Mercer recently released their 2015/2016 U.S. Compensation Planning Survey, indicating a trend towards continuing to reward top performers and incentivize employees through recognition opportunities that are not only linked to base pay. The key findings of the survey are below.
- The average salary increase budget is expected to be 2.9% in 2016, up slightly from the average increase budget of 2.8% in 2015.
- Salary increases for top-performing employees ( 7% of workforce) will be almost twice that of average performers.
- Flat budgets have created more reliance on other reward methods like developing career opportunities and creating meaningful work experiences
- Promotional increases as a percent of base pay are rising on average about 8%. For executives, promotional increases grew to 9.1% of base salary (compared to 8.4% last year), and for professionals rose to 7.7% (compared to 6.9% last year).
- 41% of organizations are now budgeting promotional increases apart from merit increases, up from 36% in 2014.
So how can you be perceived as a top performer in 2016? Here are some tips.
Document your accomplishments regularly throughout the year
Keep track of all the projects you manage. Upon completion of each assignment, write a note to yourself detailing your contribution and how your efforts helped the company make money, save money, save time, grow the business, or retain customers. Quantify your accomplishments with dollars, percentages, and other appropriate metrics. Actively seek out opportunities to improve efficiencies and profits regardless of the task at hand. By showing and quantifying your specific value add, you build a better business case to support the requested salary increase.
Become hard to replace
Create opportunities to diversify your experience by offering to learn how to perform tasks that support your main role and make you more efficient at what you do. An alternative strategy is to become a subject matter expert in one specific aspect of the job so you are seen as the “go-to-guy” for a particular type of information. No want wants to lose the “go-to-guy” because then they have to do it themselves.
Take on tasks that no one else wants to do
This does not mean taking on grunt work. It might just mean mastering a new technology that no one else feels comfortable with or taking on an assignment that is outside of the traditional scope of the job. Employees who demonstrate this level of flexibility tend to get more flexibility from their bosses on other issues, including compensation.
Accept high profile assignments close to review time
Since it is easier for people to remember what has happened most recently, why not take on an important assignment to coincide with an upcoming review? The project is bound to become a focal point of the performance review discussion and the boss can quickly remember and document the acheivements relevant to the project.
Your success negotiating a salary increase or promotion hinges on your ability to discuss the increase in terms of what is fair and reasonable. By including some of these ideas into your career management strategy, you can keep the conversation focused on measureable achievements and build a compelling business case for the requested pay raise.
