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One
of the best ways to approach salary negotiation is to
come armed with detailed information about the skills,
responsibility, working conditions, and effort required
for good job performance. Try writing an all inclusive
job description which uses action verbs to highlight
the duties and skills necessary to perform your job
well. Use this information to discuss your job with
your supervisor and to justify your request for a salary
increase. Listed below are some things to consider in
presenting your skills and job duties in a more favorable
light, and some ideas for raising awareness about how
your level of skill, responsibility, effort and working
conditions compare with other positions within the organization.
- What is your level of responsibility?
Are you required to protect
confidentiality? Are you trusted with acting on behalf
of absent supervisors? Do you supervise other staff,
or co-ordinate schedules of others? Do you shoulder
the consequence of error to the organization? Are
you required to prevent possible damage to equipment?
Are you responsible for the physical or emotional
well-being of others? What are the consequences of
your error?
- What skills do you have that
might be overlooked? How many
different types of equipment, office machines or computers
are you responsible for operating, and how many new
machines have you learned to use recently? Does your
job require writing, editing and proofreading skills,
and if so, are they reflected in your job description?
Are you responsible for balancing several projects
at once, or reporting to more than one supervisor?
What mediation or negotiating skills are required;
for instance, do you negotiate the price of office
supplies, equipment, or services over the telephone?
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- What kind of working conditions
do you have? Are you in an
open office environment or other setting where the
noise from office machinery, equipment or people
is loud? Are there frequent distractions from people
walking through your work space? Are you frequently
interrupted by a telephone, or from the conversation
of those around you? Is it the kind of environment
where your clothes can get easily soiled from normal
job duties; for instance, from lifting, moving or
storing boxes of office supplies and equipment,
or working with children or patients? Are you required
to deal with complaints from the public or other
upset, irrational people? Are you exposed to illness,
bodily fluids, and other unpleasant duties? What
type of lifting do you do, including people, boxes,
equipment, etc? Is there stress from lack of control
over work assignments, heavy workloads, extended
hours in front of a video display terminal, dealing
with terminally ill or other people?
- What level of effort is required
in your job? What type of
concentration is required? What physical skills
are required; for instance, do you use small muscle
skills in typing? Does the job require careful listening
skills, or close attention to detail? Are you required
to make quick and accurate assessments of emergency
situations before taking action? What training or
education have you had which has helped you perform
your job?
- What kind of salary could
you command for the same job, outside of the company?
Would you consider looking
for another job as a means of leveraging higher
pay?
- Has your job been traditionally
held by women? If so, how
do the skills, experience, working conditions, effort
and responsibilities required for good job performance
compare with the organization's other positions
that have been traditionally held by men? Are the
salaries comparable as well? Does your supervisor
understand how the female-dominated jobs are comparable
in skill, responsibility, etc. to the male-dominated
positions? Are people of color represented in your
job? Again, how do the work requirements of the
job compare to others where there are no or few
people of color, and are the salaries of comparable
jobs similar as well?
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