Many years ago I received a ‘no hike’ communication from my manager post appraisal. I think he confused me, but I still returned without feeling bad as he said something which ‘then’ appeared convincing.
He said salary raise is only possible under 3 circumstances
- The organisation has met its financial goals
- The team had met its performance goals
- The Individual had exceeded his/her goals
He was wrong, I realised that many years later. There are other reasons to get hikes and those conversations are neither difficult nor out of line to have
For example there is something called as
- Inflation : means at least I should get some % of hike, like a ‘prasad’ which most get for coming to office
- Peer : If my peers get a good hike (even if they have performed better), then automatically I deserve a hike. It’s easy because managers don’t or can’t tell us on the face that we have underperformed compared to others. They are buried under the shock of “how we got to know” or embarrassed that they gave our peer a better hike
- Market Parity: If competitors can pay higher to my role(check the offer they have made me) then I deserve similar hikes too
- Personal needs : This is a repeat, But still let me say this again. I am getting married, buying a house, car, having a baby, parents hospitalized, school/college admission.
I am wondering if he actually trained me to be sane employee for the future or just cheated me at that point of time as I did not have enough
- Knowledge (Reading the right stuff would have made me more knowledgeable on the inflation part)
- Internal network (to know what others are getting paid)
- External network (to get another job offer to show)
I wonder if factors like how the company is doing/profitable applies in today’s world!
