A friend was having some trouble formulating an email where they wanted to bring up the rate of inflation during an upcoming conversation with management. I drafted something up for them and they said it was really good; just in case they were right and it's any good, I thought I could share it with the community so they can use / edit it for their own needs.
[Salutation],
Thank you for your time and feedback during our annual performance review. Because changes to annual compensation are traditionally discussed at a time after the review, I wanted to proactively bring to the management team's attention some differences in the market for [your position / title] that might inadvertently be overlooked.
As you are likely aware of due to your own compensation discussions with your management team, any year-over-year compensation change that does not match inflation is an effective pay cut. As annual inflation for 2021 has been determined to be 7.5%, an adjustment of compensation for any team member of at least 7.5% (myself included) must be met in order to guarantee working performance that meets 2021 levels. This is a base amount that comes before any performance-based adjustments as a result of the information in the performance review, which would be discussed as incentive for additional performance.
As such, an increase of 7.5% will need to be the base or starting point of any salary-related discussions in order to guarantee that my services are able to be retained for an additional year. During upcoming discussions, we can also discuss the market rate for my skill set / position.
[Thank you,]