Your Mentee Wants to Ask for a Pay Rise

Your mentee has been quiet for half the call, and then it comes out. They have been doing more for a year, they found out what the market pays for their role, and they want to ask for a rise. They have never asked for money before. Can you help them say it without sounding greedy?

Start by taking the word greedy off the table. Asking to be paid fairly for the work you actually do is an ordinary part of a working life, and managers have this conversation many times a year. Most of them would rather be asked clearly than discover months later that someone has quietly started interviewing.

Then help them build the case, because a request for money is really a request for a decision, and decisions need evidence. Ask them to write down what has changed since their pay was last set. New responsibilities. The service they now own. The two people they onboard. Results with numbers wherever possible. Then the outside view. Salary surveys, published bands at comparable companies, job adverts that show ranges. Two or three sources are enough.

Find out how pay decisions are made where they work. Many companies set pay once a year, and budgets are decided weeks before anyone is told. Asking in the right month matters more than asking well. If they do not know when that is, the first conversation can simply be a question to their manager. When are pay decisions made, and what would you need to see from me?

Rehearse it with them. Play the manager. Say the difficult things a manager might say. There is no budget this year. You are already at the top of your band. Let them practise answering calmly, and help them prepare the follow up question for each. Then what would need to change, and by when?

Talk about the no in advance. A no with a plan and a date is a real outcome. A no with nothing attached is information too, and they are allowed to act on it.

And afterwards, whatever the answer, ask how it felt. The first time is the hardest. You are helping them with this rise, and also with every one after it.

– Asael Shinder