Are you being paid enough?

September 25, 2007 – 1:23 pm

It’s very hard in this age of people not talking about their finances with each other, to know if the wage you are earning is appropriate to the field you’re working in and the area you reside (or work) in. It can be very useful however to know if you are above or below average for this if for example you are looking for another job, or asking for a raise.

Most of us when we work, have some sort of review once a year, or if it’s not fixed in stone, we’re entitled to request one. The purpose of the review is often to look at whether we need any training, to review how the job is going, whether we’re coping etc. Some companies will purposefully keep financial reviews and job reviews separate, others run them as one thing. So what if you feel you’re underpaid and that your company is not paying you enough? How can you check this, and find out before you go into a review and say something, what the going rate is, and whether you’re getting what you should?

There are a number of ways you can find information that will help you in knowing if you’re on a par pay-wise with others who do the same type of work. The first is to look online at sites that gather data from various sources and work out what the average is for your job type. A couple of general sites are Reed Salary Calculator and IDS’s Income page these may well give you a starting point, and they’re well thought about. The problem is that you may want something a little more in depth at which point it’s worth using a search engine like google to search for something more specific to your field of work. For example if you work in electronic engineering, then you might find looking at Electronic Weekly’s Salary Survey very useful.

Another idea that’s going to be more specific to your area or region, but possibly not so easy to find out if jobs in your area are scarce, is to look at local papers and agencies and find out what sort of salary is being offered for similar jobs locally. You could even ring an agency or two, and tell them that you’re thinking about possibly looking for a new job in this area and this field, and ask them what sort of money you could expect to be looking at.

The third idea, is to talk to other people who work in the same field as you. This can be quite a hard thing to do, as I mentioned at the beginning we’re living in a time when people seem quite reluctant to discuss their finances with each other, which is a shame because the secrecy means that people often don’t realise when they’re earning substantially below or above the average for their type of work. If you can talk to others it will be probably your best indicator of all as these are real people who are really earning this rather than estimates of what you might earn, or averages of what others earn.

Having found out what the national average is, and what sort of money other companies locally are paying for the same skills and job, you’re now in a position to talk to your employer from a more knowledgeable stand point particularly if you’ve discovered that the wage you are on falls well below this average. I still wouldn’t advise you go in and say ‘you’re not paying me enough, give me more money’. There is such a thing as being too blunt. But if you were to go in and talk about all the responsibilities in your job, and then perhaps bring it to their attention that you’ve been looking at how much you’re paid compared to others doing similar roles for other companies, and then ask if a pay rise could be considered, at least they will understand that you’ve seriously considered the situation and looked into the figures and facts. There are no guarantees that it’s going to work, but if nothing else, you can now decide whether you want to stay with the company on that lower wage or look for something else knowing that others are paying more.

Of course you could find that you’re earning above average, in which case well done you! You are in an enviable position, and now at least you know that you’ve got a good thing going for you!

By Vialdana