My manager wanted me to argue for a pay rise. Why should I?

My annual meeting about my pay and performance took place recently and my manager made it clear they thought I had not earned a pay increase. I disagreed strongly, but I understand that it’s a manager’s job to make these decisions. Instead of explaining this determination, my manager asked me if I agreed with it. I refused to say that I did. I also refused to “sell myself” or my performance.

The decision had clearly already been made. What would be the point of protesting or “advocating” for myself? And even if I could convince my manager, why is it my job to appraise my own work and present that appraisal as evidence in a review? Isn’t that part of every manager’s job?

I know where you’re coming from and sympathise with you. Introduced to the concept of performance reviews many years ago, I remember being completely perplexed when so much of the process seemed to encourage self-promotion. It seemed like a bizarre sales exercise where I was the “product”. I loathed it.

But my commiserations don’t really help you. So I asked Dr Connie Zheng, an associate professor in human resource management at the Adelaide University School of Management, for her expert opinion.

She told me that too often the formal review phase of a reward and recognition system is characterised by a blunt and over-simplistic equation: “You didn’t perform, so you don’t earn a pay rise.” But she said that genuinely good performance management is far more sophisticated than that, and should never solely rest on a manager’s opinion.

Dr Zheng explained that even if a pay increase is for some reason out of the question, organisations can reward people in non-financial ways, among them “promotion opportunities, professional development, flexible work arrangements, additional leave, public recognition, greater autonomy, or mentoring and coaching opportunities”.

Even if your manager had taken your whole contribution into account and found you wanting, the complete lack of explanation is a mistake.

“Simply telling someone they have not earned a pay increase without recognising what they have contributed is unlikely to motivate anyone,” she says. And motivation is a vital component of well-managed performance programmes.

“A pay rise tells people that their work is valued. Research has consistently shown that pay serves two purposes: it rewards past contributions, but it also motivates future performance. Managers who focus only on judging the past miss an important opportunity to inspire better performance in the future.

“That seems to be what happened here. The discussion centred on what the employee supposedly hadn’t achieved, rather than helping them understand what success would look like next year.”

Now, your manager might respond to such an argument by saying that performance is simply the be-all and end-all. But Zheng says a common misapprehension is that performance relates entirely to numbers.

“Measurable outcomes matter. Sales targets, completed projects, customer satisfaction scores, productivity improvements or other agreed KPIs are all legitimate indicators of performance. But they are only half the story,” she says.

“Increasingly, organisations also recognise how employees contribute. Do they mentor junior colleagues? Share knowledge? Build strong teams? Help others succeed? Take initiative? Demonstrate integrity?

“Often called organisational citizenship behaviours, [these] rarely appear on a spreadsheet. However, research consistently shows they make organisations stronger, more innovative and more productive over time.”

Your manager said you hadn’t earned a pay rise, but they never said exactly why. Zheng asks: were they were assessing only measurable outputs, or were they also recognising your broader contribution to the organisation?

Her view is that “the most valuable employees are not always the ones with the highest individual numbers. Often, they are the people who make everyone around them perform better.”

(I couldn’t agree more, but at the risk of making generalisations, my guess would be that people who are more likely to be collegial, generous and principled may be less likely to catalogue achievements, intending to cash them in during performance reviews.)

From our private correspondence, I get the sense that even if your boss has the numbers to justify their decision, they have failed to consider anything beyond that.

However, even if they had taken your whole contribution into account and found you wanting, the complete lack of explanation is a huge mistake. And the attempt to get you to endorse their evidence-free opinion seems like blatant responsibility shirking.

As for your aversion to selling yourself, Zheng suggests thinking about it not as self-promotion but as “self-advocacy … It isn’t boasting; it’s making sure the full picture of your performance is visible.”

Send your questions through to Work Therapy by emailing jonathan@theinkbureau.com.au

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