Weak Reasons to Ask for a Raise

It’s not uncommon for employees to feel that they are undervalued and, consequently, underpaid. But, while some employees seem adept at building the case for a pay raise, others struggle to do the same, continuing to feel frustrated and sometimes even choosing to leave the organization in search of better pay. It may be that they’re not framing their requests in ways that resonate with their managers, HR, or the organization.

In a previous post, we focused on five reasons you can present to convey that you do deserve a pay raise. Here, we’ll look at some weaker arguments that can hinder employee efforts to boost their pay.

You Replaced One or More People Who Recently Left

If you’re doing the work of two people, it’s logical to make the assumption that your pay should be commensurate to that value. But, just because you were able to fill others’ shoes doesn’t mean you deserve a raise.
It may be the case that those tasks weren’t particularly important or became less important after certain people left. Or, those individuals may not have been considered productive or adept at performing the job.

Personal Traits

You’re a dedicated employee, a hard worker, and a team player. Those seem to be attributes that should merit a pay increase, but consider this: Arguing that you’re a hard worker, a team player, reliable, etc., isn’t really sufficient to justify a raise. These are baseline characteristics that are expected from every employee.
Instead, consider ways in which you use your positive traits to help the company more than others. You need to differentiate yourself in positive ways, not simply demonstrate that you’re performing as well as everybody else, if you want a pay increase.

Your Knowledge Level Has Increased

Again, this is expected of all employees. Instead consider: How has your increased knowledge helped the company? Would the company be in a bind if it lost the institutional knowledge you’ve accumulated? Or is there plenty of redundancy to fill your shoes until your replacement is found if you were to leave?

Your Work Generates Lots of Revenue or Saves Lots of Money

Again, this may seem to be an obvious way to support the legitimacy of a pay increase. But some experts argue that this is the way jobs are designed and usually not the result of anyone’s individual effort. If a job isn’t generating or saving money, it’s probably not worth having that position in the first place.

Threatening to Walk

This approach could backfire for obvious reasons. One expert cautions against using this tactic unless at least one of the five strong arguments for a raise discussed in our previous post applies.
We all would like to make more money, but we need to demonstrate that we’ve earned it and we deserve it. When going in to ask for a raise, it’s important to think from the perspective of your employer and focus on the strongest arguments for boosting your compensation.