ton. And it's a lot of higher level stuff. I've got to be able to do something here, you guys have to help me! I know I'm doing well, but I get a guilty conscious and feel like I owe my boss for the opportunity and for teaching me. What does a guy like me do? I have to stress, I feel like I didn't know much when I was hired. My boss tells me I was hired because he saw potential, and that's basically it. 20 months later and thousands of pages and hours of hardwork, and I'm feeling decently smart. Thanks to the boss believing in me and showing me some ropes, but I still want boat money.

greg9891

Where I worked they offered me a contract extension and did't give me a raise......I went into HR and told them I thought I deserved a raise. I presented them with all the certs I gained since they hired me. The Hr manager said that she didn't know I attained any certs, she reviewed them & I got a 12% raise.

NetworkNewb

@Hurricane, just send the following to your HR...

hurricane1091

NetworkNewb wrote: »

@Hurricane, just send the following to your HR...

LMAO. I'm done

Hammer80

hurricane1091 wrote: »

Boys, tell me this...If I told you my base salary was literally at the very bottom when I look up my title on Glass Door, but I get a 10% bonus (potentially), how the hell do I grow some balls and walk in and get them to make my base salary what the average is? Mathematically, we're talking an impossible raise here. But if I told you that in the 20 months since I was hired, I got the CCNA:S (had RS coming into job), CCDA and CCNP, and started the CCIE (who knows if I'll ever get it, but I'm learning a lot). I've added F5 load balancing to my skillset, DMVPN, QoS, WireShark, BGP, etc. (I actually migrated us from ACE to F5, build a DMVPN lab with a Phase II design to actually be dynamic and used ZBF in the event we ever get approved for iWan, I am writing some QoS stuff for the new VDI environment going up, etc). Just added literally a ton. And it's a lot of higher level stuff. I've got to be able to do something here, you guys have to help me! I know I'm doing well, but I get a guilty conscious and feel like I owe my boss for the opportunity and for teaching me. What does a guy like me do? I have to stress, I feel like I didn't know much when I was hired. My boss tells me I was hired because he saw potential, and that's basically it. 20 months later and thousands of pages and hours of hardwork, and I'm feeling decently smart. Thanks to the boss believing in me and showing me some ropes, but I still want boat money.

Here is the problem you have too much loyalty, times have changed companies do not have loyalty to their employees and neither should you. It's great that you had manager that took a chance on you but let's make it clear you do not owe him anything beyond being grateful for the opportunity. Trust me if your manager got a better offer to go elsewhere he would be gone in a minute and would not think twice about you, so why should you feel guilty for doing what's best for you and looking out for number one.

It would be one thing if your company incrementally increased your salary with every certification that you have earned, but that is not the case, even with all the certifications you have earned you are still making the same money as when you started and like you said you are making the lowest amount for your position so even with a 10% increase it doesn't amount too much. Remember he may have provided the opportunity but you did all the hard work.

hurricane1091

Hammer80 wrote: »

Here is the problem you have too much loyalty, times have changed companies do not have loyalty to their employees and neither should you. It's great that you had manager that took a chance on you but let's make it clear you do not owe him anything beyond being grateful for the opportunity. Trust me if your manager got a better offer to go elsewhere he would be gone in a minute and would not think twice about you, so why should you feel guilty for doing what's best for you and looking out for number one.

It would be one thing if your company incrementally increased your salary with every certification that you have earned, but that is not the case, even with all the certifications you have earned you are still making the same money as when you started and like you said you are making the lowest amount for your position so even with a 10% increase it doesn't amount too much. Remember he may have provided the opportunity but you did all the hard work.

Ultimately you are correct. I have nothing to dispute.