Negotiate for more than just a higher salary

1/10/2018
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According to research from Glassdoor, the most important piece of information job seekers want employers to provide them in their quest for a job is information on salary/compensation offered by a job. This is only followed by benefits offered by the job. Interestingly, though, a Gallup study revealed that only 41 percent of employees were satisfied with the amount of money they earned at their job in 2016, and this is unlikely to have improved much in 2017.

2018 is fast approaching, and if you’re like 78 percent of American workers you’re probably living paycheck to paycheck. It’s also not exactly like you can just go out there and get a new job, and you might have an attachment to your current job. Regardless, it won’t hurt to earn more from your current job. As you get ready to enter into 2018, below are some tips to help you earn more from your current job:

1. Negotiate a Raise of Your Current Salary

Negotiating a raise is by far the fastest and easiest way to earn more from your current job. It’s interesting how many people have never negotiated a raise of their salary despite having been at their job for so many years. Even for some of those who negotiate a raise, they do it so inconsistently and often out of fear. That’s a great mistake!

Research from PayScale shows that a whopping 57 percent of people have never negotiated their salary. While this might not appear to be very serious, everything changes when you realize that regularly negotiating a raise could result in you earning an additional $1 million in your lifetime — yes, that much!

If you’re like the 57 percent of people who have never negotiated a raise in their jobs, it’s time to do something. If you earn a $100,000 salary and get a 3 percent raise, that’s $3,000 extra that could go a long way — it could perhaps be applied to your commute, or even be invested into something else.

2. Negotiate Benefits and Perks

Often, when negotiating or aiming to earn more, many people only focus on their base salary and completely forget that benefits and perks from their job is part of their overall compensation package. Many organizations have bonuses and perks that you might not be aware of, or that you might be aware of and have not considered negotiating. Look up these perks and benefits, and look at the possibility of negotiating them. All things being equal, practically anything can be negotiated.

Effectively negotiating your benefits and perks can result in extra thousands of dollars, or even extra tens of thousands of dollars, for you in 2018 depending on the nature of your job as well as the perks being negotiated.

3. Look Into Your Company Employee Referral Package

Referring an employee, that gets hired, is one of the easiest ways to earn extra income at your current job. Most companies offer a referral bonus, and some even offer up to $20,000 in commission to people who help them find employees they can add to their talent pool.

What makes referring an employee even cooler is that you win on two levels; first, you appear cool to the person you refer if he/she happens to land the job, and second you net that compensation bonus you’ve been eying in the first place.

Check with HR to see if your company offers a referral bonus for people who help them find relevant employees that they hire. Sometimes, this bonus might be unannounced. And, in fact, depending on your company’s talent needs you might even be able to prompt them to start something like this, which further contributes to your goal of earning more at your current job.

4. Get a Promotion

Oftentimes, many employees think that getting a promotion is a randomly spontaneous event that is completely out of their reach. This is not so. In fact, you are able to influence your being promoted just as equally as your company is able to, and with every promotion comes a proportionate salary increase which… you know… contributes to your goal of earning more from your current job.

If your job has a new senior-level opening that you believe you are qualified for, highlight your accomplishments and send in your resume to show that you are qualified. If you have a track record of quality at your organization, and if you have a good relationship with people in your organization, you could just get that promotion and the proportionate increase in income.

 
 
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