BA Q&A: I Deserve A Raise! ft. Yacine

both in New York. She's calling in from the b X. Hey, y scene, Welcome to Brown Ambition. Hi, thank you, happy to be here, so excited to have you. The melanin is popping the team like everything is just like, Wow, you should do Colgate Corres what. But that's not why you're here today. So let's take a listen to your question.

I love this question. It's one that actually I have gotten a lot from people who had their annual reviews in twenty twenty at the beginning of twenty twenty three, and we're just a little underwhelmed by what happened in terms of their pay. So let's take a listen to Yasine's question. So, I started recently at a financial firm. It's a big one, so I don't want to say

the name just in case. But it's been almost nine ten months and we just went over our like our end of year review and everything, and they were handing out bonuses, raises, and promotions. I did not expect a promotion or like, you know, I was happy that I got a bonus, but I did kind of expect a raise, just because it's been almost a year that I've been

there and inflation is crazy. So I wanted to know, am I being kind of a little extra for expecting something or is there like something that I can say or do that would kind of like have me be able to you visit the conversation with my manager. Okay, yeah, see, so paint the picture for me. You've been at this job for a little less than a year now, right, Okay, And where are you at in your career like early career mid I just started, so three years in, but

this is my third job. So because you know, Blacktone cracks, you can be twenty two or like sixty two, and I would just want to be clear on that. Okay, so you're very young, early in your career. Okay, so you've been there lesson a year. It's totally not uncommon to get a so so raise when you're newer to the company, especially when you've been there less than a year,

and like, you're not working for a small company. This is like a big bank, you said, right, a big bank during challenging economic times, they're gonna be very stingy with their budget for compensation increases, adjustments, bonuses, all that stuff. So it's not shocking to me that you didn't get a significant raise. Can I ask, did you get like the standard annual increase and if so, how much was So I didn't get a raise at all. I got a bonus, and I was surprised that I did get

the bonus. But I was hoping for a raise as well, because inflation has been a little crazy, so I was hoping that at least they would kind of raise my salary so it will match inflation. But I guess that was the crazy part. Or your friend's like, here's a tiny violin for you. You got a bonus, not raise. Yes, they're like, okay, girl, you need to calm down. At least you got something. No, that is true. We want to be grateful for that. But I don't believe in

playing small. I think what you could what you could do in this situation. So you got a bonus. What was the percentage of your pay that your bonus was? Was it like ten percent? Five percent? It was a little under ten percent. I think it was like eight percent.

Really freaking dope, dude, that's pretty great. And here's what I'll say, here's why they'd prefer to do a bonus over a raise, because a bonus for them is a one time It's a one time hit to their budget, right, And whereas give you that ten percent annual raise, they're promising to do that for the next forever as long as you're there, right, So, and you work for a bank, so you probably understand like this is just going to

hit the books a little bit. Differently, I think that bonus says a lot about probably the quality of the work that you're doing, the fact that they want you to be happy and stick around. I'd almost even call that like a baby retention bonus, like we can't give you a raise, but here's some money, Like just be happy for now. But I wouldn't necessarily say you have to take that money and be silent about it. I think you can absolutely, even though it's been how long

since you had the initial conversation with your manager. So we had our conversation in December, right before we left for the holidays, and she wasn't sure that I was going to get the bonus, actually, because in my contract, it's not a given. It's something that's I forget the word. There's a specific word for it. I forgot it. But it's it's only by their discretion I guess, by my managers discrestionary. Oh yeah, intercretionary. Ya, bonus that doesn't exist

unless they decided to exist exactly. Yeah. So she wasn't even sure if I was going to get the bonus. So I was happy. That's why I was like, I'm so happy, and I'm still grateful that I did get the bonus. I just I was a little, you know, let down that I didn't get a raised, because a lot of my friends who are also in the same industry did get a raise to match with inflation and also a bonus. So I'm just like, maybe I'm yeah, I'm asking for too much. No, I don't think you're

asking for too much. I mean, you've you've been there less than a year. So in terms of like it's you're in a lot better position than someone who got hired five years ago at that company, because like their pay that they started at, you know, with inflation, it's

eating and eating and eating away at that. Your pay is on a newer level, like you are getting paid in twenty twenty two dollars twenty you know, so I wouldn't feel as much urgency around like, oh I could be making a lot more in like inflation's eating up my money. That being said, it sounds like even with your manager, there wasn't a lot of clarity around how compensation would happen in compensation rewards. So in this case, and I actually think I have. I came up with

a four scripts that workers can use. In December, I published it. It's called Ultimate Year End Review Scripts, but really there are four scripts that anyone can use to open a dialogue with their managers when they want to talk about compensation, Like you're underpaid, you're given a bunch more responsibilities, you want more money, or in your case, you just want to understand like how does this how

do y'all decide, like what goes into these decisions? But what I would say is why not have a conversation with your manager and say, you know, I'm super grateful that the bonus came through. That's awesome, but I'm curious what the company's you know, process or policy around annual raises is because I was a little I was surprised to not have received any pay raise. You can say surprised, you can say I was a little concerned or a

little disappointed, you know. Make it clear that you're grateful for the raise and all of that, but you're really asking just to be so that you can get more transparency and insight into what went into that decision. And I wouldn't be surprised if what you hear from her is like, I don't know, you've seen I didn't get it raised either. I don't know, But like that just means that maybe then it's a question for her manager,

you know, or maybe it's a question for hr. Like I think sometimes we assume that our managers are going to be like the badasses and they can get answers for us and all of that, but sometimes they're just one of many, many in the long line of like you know, chain of command, and they may not feel confident asking those questions. But if you push and you advocate for yourself, it's more likely you will get those answers. And if she ends up being a dead end, you

could go to an HR. Do you have like an HR business partner, You could go to them for sure and ask for some clarity. I wanted to ask, I guess the side question. It's it's the same thing. But when it comes to bringing having this conversation, should I wait till my media review, which which is in like about two three months, or should I just have that conversation now? I wouldn't wait. I mean you at this point that you and I were talking in early March,

you guys had your review annual review in December. I wouldn't wait because, like what I would rather you go into the mid year review understanding better, like what your chances are of getting a raised even maybe she might even tell you, well, for people who didn't get a bump at the end of this year, then we're considering that for you know, midyear, and then it kind of

gives you peace of mind. There's I feel like you have more to gain by asking now than to lose if you phrase it in the right way, like you know, I've been giving it more thought. I know it's been a couple of months since we, you know, talked about the annual review and compensation changes. The bonus was unexpected, and I'm very excited about that. But since I wasn't given a raise, do you think it'll be possible to

revisit that at the midyear point? Could be another way for you to ask about it versus like just what I recommended earlier, which was, do you have any idea like what goes into those decisions about who does and doesn't get a raise? And you know, what can I expect moving forward? Now you have this the fact that I now I know that you have a midyear review coming up, you can literally say, like, could we revisit

that at the mid year? You know, don't talk about inflation though that was how argument, but yeah, yeah, no, no, no, no, no, don't don't talk about inflation. Talk about the quality of your work. You know, you've been there a year, a little less than a year. Just the bonus itself, unless they're just giving money to anybody out there, the bonus itself tells me that you're good at your job and

they value you. Would you agree, I would like to think so yes, Yeah, So you can say that bonus clearly tells me that I am I'm making an impact, I'm being valued. That's really exciting for me. And like make it clear that you're asking because you want to understand that you were valued and what that will look like in the form of a raise instead of just the one time bonus. All right, ba fam, you are listening to the ba QA A. We are going to take a quick break and be right back with more

of your questions and our answers. Okay, ba fan, we are back answering more of your questions for the BAQA Let's go. The reason you don't want to mention inflation is because companies they everyone's going through inflation, right, and I'm sure that they have. I'm almost like positive that this big bank had a talk with the board, all the senior leaders had, you know, head of compensation hr all of them, and they decided, in light of inflation,

how are we going to do raises this year? And in light of the economy and all of that, and they made the choice that they made and that's not going to change just for one person. You know, when it comes to like standard raises, if you feel like you warrant a merit based pay increase, then you need to make that case based on what you believe. You know, what the merit is, like, what have you done to

deserve more? And so going into this conversation with your manager, you might want to take some time and you know, just look at your highlight reel from twenty twenty two and maybe you already have that, like did you put that together for your Yeah, for the end of your review, yes, yeah, I mean you can mention that and again reiterate the

bonus was nice. But I'm also interested in what type of merit based salary increase I can expect, especially heading into the mid year reviewpoint given my performance you know this past at this at that point will be a

year and a half ish. Yees, yeah, like that, because merit based is just that's like something that they can you know, push for, not just like well your scenes got inflation going on and everybody else and then like at this point you're early in your career, like you like getting in that habit of being able to articulate your impact and articulate you know, what your performance like, how what the value is that you've brought to your team. Is such a good skill to learn And it may

feel hell like how scale of one to ten? Like how nervous are you maybe going into this conversation that I'm recommending like a six? Sex? Not that? Like? Wait nervous? Is that the ten? Or at the versus a ten? Okay? Yeah? Like a six okay? So you're nervous? Such, right, Like it will get easier the more often you give yourself

practice advocating for yourself. So that's why I'm like, go ahead and have the conversation now, and also think about from your manager's perspective, even though your review is in June.

In June year, it should be Yeah, they may start having conversations around budgets for raises and bonuses in April and may you know, so if you get in there now and she knows that, Yesine would really like a little pay bump, maybe she'll be able to think about that, you know, as she heads into those compensation conversations heading into the midyear point. I can't wait to try. I'm still nervous, but I can't wait nervous is good. I

mean it really is. Like you said, you've only been in this job, Well, you've been working professionally for a few years now, yeah, three years. I've kind of been a part of that home millennial like job hopping thing where it's like so plentnially graduated three years ago. I don't know what there is. I don't think I'm gen Z. I don't think I know I'm not gen Z. I think I'm a older My cousin she's like, I don't know.

I call her a zoomer because she's got like boomer tendencies, but a gen Z birth date anyway, club, Okay, I guess. I mean I was born in the nineties, but like late nineties. So I'm a nineties baby, not a nineties kid, if that makes sense, gotcha, got yeah, I'm an eighties baby, not an eighties kid. Yees, late eighties. Yeah, so we're on the same page, we understand. But yeah, so I'm a part of that. You know. I had a job and it was great, and then I saw another job

and they were paying more. So I left that job and went to that job, and that's how I kind of raised my salary for the past three years. I stayed at a job for almost a year or so, and then after that I would like transition into something different. Started off in nonprofit. It was great. The money's not that great, but you know, helping people is great. That I'm transitioned to sales and that was great, but it was all about like the numbers, numbers, numbers all the time.

So I transitioned into marketing and I love it here. So that's why I'm like this whole thing about like asking for a raise. It's kind of like the first time I'm kind of doing this because it's usually I'll just leave a job and they'll give me more money at the next job. Which I talk all about quitting your way rich, and how quitting was a key strategy for me too. No, I'm not kidding, like I quit

six times in ten years. But when you really enjoy a workplace and you like to work there and you're making an impact, it can be really rewarding to stick around and grow in that. And of course, you know, I am of the opinion that like job hopping doesn't ultimately it doesn't have it doesn't have to be like

super detrimental as long as you maintain your networks. You have a good reason for leaving, and I can already hear you, like you've tried different industries, different types of places, and you're figuring out what works for you and it wasn't nonprofit and it wasn't sales, and like you can tell that to an interviewer and they're gonna get it,

Like they're gonna understand. And the more clarity you get, like, the less likely you will be to leave as frequently because you're going to be right, like your bar is going to be higher for your next role, and you're going to be more selective, and yeah, you will get to a point where I'm pretty I like it here, you know I do, which just agree And then in that case, then it's about building those relationships, continuing to

advocate for yourself. And what was key for me is what I told you about is understanding, like how the hell the sausage gets made? Like how do these compensation decisions happen? And I've recognized I really rather that you can ask and maybe the answer is we don't know, but that's kind of an answer, like, oh, it's a little vague and ambiguous, and maybe I should just ask for whatever the hell I want, cause there's no rules

around here. I'm a firm believer of close mouths don't get fed, so I oh yeah, So I like advocating is something that I like to do for myself and other but others. But I just didn't know the right way to go about it. That's why I was like, let me ask you guys, cause you guys are kind of that explained. If I had your teeth, I'd be like smiling and talking, open my mouth all the time. Everybody listen to me, you have going to smile. But yeah, absolutely,

close mouths don't get fed. And again, it's all about like practicing, asking those questions, having those conversations, you know, And I think, you know, if you're aiming to be a leader yourself one day or manage a team, remember what this lack of clarity, how it made you feel, and like that will help you be a better and more effective manager down the line as well. So this is all great experience for the first three years, you know, just after graduating college. So I'm in kudos to you.

You're kind of killing it. Thank you, I'm trying well, Thank you ya scene, Thank you so much for submitting your question. Ooh, I didn't remind y'all, how can you be like you seen and be in the virtual studio with us at Brad Ambition. You can head to our IG page we are at Brian Ambisson Podcast and submit a voice note. So you got sixty seconds, so tell us your question, submit it and you may get a

fun email or DM. I don't know how it happened, someone contacted you from Team Brand Ambition and got you in the studio, So submit your questions, y'all. We would love to hear from you, and I just want to say thank you again for all the love and to ya scene my BRONC sister, thank you for joining me today and I hope that y'all have a great week.