Advice and Tips
Employers don’t always think that when employees get increased responsibility and new tasks, this justifies giving them a higher salary.
If you’ve been offered new tasks at work, you’re in a negotiating position. Your boss wants you to do something new, which is a good starting point for requesting a salary increase. Have a pleasant chat with your boss when your new role has been more or less defined and ask about your salary. If you’re getting managerial responsibility, you can read more about it here.
Sometimes employers say that they want to wait until the annual wage negotiations to offer you a new salary. Tekna advises you against accepting this delay because you quite naturally want to know how much you’ll be compensated for taking on new tasks before agreeing to do so. If you accept these changes without knowing what you’ll be earning, you’ll immediately lose your bargaining position.
Any salary increase resulting from a job change should take place from the day you start performing your new tasks. Regular wage negotiations are meant to develop everyone’s salary, and any increase is assessed based on the way you perform your regular tasks. Changing tasks isn’t ordinary; on the contrary, it’s extraordinary. And extraordinary changes should be considered outside of regular annual wage negotiations. Your company union representative can help you in this type of situation.
Your best bargaining chip in salary negotiations is seeing what others with your background are earning. Because we offer our members some of the country’s best banking and insurance deals, legal assistance and a lot more, it pays to join Tekna.
What should you think about before going into a discussion with your boss about your salary? It’s common for employees who perform similar tasks to be placed at more or less the same salary level – with adjustments made for experience and seniority. So for you who’s been assigned new tasks, it’s helpful to know something about your co-workers’ salary levels. If there’s a union representative at your company, he/she can help you find out this information. If you don’t have any representative, you should ask your employer what the average salary level is for this type of position.
Regardless, employers seldom make an offer that’s far too low. This is because they want employees to thrive at work and feel they’re being fairly treated. At the same time, employers often have a bit of latitude with respect to salary offers. We therefore recommend that you always talk with your boss about the salary offer you’ve been given and find out if they can offer you a little more. Do this in a pleasant way, saying that you appreciate getting new and exciting tasks – and remembering that the worst answer you can get is «no».
Don’t send an e-mail! Writing your request makes you appear a lot more rigid. In the worst- case scenario, you can appear demanding and argumentative, which won’t help your cause.
Are you wondering how your salary compares to others working at your same level?
