Episode 169: How to Properly Ask for that Raise

Welcome to another edition of "Around with Randall" your weekly podcast on making your nonprofit more effective for your community. And here is your host, the CEO and founder of Hallett Philanthropy, Randall Hallett.

Thank you for your time today on this edition of "Around with Randall". I want to delve a little bit into the conversations about reviews and more in particular the conversations about compensation and raises. In different podcasts we've talked about the fact of how you might leave a job. We've talked about as an employer what you want to do in terms of of metrics. I've had two interesting situations with clients who have people that are asking for raises and I think this is natural. We, and we did a number of commentaries and conversations around the great resignation, the great time in which we had people leaving jobs all over the place, the reshuffling. I think maybe is a different way of looking at the same situation and what has come is there are people who are saying, well look they're leaving a job. Whoever that may be, I'm still in contact with them. They got a 40% raise and I didn't get anything, and I'm still here doing more of the work. Or, which is one of the situations which we'll talk about in a moment, there was a reduction in staff in the foundation philanthropic office. I'm being asked to do more but I'm not being paid any more. All of those things then lead into, but I don't want to move. I don't want to move my family. We have a house. We, inflationary rates with interests rates at houses, I can't afford to move.

It's been a series of interesting conversations with some people who are saying, how do I get my boss, my supervisor, my manager to compensate me more? And this led me into conversations I had more often or not when I was a practitioner when I led offices, when I had staff members who would come and say I like more money. I'd like to be paid. I'm worth more. So I took this perspective that we're going to talk about today from those moments when I was the leader. what is it that if you're trying to figure out what your leader wants, what your manager wants, what should you do. What were the people or the situations that the people that worked with me, for me, did best to elevate their standing when it came to asking for a raise, or asking for more compensation, or a different job title, or some elevation in the professional career within the organization without having to leave the organization?

So I thought about it and I wrote down some notes, and I went, these are things people did that are important. The two scenarios that led us to this. Number one, I have one office who the organization is putting immense pressure on the philanthropic office, the foundation, to reduce his expenses and they're pushing into the FTE to a point where actually it's now hurting fundraising efforts. But the people that are left are having to keep up the pace at an elevated level from two or three years ago at that pace that it was 6 months ago with two people less some of the remaining people are like wait what why am I doing more work, but not getting paid for it. The second is, as I kind of opened at the top, people have left the organization for other opportunities. They really don't want to move. In fact they love the organization they work with, but when you do the comparisons of what people that weren't performing as well, raising as much money, excuse me, that they weren't that when they would left they were getting 30, 40, 50% more money but not delivering the same amount of results. And so the people left are saying what can I do to be paid fairly?

So these are kind of my steps and I think about them in six major areas or tranches of thought process. The first is that you need to do this, number one, face-to-face in a formally preset time. There's nothing worse for a leader or manager to be mentally somewhere else and they're thinking about another meeting, another problem, another challenge. Somebody wants something and an employee comes up and says, I want to have the conversation right now and it's in the hallway, or in the lobby, or it's in a more public place, and the leader manager is like I'm trying to do three or four other things right now. I am not indicating this isn't important, but now is not the time to do it. To alleviate that, and by the way that has happened to me and it didn't go well for the employee, is to think about it this way. You need to schedule time on your boss's calendar. You need to be in front of them face-to-face if at all possible. Now if it's a distance job, Zoom has replaced a lot of face-to-face communication, but this isn't done through email. And you should be able to see each other eye to eye. I would prefer in person. Zoom might be a more likely scenario, depending on you know where you work, and where your boss works, and what the organization looks like. This is an important conversation. It deserves your full attention and your boss's full attention. And if you're not sitting scheduled in front of someone then this wasn't serious enough. And if you think that that's not what your boss is thinking, you're wrong. If you don't schedule time with me I'm wondering was this just a, you know, random act or, you know, tickled your fancy 45 minutes ago. I want something that's organized. If you're coming before me it doesn't doesn't mean that the setup can't be, hey I scheduled time with you, just want to give your heads up I want to talk about my job, where I'm going, career. But the conversation happens face-to-face. Schedule enough time do at least 30 minutes. If you can get 45 or 50 that's even better, but if you try to do this in a 10-minute conversation it's not much of a conversation. It's more of a lecture. You're going to be talking at your boss and not with them, and they're going to be offended and say I got other things to do. So schedule time, schedule 30, 45, 50 minutes.

Number two, you need to walk in prepared. There's nothing as offensive or as disconnected to this conversation as a scenario where the employee walks in and they want more money, and all they say is I deserve more money, and they're not prepared. And so you have a responsibility when you go into this discussion to say, I'm looking at my career and don't forget there's two conversations here. One is the immediate, the tactical pay. We'll talk about this in in five and six more than five here in a moment, but there's also Career Development. And so number one, compare yourself to other people like you so that means you got to do some research. If you have access to something and so I think about Healthcare, they do, AHP the Association for Healthcare Philanthropy does a terrific job of doing a salary survey every two years. The Nonprofit Times does one every year. It's like 500 pages. So you can also look at local data. I think about what the NAM does here in the in Omaha, the Nonprofit Association of the Midlands. They do a survey. There's lots of data points out there, so the first is to get the data. The second is to get the right kind of data. The right kind of data isn't just based on job description. I have a lot of times where I say well I'm a director development, they're a director of development. I'm like yeah I know that other position you both have the same title outside the organization. Two separate organizations, their director development's tasked with raising $7 million, our director development because we're a larger organization has kind of odd titles for filthy because we don't control that requires a million you really don't have the same job, so don't just take titles take responsibilities, goals that are paralleling what you're doing or want to do.

The second thing is, don't just assume it's not for profit or nonprofit. Another client I work with it just did a, and I kind of helped them do it, a huge study of their not just fundraisers, of the nonprofit. And what they found out was when they benchmarked it against other organizations like them in kind of a larger system, they're not in healthcare, but in larger connection of similar nonprofits, and locally they were paying it 20% of the top dollar in each category for a coordinator position for maintenance, for management. And they went back to the board and said we need over a two or three period to get to at least the 50 percentile, and by the way we'll go tell some of our largest funders this is what we're doing, so that's kind of the the detailed. The other thing is that they were really good at is they took comparable jobs in the for-profit sector, and the commentary was if, and I'll take a bad example but an administrative assistant gets paid a dollar for us per hour but they get paid $2 an hour in the for-profit system or for-profit company or the pro the general employment pool for for-profit companies, and the jobs essentially the same. At some point you have to ask the question, aren't they going to go take that job? It's twice as much money for generically the same job. So the first thing is looking at your comparisons, finding trends. There's reports. There's local. There's other industries. And don't forget the for-profit, and you need to put that in writing when you go in.

I love Excel spreadsheets. I'm not saying everyone does, but it's easy to read, easy to understand. Here's what this means. Here are the comparisons. The other thing about comparisons is, don't forget about, and this is a little harder to do to compare benefit packages. Just had an organization that I know fairly well get purchased and they were purchased by a competitor, and the question immediately was for the employees. What's the deal and in the negotiation the owner of the company that's selling negotiated that the current employees would stay at their current salary levels. The interesting thing is that the comparable jobs in the new organization are paid about a third less, but they have benefits, health benefits, retirement benefits. The ones who were making more had no benefits. So if all you're doing is comparing cash salaries, you're missing out on other elements. Do they match 401ks in terms of retirement? Do they have PTO? What other benefits do they offer as a part of this process? So data can be as accurate as you want it to be. Compare job description and responsibilities, not just job description. Compare benefits. Think about other comparisons, reports, things of that nature. Local reporting, as well as for-profit, and think about benefits and how they fit into this process.

Number three, particularly in philanthropy, and particularly if you're in the fundraising element, it's a lot harder in the nonprofit world if you're just one of a larger group all doing the same thing without some control. But I talk about this all the time. The ones who seem to be the most apt to want to come and have a conversation, or at least when I was doing this more on the practical side rather than the consulting with the gift officers, I'm worth more. So let's talk about that. What are the individual performance markers, numbers based successes that we can attribute to you? One of the things I think that's causing us issues with all of the movement in our profession is that somebody can write a resume and make it look really great, but unless you get into the nuances, did they actually raise any of that money? Same is true if someone comes into my office, say, let's talk about what you actually are receiving credit for. And I want that employee to be prepared for that conversation, and if they bring it to me even better. And it's just not about dollars. There's also the the metrics of face-to-face visits, solicitations. There's the conversation about what I'm doing against others in the same organization. If you want a raise, and the person who is your senior and I don't mean in terms of who you report to, I mean they have a similar job title, doing a similar job, if they're making 20% more than you are and they're raising more money as a good or bad example, it's hard to give you more money when someone else is doing a better job. So your comparisons about metrics aren't just about other organizations, but they're internally the best you can.

This is where gift officers have an advantage because most of the best practice shops share their metrics across the entire office, and so you have at least a benchmark. You might have to make a phone call or two, or get a friend, or someone you you trust, and say talk to me about what this person in this other organization does and how much they get paid. But the individual performance is important, and being able to properly attribute that to your effort is critical. So you're doing it in person. You're using data. You're doing all kinds of kind of what I think of is return on investment. I get paid. This, I do these things. This is the ROI and it's not just about money, it's about activity, and about the involvement in various things, and meeting your evaluations, which I haven't even mentioned. If you have two, doesn't meet standards, in a row it's hard to go ask for more money. So all of these things bring together all the work that occurs before you ever walk into a meeting. And yes it sounds like a lot, and if you want someone to take you seriously this is how you should do it, which brings us to number four.

What does the meeting sound like? Number one, there's kind of an agenda that I've always kind of put together. I think you could mix these things up a little bit, but this is kind of the way I've always thought about it is, number one is thanking someone for the opportunity. I love what I do. There's nothing worse than someone walking and say, I'm really unhappy and you should take care of me. It's like I got a lot of problems and I don't need more so I always like to say or liked it when somebody would say, I can't can't thank you enough. Thank you for the opportunity. I'm having a ball. I did want to spend number two, or B, spend a little bit of time talking about current and future about where I fit in and how I'm compensated. And I'd like to have a discussion about this. Number three, I've done some research. I wanted to share with you what I have found about how I'm paid and the compensation package I have versus maybe some others. These are not ironclad. They're not perfect, but I think they get us into the right conversation. Could we do that? It's almost like it's a soft ask. You're asking permission to have the conversation with them. Then that's where your presentation comes in, and I don't mean a PowerPoint. But if you walk into this meeting with just numbers in your head, that does not have as much credibility as sourcing the material on paper. Here's what someone like me and this other organization pays, and here's where I got the data or the industry report of us locally, or as an, or like across the country. Maybe it's for like a AHP, Association for Healthcare Philanthropy salary report shows this, and I thought this was interesting, something we could talk about. Notice I haven't done anything yet. I say I just want to make sure we're on the same page as a starting point, which gets you to pivot to be number four, what are you actually asking for. It drove me crazy when someone would come into my office and say I want a raise and they have no idea what they're actually asking for. Is that a a penny? Is that $50,000 and we're doubling your salary? Those are two entirely different conversations, so have a number in mind or a percentage based on the fact that I'm underpaid by 10%, I think looking at a three-year average of increasing my to get to me to the 50th percentile in a third makes sense. Is that seem like something that might be worthy of a of a discussion or do you think it's possible? Or I want to build out a process where I can grow and part of that growth is growth in my salary, and I've met these metrics and marks. I think that an additional $25,000 is reasonable. Could we do that in a year or two, or three, to make that so I come into kind of a certain percentage of or percentile of our industry? Is this today you want the raise? Is this at the next budget process? Is this sometime after a certain event, like a campaign? Again, is it over a number of years? Having the ability to put something in front of the, of your boss, or supervisor, manager, director to say I've got some ideas on what this could be and what the parameters of it are over a number of years or immediate. So being specific, based on the data.

Number five, be aware that if the organization financially has no flexibility there may be other things they can do that don't cost them real money. That might be something that would be advantageous to you but as I just said doesn't actually harm the financial bottom line, which is most of the time what you're going to hear from your boss, things like bonus structure. If I exceed my my Revenue goals by X and I do these other things so we can stay within the confines of best practice and ethics within philanthropy is designated by a, and adopted by others, multiple standards maybe there's a 15% bonus. so if I over perform, I'd be compensated for it. Maybe it's flex time? Yeah, we are so tight on the budget could I get a little extra time so that I have some freedom to do some other things? Could I work from home? Is there a title change? Are there growth opportunities? Being reasonable about what the other options are might get you something that could be really valuable. Be aware that PTO and retirement matches generally for an organization are pretty much locked by policy, but flexibility by your boss may give you some opportunities in flex time. I had a couple people say I need, I really think I deserve more money. Here's what we were doing. Here's why this, we're stuck. Could I have one day a month to consult? I can go make an extra $5,000 or $10,000 a month so that's a huge amount of money $60,000 to $120,000 if I just was given some freedom to do. So think about it from the perspective of the employer. If they really want to keep you, can they be creative in a way that doesn't cost them on a bottom line that they may not not have.

The last thing is, overall, this conversation in one moment or a series of moments has to be respectful. You can't threaten, which I'll get to in a moment. You can't be defensive. You can't be mean or unapproachable. You can't be unreasonable. I want to triple my salary. What are you doing in here? Get out. I can't do that. Don't be threatening.

My last story, as I conclude here, there was a time when I had a interesting offer made to me to leave an organization and I shared that with my boss. I was very upfront and said I'm not sure, but I think I need to look at this. And what was interesting in this process is he was supportive. When I decided not to take it for various reasons, what happened was I went back and said you know I looked at it. It wasn't the right fit. I'm so glad to be here. And his direct words were, well that's okay. But if you do it again you're out of here. You're either loyal to me or you're not. I never even threatened, never even got close, but he felt threatened. So if you threaten, you'd better be willing and able to leave the next time. A call came about eight months later. I didn't tell my boss. I went through the process very quickly, and when I walked into his office I told him I was leaving because I knew if I said I'm interviewing he was going to pull the trigger on me before I ever had a job. I never threatened. I just was very polite, the way I was kind of brought up, particularly by my dad, professionally, and he felt threatened. So be careful. I think Career Development and who you trust is important, but also realize you do this three or four times, somebody says you don't really want to be here so we'll go find somebody who wants to be here. Just something to keep in mind.

So a review quickly. Number one is do it in person. Number two, use data. Number three, do the right comparisons in terms of job ROI, performance, things of that nature. Number four is have this conversation when it happens in person by thanking them, by indicating what the data is, kind of what your goal is. You'd like to to have an opportunity to grow, to do more, but want to be compensated appropriately, have something reasonable in mind that you can ask when they say what do you want. And number five, realize there may be other things that can come outside of just pure cash. Number six, don't threaten, don't be defensive, don't be mean, and don't be unreasonable. If you're looking to do something greater in your career, this is the kind of conversation you should have, and the way in which you should have it. Doesn't mean it's going to happen, but I can guarantee you if you don't do these things the likelihood of it happening plummets because bosses, supervisors, managers, leaders don't like to be boxing in the corner. They try to respect you. You should respect them.

Don't forget to check out the blogs at hallettphilanthropy.com. Two a week or so, RSS feed right to your inbox, 90 second reads. Check them out. More and more people are reading them. I'm, I can kind of see the traffic. I'm always impressed and surprised and humbled when people reach out, and you know, read it and say hey that's interesting. Also if you'd like to know me it's podcast@hallettphilanthropy.com. Inflation, the indecision of the economy, nonprofit balances in terms of their books and finance are all causing a lot of upheaval. Today was all about finding where you fit in from a financial perspective, and respecting people who make those decisions. At the end of the day that doesn't dissuade or move us from our most important aspect. Some people make things happen, some people watch things happen, then there are those who wondered what happened. In nonprofit work where people who make things happen, and what we need to do is find others like us, people who make things happen for those people and things that are wondering what happened. What a great way to spend your career. I hope you feel a little bit that way each and every day. We look forward to seeing you next time, right back here on the next edition of "Around with Randall". Don't forget make it a great day.