Situation 1:

You are a Junior Manager at Corpo-Mess, a famous international corporation producing new software for a wide range of products, from self-navigating cars, through drones and robots, to intelligent medical devices.

You have been working hard for the company for the last six years, and currently, you manage a team of 12 programmers.

You have a technical background, but of course, your team members’ knowledge often exceeds your expertise.

One morning, you get a visit from one of the members of your team.

The employee lost patience about something and knocks at your door without making an appointment.

You let your team member in, and it turns out that they are looking for a raise.

The employee is engaged in one project under your supervision where he programs a navigation system for a new model of a drone.

Your priorities and possibilities are as follows:

1. It’s your priority that there is a status quo in the team — namely, you treat all the employees in your team equally. Therefore, you will not tolerate if some of your employees end up with a higher salary than others, given the same amount of working experience and input to the company. 
2. It is also important for you to keep integrity in the team. Therefore, you do not appreciate saying negative things about the teammates behind their backs. What you value the most is employees who are focused on doing their jobs properly and improving on their own skills and the results of the project as much as possible.
3. The company not only values the projects but also the overall engagement in the company culture: organizing and attending social events, contributing to the company blog, etc.
4. You also need to follow the company policy, which states that it is not possible to give an employee a one-time raise higher than 400 Eur brutto, and a total raise higher than 1,000 Eur over one year.
5. You are also instructed to look at the quality of work and engagement in the company, and not follow your emotions, and don’t privilege employees who have families or some other hard situations over the ones who don’t.
6. Furthermore, you are instructed that before agreeing for any raise, you should propose the employee a prestigious, two-week professional workshop abroad. This is costly for the company. Yet, it’s still less costly than raising the employee’s salary.
7. In general, the policy of the company is not to give a raise unless the employee demonstrates that they deserve it. You will need to write a report about any such decision to your superiors and you will be asked to defend this decision, therefore, you cannot give an unsubstantiated raise.
8. If the employee doesn’t qualify for a raise yet clearly works hard, you are instructed to promise the employee to be considered for an end-of-the-year bonus of 1,000 Eur. One-time bonuses are much cheaper for the company than raising the salaries.

Situation 2:

For the past 11 months, you have been working in a little biotech startup of 25 employees, Bio-Mess. You work in the company’s laboratory.

Given your former 10-year experience with laboratory research in academia, you are fluent in using a wide range of laboratory techniques, from techniques for extraction & storage of biomolecules, through single-cell sequencing, to bioinformatics tools. Your technical writing skills are also impeccable.

You have at least five years of experience more than any other laboratory worker in the company, and this manifests when it comes to talking about projects — you often prevent others from wasting substrates and making other costly mistakes. 

You feel that you are the pivotal member of the team, and you had a major contribution to the last patent filed by the company — yet, your name was not mentioned on the patent application. You are frustrated by this fact, and by your salary.

You have been here for less than a year and you are the best-paid employee (the runner-up earns 100 Eur less than you).

However, you don’t feel that your salary reflects your contribution to the company profits — not even close — as the company will likely make millions on your innovation.

The job market is your field is in poor condition and there are not many new jobs. Therefore, your priority is not to lose your job.

However, you feel undervalued and decide to be brave and schedule a meeting with the company owner to introduce your point of view and ask for a raise.

It’s not that you are in a bad need to earn more right now — it is rather that you feel undervalued and you would like to be appreciated more. A raise would certainly be good for this purpose!

The atmosphere in the company is very friendly and you have a good contact with your boss, therefore, you hope that he will take your points into account and agree with you.