Tim Campbell: The one thing you should never do if you want a pay rise

Someone once sat across the desk from me and asked for a pay rise. They had clearly prepared: they talked me through their rent going up, the cost of getting to work and the childcare costs that were increasing. It was well put together; I felt every word and every word of it was true. It also completely missed the point. Not because I didn’t care – I did. But everything on that list was a reason they needed more money; not one item was a reason the business should pay it. Some time later, someone else came with the same request but a very different approach. They showed me the value they had already created, set out what they could produce next, and had done their homework on what people in similar roles were being paid elsewhere. The difference? A yes. Shorts Here is the perspective I wish someone had given me in my twenties. Asking for a pay rise is not asking for a favour. It’s a trade; a sale. Your employer is the buyer and your work is the product – and the buyer is weighing up one thing: is what I get worth more than what I pay? When Lord Sugar hired me at the end of the first UK series of The Apprentice two decades ago, it was at the end of a job interview that lasted weeks and was judged on results. Nobody in that boardroom won by explaining their outgoings or on a plea bargain. Don’t get me wrong. I understand more than most that those bills and rising costs are real. But they are your budget, not your boss’s. Lead with them and you hand the decision to sympathy, which only goes so far when budgets are tight. Lead with your value instead, and you give your boss a business case they can take to the people holding the purse strings. But most people never make it as far as the pitch. More than half of British adults who have been employed say they have never asked for a pay rise, according to one YouGov survey. Yet, of those who had asked, around two in three had succeeded at least once. Younger workers were more shy. Among 18 to 29-year-olds, about 60 per cent had never asked for a pay rise. And the gap follows class too: people in working-class occupations were less likely to ask than those in professional and managerial roles, the survey found, and less likely to succeed when they did. The same pattern shows up by gender and ethnicity. Six in ten women had never asked versus less than half of men. And in a survey of 7,500 professionals by the recruiter Robert Walters, 37 per cent black professionals were far more likely than 23 per cent of white colleagues to have not negotiated at all because they expected a no. That all matters to me, especially when I think about my own children. Nobody I grew up around talked about negotiating pay. I learned that you took what you got, were grateful for it, and made ends meet, as my Mum would say. Plenty of young people still start work with that understanding, while those who were taught that pay is a conversation have a head start. And the stakes are rising. Official figures show that regular pay is growing by less than 1 per cent a year once inflation is taken into account. In a market like that, the annual rise you are handed will rarely move you forward on its own. But the one you make the case for might. My advice? Copy the person who got the yes. First, show what you have already produced. Not your job description; your results. Money made or saved, problems fixed, customers retained, new starters trained. Use numbers wherever you can, because a manager can forward a number to their own boss – they can’t forward a feeling. Next, show what you will produce next. A pay rise is paid in the future, so the buyer (your boss) wants to know what’s coming. Bring one concrete thing that you will take on or increase if your pay grows with your role. Third, do your market research. Look at advertised salaries for similar roles in your area, ask a recruiter, and talk to people a step ahead of you. The job profiles on the government’s National Careers Service website list typical salaries too. When you bring this information to the table, remember: you are not making a threat – you are showing you know your market value. Lastly, there are two habits that separate the professionals from the hopefuls. Ask before the budget is set, not after – which means finding out when your organisation plans its pay reviews. And if the answer is no, don’t leave the room without asking this: “What would I need to show you, and by when, for this to become a yes?” Get that answer in writing, then go and do it. Your bills explain why you want the money. Your results explain why anyone should pay it.