Managing Pay

a) Cost of re-hiring 

 

You want to get it right first time. Hiring is expensive, especially if you’re relying on agencies to manage your recruitment. Therefore, a salary needs to be attractive enough to make sure quality candidates want to work with you and stay with you. Minimal staff turnover = best value for money. Talk to us today to see how we can help you manage your recruitment process. 

b) Do your research 

 

Have a look at vacancies for similar jobs and see what salaries are being offered – these will also be the jobs prospective candidates will be looking at! It’s an employee’s market right now, so make sure you have the resources to be able to offer a competitive salary compared to other jobs out there. To get quality candidates, you’ll need to pay employees a salary within the pay bracket of similar roles. 

c) Produce an exact job description 

You need to know the job you want to hire for to produce an accurate salary. Make sure you take time to identify the key tasks and responsibilities of the job. This can be hard in smaller businesses with less staff where employees may be required to pick up “odd jobs” on the side. You can allow some scope for this in your job description, but make sure employees know clearly what is expected of them. If you know exactly what candidate you’re looking for, this will also help you have with your salary research to make sure you are comparing your role to the right jobs in other companies. 

a) Think about what’s behind the request 

 

Employees will often be anxious about asking their manager for a pay rise directly. They will (hopefully!) have come up with a list of reasons why they believe they deserve a pay rise, and often these will be connected to not being fully recognized and appreciated by the business. There will often be more than just the ‘I want more money’ reason for an employee to come and ask for a pay rise, so make sure you listen and consider their request seriously. 

b) Don’t make an immediate decision 

While employees might have been thinking about this request for a while, this might be the first time you have heard of it. Make sure you don’t respond immediately but arrange a meeting soon (best if it’s within the week) to talk the request through further. This gives you time to think the request through and/or come up with alternative options to offer the employee. It also shows the employee you are taking their request seriously and giving it real consideration. 

c) Consider the employee’s recent performance 

Does the employee deserve more compensation for the job they are doing? Look at their performance over the past year and take note of the quality of their work as well as the quantity. What is their unauthorised absence and lateness record? Have there been any recent workplace conflicts with other employees? Are there any projects that stand out as quality work? Considering these factors will help managers produce fair and reasoned decision and also help provide evidence if you decide to deny the employee’s request. 

 

d) Offering non-monetary alternatives 

If your company doesn’t want to offer the employee a pay rise, or can’t for budgetary reasons, think about other benefits you could offer the employee. Often employees ask for pay rises because they do not feel valued by the business. So, think about other ways you could help an employee feel more appreciated, such as flexible working hours or the opportunity to work at home more. 

e) Think about the knock-on effect to others 

Before making any one-off salary increases, consider what this means from an internal equity perspective. Often by making one change in isolation, it can cause unforeseen issues with others - a “domino effect” which creates a long line at the door of employees with similar requests. To minimize the risks of this happening, you might decide to have an agreed point every year where you review everyone’s salaries.