It’s hard to negotiate without solid evidence, especially when you’re already on the back foot. And this is the situation that pay negotiation presents for employees
The lack of tangibility in what constitutes proper pay and the lack of available information when it comes to what the market pay rate even is make for an uneven starting point in an already one-sided negotiation.
For employers, salary negotiations are like an auction where they don’t have to set a reserve price and don’t have to sell if they don’t want to, where bids are made behind closed doors from employees and applicants who are basically taking a shot in the dark.
The fact that employees don’t want to make their managers and employers feel like they’re being nailed to a wall during trade negotiations doesn’t help either. In order to avoid making an already uncomfortable situation even more uncomfortable, employees will intentionally avoid starting the conversation off with an email, leaving it for verbal conversations.
This leads to verbal promises or agreements to “talk about it later” that never eventuate.
When it actually comes to following through on a verbal promise, managers’ memories suddenly get all blurry, and the details of what or wasn’t discussed get lost somewhere in the vague, ephemeral space where “reality” of what transpired is simply somewhere in between the perceptions of two people who had very different motivations going into the discussion.
There is always the risk of retaliation too. I think we’d all like to think otherwise, but the fact of the matter is that memories are long, and in boardrooms and management meetings, a one-sentence narrative about an employee carries more weight than we might think.
The tactic that this employee took won’t always work out, but it certainly is a step in the right direction for starting a calm and level-headed salary discussion where you aren’t always on the back foot.
Author: Kayitsi.com
