Should You Ask for a Raise When You Take on Additional Responsibilities?

Here's an interesting bit of counsel from CareerJournal that says a person should NOT ask for additional pay when taking on extra job responsibilities:

You were right not to request a raise when you were asked to take on more responsibilities, says Patrick Dailey, director of human resources for TXU Energy, a retail energy company in Dallas. Many companies want employees to be motivated mostly by the challenge involved in a promotion, not the increased pay, Mr. Dailey says. "Employers need to see people are willing to take on more responsibility and not expect something different in their agreement around money," he says.

In the question, the person says, "I assumed a management position within my team in August 2006." This leads me to believe he/she was promoted. If he was promoted, I'd say he should not only ask for a raise, but he should expect one. After all, isn't that part of being promoted? You take on a new title and position and you expect more pay. Or am I missing something? (BTW, the fact that he says he "assumed a management position" leads me to believe that he was not in a management position previously. Thus, I'm guess he did get a promotion.)

But even if this wasn't a promotion, there still could be a case for asking for a raise. For me, it would depend on the amount of extra responsibility I had and if others doing the same sort of work were being paid more. If so, I'd recommend asking for a raise. Of course, I'd do it in a non-offensive manner. Even something like a simple "do these new responsibilities impact my compensation in any way?" will get your point across. Then it can open up the topic of a raise for conversation. And though you may not get it then, you can lay the ground-work and expectation for what you'd like to get when the time for raises comes about.

Personally, I've never been asked to take on additional, substantial amounts of work without being offered a pay increase as well. And when someone in my group has been asked to do much more, I've always offered them some sort of compensation upgrade.

Remember, companies want to pay the least amount possible to make the most money possible. They aren't in the business of offering salary increases on their own. But they also want to keep good employees and know that hiring and training new people can cost them a fortune. So if you're good at your job and asked to take on more responsibility, I see little downside to asking if there is additional compensation -- as long as you do it in a polite manner.

Things like this can have a BIG impact on your finances over time. The people who simply sit back and let the company pay them what the company wants to pay them will be far less better off than those that manage their careers and work actively to increase their pay at every opportunity.

What do you think?

Comments

[Projoe]

Do CEO's or even directors of human resources not ask for\get a raise when they got promoted? I don't want to even get into the fact that the CEO of TXU is gonna make a killing once they complete a private buyout.
People are motivated to work by money, otherwise very few of us would be working at all. If you do your job well enough to get a promotion, you deserve a raise.

I couldn't disagree more. You have very few opportunities to grab more money in your career, so why pass one up. If anyone thinks that he/she will be rewarded during their normal yearly review process after already working in an elevated position for the same money, they are sorely mistaken.

Bottom line, when opportunity knocks take it. Money is the reason for working...not a by-product.

[Jonathan Love]

My guess is that the CEO did not come from Sales. Ask for the order, the most they can say is no. If you don't ask for more money you certainly aren't going to get it.

[plonkee]

Of course you should ask for a raise. If the company takes offence, then they're probably not worth working for.

"Many companies want employees to be motivated mostly by the challenge involved in a promotion"

How stupid. Fire this idiot immediately. That or double his workload without a pay increase and ask him how much he enjoys the challenge.

[shadox]

Here's my take: not every addition in work load justifies asking for a raise. In fact, if one of my team members would start asking me for a raise every time we added a new project or line item to his responsibilities, I would very quickly move to replace them. Would you be willing to lose some pay if one of your projects ended?

On the flip side, if you truly get promoted, i.e. your responsibilities exceed the scope of what you could reasonably be expected to do under your previous work title, or if your title changed all together, you are justified in asking for a raise. In fact, the company probably expects you to ask for a raise and may have already budgeted for this.

"Employers need to see people are willing to take on more responsibility and not expect something different in their agreement around money,"

Straight on it's face, this has been tried already. It was called communism. You might have noticed that it didn't exactly provide the best incentives.

But I suspect this HR guy is just looking to lower expenses - in a very slimy, but capitalistic, way. When employees work for free (or pick up extra work for free) the company has lower costs. Assuming the job market is good, stick up for yourself and ask for a raise - otherwise work in that new position for a bit and then switch to a company that will pay better.

[brent]

depends on the 'promotion'.

I just asked for, and got, a HUGE pay rise. (Well... huge for me. Went from $60k inc bonus to $70k incl bonus. Take home pay went up by 15%).

BUT! I asked for it PRECEDING 6 months of solid performance at a level exceeding my job description.

If your promotion is to another level of work, then you need to be paid at that level. If your promotion is just because they're adding "a line item" or you're suddenly getting more complicated projects... my advice is to be thankful for the opportunity, tough it out, SUCCEED, then put your hand out when you DESERVE it.

Then, if they're not interested, leave. Either way you win, because your current employer has just made you more valuable by increasing your marketability.

[brent]

clearly I'm no linguist.

PRECEEDING and replace with SUCCEEDING.