Communication Is the KeyFrom: Jack Chapman Let’s assume you’ve kept your shoulder to the wheel all year long. You have thrown every morsel of energy, creativity, and positive mental attitude humanly possible into your job. You have made your company a bundle. How do you negotiate a raise? Communication. Here are three communication steps: 1. Document your results; 2. Get your boss to acknowledge them; 3. Negotiate a raise the same way you’d negotiate a salary. According to the saying “The wheel that squeaks the loudest is the one that gets the grease,” a complainer may get more notice than you do. Don’t assume that your boss knows what a good job you’ve done to keep things running so smoothly. Bosses who allow efficient workers the freedom to do a good job are less likely to be aware of workers’ accomplishments! Such bosses are so trusting of your work that they naturally pay attention to their problems instead of your performance. They aren’t motivated to delve into your accomplishments. Therefore, you’ll have to delve for them. The best way to do that is to keep a job journal. If your review is due soon, start your journal by reviewing the period since your last raise and writing down the most significant things you’ve done. If your review is a long time off, begin your journal today and it will be your magic carpet to Raiseland later. Start by purchasing a spiral notebook big enough to hold large entries and small enough to tuck into a very accessible place. I’m indebted to Carl Armbruster, a Massachusetts career counselor, for the following description of a job journal, a splendid tool for negotiating raises. A journal can assist your career in a number of ways, but none of them is magical. You have to work at career advancement, and a journal gives you excellent material to accomplish the task. What do you write in your career log? There are four kinds of observations. The first kind is about your achievements. As you work you are solving certain problems, learning new techniques, creating new approaches. Record these small triumphs in your journal, with enough factual information to describe exactly what happened and what the results were. Quantifiable data such as approximate percentages, rounded dollar figures, or units of time are especially desirable. Achievements don’t have to be earth-shaking (you weren’t hired to be a miracle worker), but they should be tangible evidence of your effectiveness on the job. The second set of observations comes from time spent studying your superiors, colleagues, subordinates, or customers. Start a policy of observing people in order to find out what their strongest talents are. Don’t look for weaknesses or chinks in their armor, because negative appraisals don’t lead anywhere. They just sour you on the people. But a positive observation of what their skills are can help you respect them and thus lay a firm foundation for building good human relations. Also, you will know more precisely how to approach them effectively to get their support for your projects, promotions, or raises. Your notebook forces you to be aware of them. The third set of observations includes your ideas for progress. How often have you had the experience of getting a brilliant insight into how to do your job better or to create something more efficient and then two weeks later find that you’re unable to recall the idea that had excited you so much? Since they may be lost due to the frailty of human memory, insights of genius should be recorded. The fourth kind of observation includes news items, information, or sources of information about your chosen career field, such as newspaper and magazine articles. You want to be professional and keep up with what’s going on. Your reading in your field should be documented for future use. Jack Chapman is a nationally know job coach and seminar speaker specializing for the last 20 years in salary negotiations and job interviews. For more information on Salary Negotiations, please visit: http://www.breakthrough-salaries.com/ |