Lift Your Finances and Your Career Prospects
Do you feel underpaid in your construction job? You work hard, you benefit the company, and think you deserve more. How do you go about asking for a raise?
Studies show that anxiety and fear of rejection can stop you from negotiating a salary you deserve. The thing is, it’s unlikely employers will trip over themselves to voluntarily offer you a pay rise. It’s time to step forward.
In this article, we explain how to approach your boss confidently and ask for a raise.
Do Your Research
Before approaching your boss, you need to do your research. Check out how much your role pays elsewhere. Search salaries online, bearing in mind that various factors will come into play, such as:
- Certification and qualifications
- Experience
- Location
- Skillset
Knowing how much your employer should be paying you will help you approach them with supporting evidence for your request.
As a specialist recruiter, we have expert knowledge on how much candidates are being offered. Get in touch and tap into an accurate picture of what you could be earning.
Know Your Worth
Take an honest self-assessment about what you offer your employer and why you think you deserve a raise:
- Are you always punctual?
- Have you been flexible to meet client demands?
- Have you stepped up to new responsibilities and techniques?
- Have you coached new starters?
- Have you contributed toward a team as well as your own progression?
List all the ways your role has evolved since you last had a raise. With this to hand, you can show your employer exactly why your salary needs reviewing.
Pick the Right Time
For you, the right time is now. But choosing the right time for your boss could make all the difference to their response. Don’t catch them on their way out on a Friday afternoon. Approach them and ask for some designated time to discuss an important issue. Try and avoid particularly stressful periods, such as an impending completion date – but don’t wait forever.
Enter with Positivity
You’re in the meeting you’ve arranged with your boss. Now it’s time to present the evidence. Keep a positive tone in how you enjoy your role, and how this has supported you in achieving all the points we mentioned earlier. Show them the salary research you’ve conducted.
Make it clear you positively enjoy your job, but then deliver the bottom line: you should be paid according to your rank, experience, performance, and role, and you strongly feel your salary must be reviewed.
Let Your Boss Speak
Now, you’ve presented the evidence. You’ve stated what you’re asking, with positivity and no aggression. Now it’s time to pause, and listen to what your boss has to say. They may be fully in agreement. On the other hand, they may inform you of a tough business period. What you want to know is how they plan to move forward.
The most common outcome is that your boss agrees to a salary increase, based on your performance and salary research. If the request is justified, it will be hard for them to say no.
They may agree, and plan to schedule a raise the moment the business is in a financial position to do so. Show respect for the business’s financial goals, but reaffirm that your current remuneration isn’t reflective of what they’re asking of you. If you’re asking for a fair salary, a good company should honor it instead of losing skilled people, no matter its position.
Play caution if you’re faced with a negative response. You know your worth, and so do they. If they’re unwilling to make an adjustment to your salary despite the advantage you bring to the company, then it may be time to move on and look for construction jobs that reward you your worth.
Find the Best-Paid Construction Jobs Today
It pays to find construction jobs with the best employers. It’s a tough field to work in, but the industry is booming.
Our clients are paying well for the skills they need to grow. Want to find out who, and where? Contact Pivot Workforce. We know how much you should be getting. And where to find it.