It’s a well known fact that women are less confident than men when it comes to negotiating their salaries. In fact a recent survey found that more than half of female professionals have never attempted to negotiate their salary. Men are 23% more likely to to negotiate a payrise. Men on average recieve an 8% pay increase after a negotiation, women will recieve a 6% pay rise.
In another survey , many women said the fear of seeming rude or ungrateful stopped them from negotiating their salaries. They were also fearful that asking could affect benefits like maternity pay.
Despite legislation designed to tacke the gender pay gap, not enough has been done to tackle it. It is imperative that women start negotiationg more and are paid what they are worth. Let’s look in detail at how to negotiate your salary.
Prepare
You need to do as much research into your field as possible. You need to be aware of the industry pay scale so you have an idea of what to ask for when negotiations start. You need to use facts during the negotiation rather than a ‘feeling’ that you should be paid more. If you will be asking for more than the industry average, you will need to be prepared to justify that request.
Know Your Worth
Knowing what your industry typically pays for a given role is important. What is just as important is being able to justify you requests. Use evidence to backup your claims. For example you have been able to grow the client base by 12% over the last 6 months. You have run 3 successful marketing campaigns this year. Use numbers and concrete examples to demonstrate your value to the company.
Be Assertive
Being assertive is not the same as being pushy or rude. Being assertive means asking for what you think you are worth. Start by changing your language. Don’t start the negotiation by saying “Sorry I know budgets are tight right now”. Your request is not personal. You are making a business request for which you do not need to apologise.
As well as changing your language, make sure you include documentation that backs up your request. Any evidence on industry pay scale and your accomplishments.
What’s Next
Despite all your planning , you might still be turned down by your boss. So you need to make a Plan B should this happen. Your boss may say no to a salary raise but you could try negotiating more holiday , training or some other perk.
Schedule a time with your boss to revisit the conversation. It might also be useful to ask what your boss thinks you need to improve on before you have this chat again. Get clear feedback from them. They will be very clear that you will be working on their feedback and expect that to be part of the next salary conversation.
We hope this helps with your next salary negotiation. Drop us a line below and let us know how it goes.
