assuming you're earning a market rate now relative to your abilities, and assuming you're performing your job well, and assuming this is your annual review, you should expect a cost-of-living raise of about 3% plus a merit increase of about 1-6% in addition.
aside from the COL bump, the merit increase is HIGHLY dependent on how well you do your job and how much growth you've demonstrated.
number of years at the firm should not be much of a factor in the % raise issued
Look up the precise inflation rate for the past year to use as a bargaining tool... I suspect it's higher than 3% for the past year. The last time I got a raise, the national inflation over the previous year was 3.6%, so a 3% raise still would have been a bit of a rip-off.
rationalist is right - you should research actual cost-of-living data for your are to inform the COL calculation. google the Department of Labor CPI for All Urban Consumers - they provide CPI data for most major urban areas - look for the 12 month change in the CPI - you may need to divide the current CPI by the CPI from the same month last year to determine the % change.
so here's a question. is it bad that your % has decreased from the year before, even if you know you're highly regarded in the office (ie: getting more responsibility and positive feedback from clients and the bossman).
do you think that bosses tend to give a high raise the first year or so as an incentive to stay on and then after year three or more they basically drop their interest/investment in keeping you?
arkitekt: It depends somewhat on the firm's revenue for a given year. Did your firm have a better year two years ago than last year? Did EVERYONE get a lower percentage raise this year?
I wouldn't sweat it too much, unless you know that the firm has been more profitable and your raise is disproportionate to the firm's relative success.
firms often will give a bigger (or smaller) raise after the first year because they now have some experience with what you really can do - this is a way to adjust your starting salary to reality. hiring somebody is a crap-shoot (at best) no matter how much time you invest in the process. you never really know what you're going to get, so having a year of working together really informs the salary administration process. after that, it tends to be somewhat more routine.
if you're not really sure what caused the particular raise you received, ask! there's no substitute for free and open communication about pay related issues.
Every firm is vastly different in how they give raises. If you are a valuable employee and your employer clearly doesn't want to loose you, go find out what your peers (equal experience) are making in your region. Use that information to broker a raise. And if you are already at the average just take your cost of living raise and be happy. It's very difficult to argue why you should make more than anyone else in town, but I applaud you if you can.
What is a good way to inform your boss that cost of living raises are typically given once a year? We don't do regular employee reviews in the office (very small office) and my boss has only ever worked for himself. He is not very aware of typical business/office procedures. I'd like to bring it up, however I don't want to imply that he doesn't know what he's doing.
mc3 ... it can be delicate ... but, look for words that convey to your boss that your cost of living is rising each and every year ... your rent's going up ... your grocery costs are rising ... your fuel bill has skyrocketed. gently suggest that you've researched what's happening with the CPI in your area and that without a raise equivalent to that change in the CPI, you're actually going backwards. be prepared to give him copies of your research.
he may not care or he may not be able to afford giving you a raise ... you have to prepare yourself for that. but, I'm betting a well crafted and persuasive discussion will get you most, if not all, of what you need.
mc3...i think you should just ask for a raise every year, instead of telling him that it's standard practice...just be like... "well it's my X year anniversary, another year wiser, is what i always say, oh and did you hear cost of living is up another X%, it's just getting harder and harder to make ends meet, you know, with the quintuplets and all..."
but with a small firm, you may price yourself out of a job...if they don't need that kind of experience...
at my first arch job, my boss made fun of me for not asking for a raise after my first year (small office, no formal situation like yourself), so after a couple wise cracks, he said he'd talk to his accountant and see what he can do...got a big raise and he made it retroactive back to my one year anniversary...
Thanks. It certainly is a delicate subject. Generally he is a good boss, I just don't think things like this occur to him. Unfortunately it forces me to be in the position of asking for money. I'd rather -and have formally been in the position where raises were commonplace each year, even if they were small.
I got 4% at my surprise first annual review and I thought it was fair since I didn't start out as smoothly as I would have liked and my entire studio is new to the firm. So there's something to build on and maybe it will be better next year, a little more on top of the COL bump. My firm does annual bumps regardless of firm profits. I think bonuses depend more on profits.
I got 10% after a year, because they found out I'm as good as advertised, which I suspect they hadn't really believed. This year I have no hope as they know I'm heading off to grad school in the fall.
I definitely feel the difference in how far my salary went when I got that raise vs. how far it goes now...
We do a mix of raises and bonuses. The youner less experienced staff get 6-month reviews and yearly raises along with a year end bonus. The more experienced staff get yearly reviews and more substantial bonus.
from personal experience, in the region where i work (detroit area) it's rare to receive 10% annual raises (unless you are just starting off); i'd say 3-5% is average through out most years, ranging up to 8%, based on performance, or if your firm has had a fantastic year. Bonuses vary greatly from firm to firm, but from what i've gathered so far, a bonus equivalent to 2 weeks pay is slightly above average.
I think that's why so many people here move from office to office every couple of years. Everytime i moved, my salary jumped roughly 20% and professionally, it seems to be the fastest way up. Loyalty doesn't seem to be very well rewarded in michigan architectural firms.
first couple of years i got 10% a year. Then got 33% when I changed cities/jobs. After my first year there I got 4%, which is also what my co-workers got.
but when i did get them...bonuses were twice a year and equal to 2 months wages each time. this is standard in japan.
raises were based on whether i was married, had kids, and how old and how experienced, not necessarily in that order.
raises were also tied to how much site work and contract management work i was doing in a given year; which was checked via record-keeping system (we were paid more for our time on site, less if we just did cad-monkey work)...and if we did other extra jobs no one else could do we would also get raises at end of year...evidence of ability was treated as signal to pay more....for some reason...i don't know if that was standard and am pretyy sure there was some voodoo involved in calculations
anyway...if you need more money there is no need to be ashamed/embarased to ask for it. just don't be rude about it.
When I switched jobs I got a 25% higher salary. Raises since then have been 10%, 8% and 12%. My pay has more than doubled from the old job I left.
Much of that increase in pay is directly related to the experience I gained at the previous employer. Essentially they trained me for the job I have now. Unfortunately for them they lost my loyalty when they refused to reward me with respectible pay raises based on merit.
Some firms obviously get it, but many do not. It's very expensive to train a new hire so treat your current employees very well as to not lose them. I have little doubt that switching employers now would yield a very minor pay increase, if any.
I found out how much I was making versus their "approved" salaries. There was a huge discrepency. I had switched positions in the firm so I knew I had the potential to get a huge raise and I asked for one. I got a 33% raise.
10% raises did seem to be fairly typical for intern-level people in some firms I worked in, but usually these only happen for the first couple of years and then start tapering off. It's not realistic for most people in most firms to expect this to continue long-term (someone who starts at 40k would be making about 115k 10 years later if they received a 10% raise every year. Some few architects do earn that, but it far exceeds the average earnings for an architect who is not an owner in a firm.)
Some of the more annoying firms to work for were those that would explain that due to project slowdowns or other factors there was a moratorium on raises - and would keep promising to "revisit the issue" as soon as some big project came through, or as soon as the new fiscal year began, or whatever. If you get this line multiple times and don't see an increase within a 2-year period definately think about moving on. Similarly if they told you that they were starting you low to "see how you work out" but they don't meet with you within 6 months or so to re-evaluate then that's another reason to push the discussion, and to think about leaving if it seems they have no plans to increase you.
I do understand that under tight circumstances firms often think it's better to keep everyone on at their current salaries rather than give raises to some while laying off others. But if this goes on for years it is usually a sign of poor management.
The toughest situation I encountered while trying to negotiate a raise was an employer who got very angry when I requested a 3% cost of living increase at my 1-year point with that firm, and launched into a long critique of my abilities and "failure to thrive" in the firm. But a few months later I got a year-end bonus that was about 20% of my annual salary and was told that they were very happy with my work... What I figured out eventually about that firm was that the principals always reacted badly to any discussion about money that they didn't initiate on their own, and felt that employees were out of line for even bringing up the subject. After that first bonus I trusted them to be fair and found that they usually were, and my best policy in that firm was not broaching the subject.
So I guess you kind of have to tread lightly, especially if you're relatively new, and see how things go. You might find that you hit a nerve or your timing isn't good.
For all the "10% raises is only common for intern level" and "3% cost of living is acceptable" comments. Do note that inflation is not running at 3% like the fed would like us to believe. Pre-Clinton Era methods of measuring inflation (which count housing, not rents, and include energy and food) have been running between 6 and 7 percent for years now.
In today's economy you need 6% bare minimum to stay par and 8% won't get you ahead by much. If all you buy with your salary is computers and plastic made in china schlock fine, but for me 3% doesn't cut it for real world expenses.
Oh, and if you're looking at a raise to take a foreign vacation, better ask for a 25% bump with the ways the USD is crashing.
sometimes, when i step back for minute from my chosen career of architecture and my thinking of how $10,000 more annually could really improve my quality of life, i start to realize how pathetic architects really have it.
let me just say, from the employer's side, if you ask for a 25% raise, and you're right within the industry norms (at your current salary), you better have had one hell of a year. otherwise, the risk you run is pinning your employer so far into a corner that there's going to be no happy solution (ie, i've got no where to go - if i counter with 4-6% that everyone else is getting, the gap is going to be so large it'll be impossible to negotiate meaningfully).
in general, raises should be tied to cost of living, bonuses on merit. raises should be uniform (ie, the firm is doing X% for everyone). bonuses can vary widely. 5-10% seems reasonable, more than 10% if you really really did well for the firm during the year.
laru makes some good points that warrant serious consideration.
at our firm, cost-of-living raises are an "across the board" sort of thing, meaning that the same % increase applies to all employees -- we reward "merit" with individually tailored raises and bonuses ...
we take the view that the performance of all members of our firm "improves" over the course of the year (otherwise, we tend to encourage their departure) so annual raises contain both a cost-of-living adjustment and a merit component that is closely linked to the individual's annual performance review. annual raises can vary considerably across the firm, with some being barely more than the cost-of-living increase to very substantial raises arising from outstanding performance or a promotion.
bonuses, on the other hand, are more discretionary and tend to heavily weigh a) how well the firm is doing overall; b) how well individual project teams perform; and c) how much the individual employee contributed to the firm over the prior period. "average" performance doesn't tend to produce much of a bonus whereas "outstanding" performance is very well rewarded.
we have worked hard over the years to continue giving decent raises to our "non management" staff even when economic conditions are tough. just because the firm isn't doing well doesn't mean individual employees don't need, and deserve, an increase in pay. that practice does tend to severely impact our ability to pay bonuses in such years.
being able to afford a trip to the UK is the status symbol du jour...
everyone does raises and bonuses differently, but i would concur that cost-of-living raises are a necessity. i would also concur that 3% is not quite enough, especially when housing and gas prices are taken into account. a good solid 5% COL raise seems right.
i would really appreciate a raise over a bonus, if i were given the choice between the two. you can't count on a bonus, but a raise is dependable (if not as dramatic typically) and you look better on paper when you go in to, say, buy a car or a house.
laru, that makes total sense. But if you've experienced bonus time at a firm and know it's lean, no matter how much praise you're heaped with, then you've got to ask for the cash you need in your raise.
you also get taxed on a bonus correct? and it isn't already in your withdrawls. I don't know, I've never gotten one. Our bonuses are project based, so if the project is profitable and finished, you get a bonus. None of my projects are closed out yet, and the one that is under construction is a negative for profitablity, so I'll have to work that off first.
Firms I've worked in have always given net bonuses - meaning the check I received was after taxes. But not all firms do things that way and you can end up owing a pretty big chunk of a large bonus in taxes in that case.
Early on I had a goal of increasing my salary each year by 10%. This worked for my first couple years because the firm gave me a 10% raise each year. But after that I had to meet my goal by switching jobs a few times. As others have pointed out, just because you think you "should" get a cost of living increase each year and hopefully a merit-based raise too doesn't mean the firm agrees with you or that they're in a financial position to do that. Often switching jobs was the best way for me to jump up to the next level.
The "110% next year" plan worked for about 9 years - in fact I was able to exceed that rate during that time. But after that it just didn't have much chance of continuing unless I would have gone out on my own, because my salary would have been much higher than the norms for the region and higher than what the market could bear.
How do you start a conversation about raises? Will the employer sit down with everyone at the end of the year or do you need to walk into his office 365 days after you start?
sharkee ... i think you will find that, like everything else, it varies a great deal from firm to firm. some firms simply will not approach the issue until the employee does. other firms make pay adjustments for all employees at the same time of year (year-end, mid-summer, whatever) while other firms will provide reviews and pay adjustments on the employee's employment anniversary.
since you don't know what your firm does, i'm guessing the firm isn't very good at establishing, and communicating, HR procedures ... so, if i were you, i'd just ask somebody there (at a managerial level) what the normal drill might be. i would not wait until 365 days to find out how they do things.
and you should really find out about how the firm does do raises. it may not be tied to a review, which is the case where i work. so if you go into a review and come out with no raise, it may be because the raise issue is not tied to the review. which puts in the employees court to be proactive about raises. which lets the employer off the hook, because its hard to get the principals together, get your arguments for more money together and be proactive about it.
our firm (national firm) with 10 offices across the country gives on average a 2% to 7% raise.
with that said, i got an 11% raise based upon my 60+ hour weeks and all nighters that help the firm win over $150 million in projects over the last year.
raises? bonuses?
just curious what a standard raise would be (what percent should one expect?)
after one year at a firm?
two?
three or more?
assuming you're earning a market rate now relative to your abilities, and assuming you're performing your job well, and assuming this is your annual review, you should expect a cost-of-living raise of about 3% plus a merit increase of about 1-6% in addition.
aside from the COL bump, the merit increase is HIGHLY dependent on how well you do your job and how much growth you've demonstrated.
number of years at the firm should not be much of a factor in the % raise issued
fuck that I do need a raise...both my seconds earn the same as me
Look up the precise inflation rate for the past year to use as a bargaining tool... I suspect it's higher than 3% for the past year. The last time I got a raise, the national inflation over the previous year was 3.6%, so a 3% raise still would have been a bit of a rip-off.
rationalist is right - you should research actual cost-of-living data for your are to inform the COL calculation. google the Department of Labor CPI for All Urban Consumers - they provide CPI data for most major urban areas - look for the 12 month change in the CPI - you may need to divide the current CPI by the CPI from the same month last year to determine the % change.
so here's a question. is it bad that your % has decreased from the year before, even if you know you're highly regarded in the office (ie: getting more responsibility and positive feedback from clients and the bossman).
do you think that bosses tend to give a high raise the first year or so as an incentive to stay on and then after year three or more they basically drop their interest/investment in keeping you?
arkitekt: It depends somewhat on the firm's revenue for a given year. Did your firm have a better year two years ago than last year? Did EVERYONE get a lower percentage raise this year?
I wouldn't sweat it too much, unless you know that the firm has been more profitable and your raise is disproportionate to the firm's relative success.
yeah, they can't give you a huge raise every year, otherwise pretty soon your salary would be all out of scale with your experience level.
firms often will give a bigger (or smaller) raise after the first year because they now have some experience with what you really can do - this is a way to adjust your starting salary to reality. hiring somebody is a crap-shoot (at best) no matter how much time you invest in the process. you never really know what you're going to get, so having a year of working together really informs the salary administration process. after that, it tends to be somewhat more routine.
if you're not really sure what caused the particular raise you received, ask! there's no substitute for free and open communication about pay related issues.
Every firm is vastly different in how they give raises. If you are a valuable employee and your employer clearly doesn't want to loose you, go find out what your peers (equal experience) are making in your region. Use that information to broker a raise. And if you are already at the average just take your cost of living raise and be happy. It's very difficult to argue why you should make more than anyone else in town, but I applaud you if you can.
What is a good way to inform your boss that cost of living raises are typically given once a year? We don't do regular employee reviews in the office (very small office) and my boss has only ever worked for himself. He is not very aware of typical business/office procedures. I'd like to bring it up, however I don't want to imply that he doesn't know what he's doing.
mc3 ... it can be delicate ... but, look for words that convey to your boss that your cost of living is rising each and every year ... your rent's going up ... your grocery costs are rising ... your fuel bill has skyrocketed. gently suggest that you've researched what's happening with the CPI in your area and that without a raise equivalent to that change in the CPI, you're actually going backwards. be prepared to give him copies of your research.
he may not care or he may not be able to afford giving you a raise ... you have to prepare yourself for that. but, I'm betting a well crafted and persuasive discussion will get you most, if not all, of what you need.
good luck
mc3...i think you should just ask for a raise every year, instead of telling him that it's standard practice...just be like... "well it's my X year anniversary, another year wiser, is what i always say, oh and did you hear cost of living is up another X%, it's just getting harder and harder to make ends meet, you know, with the quintuplets and all..."
but with a small firm, you may price yourself out of a job...if they don't need that kind of experience...
at my first arch job, my boss made fun of me for not asking for a raise after my first year (small office, no formal situation like yourself), so after a couple wise cracks, he said he'd talk to his accountant and see what he can do...got a big raise and he made it retroactive back to my one year anniversary...
Thanks. It certainly is a delicate subject. Generally he is a good boss, I just don't think things like this occur to him. Unfortunately it forces me to be in the position of asking for money. I'd rather -and have formally been in the position where raises were commonplace each year, even if they were small.
I got 4% at my surprise first annual review and I thought it was fair since I didn't start out as smoothly as I would have liked and my entire studio is new to the firm. So there's something to build on and maybe it will be better next year, a little more on top of the COL bump. My firm does annual bumps regardless of firm profits. I think bonuses depend more on profits.
5% at my 6 mo. review. Coming up on one year here.
I got 10% after a year, because they found out I'm as good as advertised, which I suspect they hadn't really believed. This year I have no hope as they know I'm heading off to grad school in the fall.
I definitely feel the difference in how far my salary went when I got that raise vs. how far it goes now...
like biggie said, "mo money, mo problems". the more money you're paid, the more likely that you'll get axed when times get rough
sit them down and tell them you cant afford to work for them anymore...
if you follow mdler's advice, be sure you have another job already lined up first !
We do a mix of raises and bonuses. The youner less experienced staff get 6-month reviews and yearly raises along with a year end bonus. The more experienced staff get yearly reviews and more substantial bonus.
from personal experience, in the region where i work (detroit area) it's rare to receive 10% annual raises (unless you are just starting off); i'd say 3-5% is average through out most years, ranging up to 8%, based on performance, or if your firm has had a fantastic year. Bonuses vary greatly from firm to firm, but from what i've gathered so far, a bonus equivalent to 2 weeks pay is slightly above average.
I think that's why so many people here move from office to office every couple of years. Everytime i moved, my salary jumped roughly 20% and professionally, it seems to be the fastest way up. Loyalty doesn't seem to be very well rewarded in michigan architectural firms.
first couple of years i got 10% a year. Then got 33% when I changed cities/jobs. After my first year there I got 4%, which is also what my co-workers got.
i am self employed now so no bonuses for me...
but when i did get them...bonuses were twice a year and equal to 2 months wages each time. this is standard in japan.
raises were based on whether i was married, had kids, and how old and how experienced, not necessarily in that order.
raises were also tied to how much site work and contract management work i was doing in a given year; which was checked via record-keeping system (we were paid more for our time on site, less if we just did cad-monkey work)...and if we did other extra jobs no one else could do we would also get raises at end of year...evidence of ability was treated as signal to pay more....for some reason...i don't know if that was standard and am pretyy sure there was some voodoo involved in calculations
anyway...if you need more money there is no need to be ashamed/embarased to ask for it. just don't be rude about it.
When I switched jobs I got a 25% higher salary. Raises since then have been 10%, 8% and 12%. My pay has more than doubled from the old job I left.
Much of that increase in pay is directly related to the experience I gained at the previous employer. Essentially they trained me for the job I have now. Unfortunately for them they lost my loyalty when they refused to reward me with respectible pay raises based on merit.
Some firms obviously get it, but many do not. It's very expensive to train a new hire so treat your current employees very well as to not lose them. I have little doubt that switching employers now would yield a very minor pay increase, if any.
I found out how much I was making versus their "approved" salaries. There was a huge discrepency. I had switched positions in the firm so I knew I had the potential to get a huge raise and I asked for one. I got a 33% raise.
10% raises did seem to be fairly typical for intern-level people in some firms I worked in, but usually these only happen for the first couple of years and then start tapering off. It's not realistic for most people in most firms to expect this to continue long-term (someone who starts at 40k would be making about 115k 10 years later if they received a 10% raise every year. Some few architects do earn that, but it far exceeds the average earnings for an architect who is not an owner in a firm.)
Some of the more annoying firms to work for were those that would explain that due to project slowdowns or other factors there was a moratorium on raises - and would keep promising to "revisit the issue" as soon as some big project came through, or as soon as the new fiscal year began, or whatever. If you get this line multiple times and don't see an increase within a 2-year period definately think about moving on. Similarly if they told you that they were starting you low to "see how you work out" but they don't meet with you within 6 months or so to re-evaluate then that's another reason to push the discussion, and to think about leaving if it seems they have no plans to increase you.
I do understand that under tight circumstances firms often think it's better to keep everyone on at their current salaries rather than give raises to some while laying off others. But if this goes on for years it is usually a sign of poor management.
The toughest situation I encountered while trying to negotiate a raise was an employer who got very angry when I requested a 3% cost of living increase at my 1-year point with that firm, and launched into a long critique of my abilities and "failure to thrive" in the firm. But a few months later I got a year-end bonus that was about 20% of my annual salary and was told that they were very happy with my work... What I figured out eventually about that firm was that the principals always reacted badly to any discussion about money that they didn't initiate on their own, and felt that employees were out of line for even bringing up the subject. After that first bonus I trusted them to be fair and found that they usually were, and my best policy in that firm was not broaching the subject.
So I guess you kind of have to tread lightly, especially if you're relatively new, and see how things go. You might find that you hit a nerve or your timing isn't good.
For all the "10% raises is only common for intern level" and "3% cost of living is acceptable" comments. Do note that inflation is not running at 3% like the fed would like us to believe. Pre-Clinton Era methods of measuring inflation (which count housing, not rents, and include energy and food) have been running between 6 and 7 percent for years now.
In today's economy you need 6% bare minimum to stay par and 8% won't get you ahead by much. If all you buy with your salary is computers and plastic made in china schlock fine, but for me 3% doesn't cut it for real world expenses.
Oh, and if you're looking at a raise to take a foreign vacation, better ask for a 25% bump with the ways the USD is crashing.
sometimes, when i step back for minute from my chosen career of architecture and my thinking of how $10,000 more annually could really improve my quality of life, i start to realize how pathetic architects really have it.
let me just say, from the employer's side, if you ask for a 25% raise, and you're right within the industry norms (at your current salary), you better have had one hell of a year. otherwise, the risk you run is pinning your employer so far into a corner that there's going to be no happy solution (ie, i've got no where to go - if i counter with 4-6% that everyone else is getting, the gap is going to be so large it'll be impossible to negotiate meaningfully).
in general, raises should be tied to cost of living, bonuses on merit. raises should be uniform (ie, the firm is doing X% for everyone). bonuses can vary widely. 5-10% seems reasonable, more than 10% if you really really did well for the firm during the year.
laru makes some good points that warrant serious consideration.
at our firm, cost-of-living raises are an "across the board" sort of thing, meaning that the same % increase applies to all employees -- we reward "merit" with individually tailored raises and bonuses ...
we take the view that the performance of all members of our firm "improves" over the course of the year (otherwise, we tend to encourage their departure) so annual raises contain both a cost-of-living adjustment and a merit component that is closely linked to the individual's annual performance review. annual raises can vary considerably across the firm, with some being barely more than the cost-of-living increase to very substantial raises arising from outstanding performance or a promotion.
bonuses, on the other hand, are more discretionary and tend to heavily weigh a) how well the firm is doing overall; b) how well individual project teams perform; and c) how much the individual employee contributed to the firm over the prior period. "average" performance doesn't tend to produce much of a bonus whereas "outstanding" performance is very well rewarded.
we have worked hard over the years to continue giving decent raises to our "non management" staff even when economic conditions are tough. just because the firm isn't doing well doesn't mean individual employees don't need, and deserve, an increase in pay. that practice does tend to severely impact our ability to pay bonuses in such years.
being able to afford a trip to the UK is the status symbol du jour...
everyone does raises and bonuses differently, but i would concur that cost-of-living raises are a necessity. i would also concur that 3% is not quite enough, especially when housing and gas prices are taken into account. a good solid 5% COL raise seems right.
i would really appreciate a raise over a bonus, if i were given the choice between the two. you can't count on a bonus, but a raise is dependable (if not as dramatic typically) and you look better on paper when you go in to, say, buy a car or a house.
laru, that makes total sense. But if you've experienced bonus time at a firm and know it's lean, no matter how much praise you're heaped with, then you've got to ask for the cash you need in your raise.
you also get taxed on a bonus correct? and it isn't already in your withdrawls. I don't know, I've never gotten one. Our bonuses are project based, so if the project is profitable and finished, you get a bonus. None of my projects are closed out yet, and the one that is under construction is a negative for profitablity, so I'll have to work that off first.
Firms I've worked in have always given net bonuses - meaning the check I received was after taxes. But not all firms do things that way and you can end up owing a pretty big chunk of a large bonus in taxes in that case.
Early on I had a goal of increasing my salary each year by 10%. This worked for my first couple years because the firm gave me a 10% raise each year. But after that I had to meet my goal by switching jobs a few times. As others have pointed out, just because you think you "should" get a cost of living increase each year and hopefully a merit-based raise too doesn't mean the firm agrees with you or that they're in a financial position to do that. Often switching jobs was the best way for me to jump up to the next level.
The "110% next year" plan worked for about 9 years - in fact I was able to exceed that rate during that time. But after that it just didn't have much chance of continuing unless I would have gone out on my own, because my salary would have been much higher than the norms for the region and higher than what the market could bear.
I just got a 23% raise and a $5000 bonus after 7 months.
wow...congrats!
how'd you do it? any negotiation tips?
Easy, I switched to electrical engineering.
oh shit, you got suckered...
How do you start a conversation about raises? Will the employer sit down with everyone at the end of the year or do you need to walk into his office 365 days after you start?
sharkee ... i think you will find that, like everything else, it varies a great deal from firm to firm. some firms simply will not approach the issue until the employee does. other firms make pay adjustments for all employees at the same time of year (year-end, mid-summer, whatever) while other firms will provide reviews and pay adjustments on the employee's employment anniversary.
since you don't know what your firm does, i'm guessing the firm isn't very good at establishing, and communicating, HR procedures ... so, if i were you, i'd just ask somebody there (at a managerial level) what the normal drill might be. i would not wait until 365 days to find out how they do things.
and you should really find out about how the firm does do raises. it may not be tied to a review, which is the case where i work. so if you go into a review and come out with no raise, it may be because the raise issue is not tied to the review. which puts in the employees court to be proactive about raises. which lets the employer off the hook, because its hard to get the principals together, get your arguments for more money together and be proactive about it.
i just had my 1st annual review last week
our firm (national firm) with 10 offices across the country gives on average a 2% to 7% raise.
with that said, i got an 11% raise based upon my 60+ hour weeks and all nighters that help the firm win over $150 million in projects over the last year.
generally though, the raises are around 5%.
thanks for the advice, especially about not waiting around for a year.
I work in a small firm so I will ask a colleague since I don't want to go straight to the principal.
I just got a $30 bonus! na na na na na na! Lunch is on me.
Strawbeary
did you raid the petty cash drawer for that $30 bonus?
no, we got half year bonuses and they came today. a check! $30.77!
what is REALLY sad is that I actually AM excited about it and don't care that it's only $30.
at least the firm's making a profit .. green is always better than red
I remember when I used to work at a place that gave raises...maybe they are hiring...
we have negative profit sharing. I didn't think anything of it till I was talking to my brother and he was like, WHAT??? Now I'm like, yeh, what!!
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