This is always such a difficult subject to broach. You know you deserve a higher salary, you work hard and from doing some research you have seen that you are definitely underpaid. You love your company and don’t necessarily want to leave, but you know you are being underpaid. What now?
It is very important that you are sure of your facts. We often see people thinking they deserve more money, because their friend does the same job and has the same years’ experience and gets x amount more salary than them. Do you have the exact same qualifications? The exact same marks?
The same type of experience (i.e. same technologies etc.). Even so, some companies just do pay better than others. One company would value x and y higher than another company. Or they know their employees work more overtime, or get increases less frequently etc. and they make up for this
with higher basic salaries.
You could look at salary survey results online or contact a recruiter to gauge where your salary should be given your experience and qualifications.
So, you’ve done your research, you are sure you are being underpaid and you’re ready for a conversation with your manager. It is never a good idea to threaten anyone (i.e. give me more money or I’ll quit). It’s best to be sensitive about the topic and have an open discussion with your manager. Start by saying that you love your job and you really enjoy being part of the team /company, but you think that you are being underpaid. Ask him if there are certain kpa’s you should adhere to in order to get an increase or what you should do for them to considering giving you a raise. Unfortunately for us, it doesn’t help to simply say “my expenses are high, I need more money”, all of us could do with more money. It is important to back your request with facts without being aggressive.
Chances are if handled correctly your employer will see your point and give you an increase. He might have to get it signed off etc. which will be another hurdle to cross. Or he might say that they don’t have the budget right now. Depending on the response you can decide how you want to
handle it – if you have a good relationship you can remind him that it’ll probably cost more to find a replacement since there aren’t a lot of developers on such a low salary, and you already know all the systems etc. A new person would have to be trained etc. Ultimately, giving you a reasonable increase will be most cost effective.
If all else fails and you don’t get the increase, it’s up to you to decide whether you want to look for a new job. It’s also important to note that the grass isn’t necessarily greener on the other side. Yes, your salary might be more, but it might not have the favourable working conditions you have now. So weigh everything up and decide what you want to do. If you decide to look for a new job and resigning only gets you the increase you requested in the first please, see our article on “Counter offers” here.