The Workplace Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for members of the workforce navigating the professional setting. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
One of our IT members got fired today, before his departure he sent a company wide email with details of employee salaries. Based on the information contained within this document I've discovered that myself and a few coworkers are grossly underpaid compared to our peers.
How would I approach my supervisor asking for a raise based on this information? I feel like it's a bad time obviously but I don't want to keep getting screwed.
Here's my suggestion:
Don't try to take advantage of the current situation to negotiate a salary increase. Any action on your part is going to be seen for what it is, an attempt to take advantage of what sounds like an already bad situation. That won't bode well for you in your negotiations.
Take your new found knowledge, research the local job market for salary ranges for your position, experience level, and years of service at companies of your size, write up all of the reasons why you think you deserve a salary increase, including what value you bring to the company that would justify a salary increase... and then hold onto all of that until your next performance/salary review.
In an ideal world, salary would be a negotiated compensation for the value you provide the employer. It's hard to make arguments based on peers, because individual skill levels and performance can vary. Of course, if you're making 60% less than people who you're obviously outperforming, that's an issue. But in many employers, there may be legitimate variances between individuals with the same title, due to differences in performance or skills.
And at the end of the day, you should want to be paid what you are worth, not what your coworker is worth. So - before making any argument for a raise, be prepared to back it up based on the current and future value you are providing. To play devil's advocate, imagine if you based your argument only on the assumption that you and your coworker are worth the same amount - what's to stop your employer from just giving them a pay cut to equalize the salaries? After all, that would result in equal pay.
And, as a final thought, consider: acts of sabotage are sometimes done with specific motivations in mind. People who are willing to break policy or distribute private information on their way out the door may not be the most trustworthy sources.
