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Compensation, Raises, Job Titles, & Career Development
As a manager, how do you have those awkward and difficult conversations with your employees about salaries and raises and promotions? Richard and Jeff have some answers.
More people are leaving their companies right now than at any time in history. We entered the first relief period a few months ago. People left, companies made adjustments, now what are we left with? The people we absolutely need. You start making emotional decisions. How do I keep this person and make sure they don’t leave?
Because of Covid, a lot of these conversations have been postponed and avoided, and now they’ve ballooned. In today’s episode, co-hosts Richard Lindner and Jeff Mask walk listeners through some anecdotal stories and a process for having these conversations effectively to benefit both the employee and the company.
Listen in for some practical, actionable steps you can take to resolve these complicated issues.
What to Do When Someone Asks For an Inappropriate Raise
If a team member comes to you asking for a raise or promotion, and it’s inappropriate to their situation, how do you say no? Jeff says we all have horror stories as leaders, where we had good intentions but unintended consequences. People want a raise, just because they need the money, not because they’ve earned it. The company isn’t growing, or the person isn’t growing, or hasn’t delivered more value. So what do you do?
“I want to back up and say why I think this is a broken conversation,” Jeff says. He believes that, when it comes to career progression paths, we’ve let it creep in that the path lies on the shoulders of the company/manager. He believes leaders need to train their employees to see what progression can look like, and tell them it’s a choose your own adventure path.
Step #1: Flip the script. Help them see it’s theirs to declare. Step #2: Create different options with them, but let them own it.
In the past, there was a manual. This is what you did. This was the progression. Now people change careers multiple times and much later in their working life. What you as a leader have to figure out is what do they want? Where do they want to go?
Where Does Your Employee Want to Go?
As a leader, before we get to “I want more money,” try to figure out what they really want. Most of them don’t know or can’t articulate it. Ideally, you’ll ask these questions from the very beginning.
- Where do you want to be in 5 years?
- What do you want your day-to-day to look like in 10 years?
- What makes you happy?
- What energizes you?
- What income level are you looking at?
- What positions are here that would check the boxes of fulfillment for you?
Your job as a leader is to identify skill gaps between where they are and what they want. A conversation about raises is easier if you’ve already talked about skill gaps. It has to be “no and here’s why.” Or, better yet, “no, and here’s what it will take to get it to a yes.”
The no is so much easier if you’ve already built a foundation of clarity of what growth looks like. When it’s not discussed initially, the employee blames the company and feels stuck. Call out what you want, then figure out a plan. What skills do I need to develop? Then it becomes a really cool process. If you...
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By Scalable Media Network
4.9
4040 ratings
As a manager, how do you have those awkward and difficult conversations with your employees about salaries and raises and promotions? Richard and Jeff have some answers.
More people are leaving their companies right now than at any time in history. We entered the first relief period a few months ago. People left, companies made adjustments, now what are we left with? The people we absolutely need. You start making emotional decisions. How do I keep this person and make sure they don’t leave?
Because of Covid, a lot of these conversations have been postponed and avoided, and now they’ve ballooned. In today’s episode, co-hosts Richard Lindner and Jeff Mask walk listeners through some anecdotal stories and a process for having these conversations effectively to benefit both the employee and the company.
Listen in for some practical, actionable steps you can take to resolve these complicated issues.
What to Do When Someone Asks For an Inappropriate Raise
If a team member comes to you asking for a raise or promotion, and it’s inappropriate to their situation, how do you say no? Jeff says we all have horror stories as leaders, where we had good intentions but unintended consequences. People want a raise, just because they need the money, not because they’ve earned it. The company isn’t growing, or the person isn’t growing, or hasn’t delivered more value. So what do you do?
“I want to back up and say why I think this is a broken conversation,” Jeff says. He believes that, when it comes to career progression paths, we’ve let it creep in that the path lies on the shoulders of the company/manager. He believes leaders need to train their employees to see what progression can look like, and tell them it’s a choose your own adventure path.
Step #1: Flip the script. Help them see it’s theirs to declare. Step #2: Create different options with them, but let them own it.
In the past, there was a manual. This is what you did. This was the progression. Now people change careers multiple times and much later in their working life. What you as a leader have to figure out is what do they want? Where do they want to go?
Where Does Your Employee Want to Go?
As a leader, before we get to “I want more money,” try to figure out what they really want. Most of them don’t know or can’t articulate it. Ideally, you’ll ask these questions from the very beginning.
- Where do you want to be in 5 years?
- What do you want your day-to-day to look like in 10 years?
- What makes you happy?
- What energizes you?
- What income level are you looking at?
- What positions are here that would check the boxes of fulfillment for you?
Your job as a leader is to identify skill gaps between where they are and what they want. A conversation about raises is easier if you’ve already talked about skill gaps. It has to be “no and here’s why.” Or, better yet, “no, and here’s what it will take to get it to a yes.”
The no is so much easier if you’ve already built a foundation of clarity of what growth looks like. When it’s not discussed initially, the employee blames the company and feels stuck. Call out what you want, then figure out a plan. What skills do I need to develop? Then it becomes a really cool process. If you...