I was raised to believe that employers would reward employees for hard work and would always compensate them fairly. While I know now that’s not the case, I have a very hard time feeling like I can ask for my worth at work, which is why I’m coming here for advice.
I am a college graduate who has been working for over 3 years at a company and have over three years experience in my career. The first two years, I didn’t get a single raise, and then, this past fall, after 3 years working there, I received an 8% raise. However, based on my research, I am making what someone with 1-2 years experience should be making in my city. Plus, we have been understaffed for a year, so my workload has been insane. So I am thinking I should be making $5-9k more than I am a year. I was told in the fall that they usually give 2-3% raises every fall, but I lost out on a lot of money not getting a raise for so long, so I feel I deserve a raise now for more than the 2-3%.
They also have been trying to get people to come into the office at least three times a week. I have been only going in 1-2 times a week because they don’t pay me enough to work in the office, I have too big a workload to give up more time and sleep to commute into the office where people interrupt my work to make small talk, and I prefer working at home. They haven’t done anything to motivate me to work in the office. However, I feel like if I ask for a raise, they’ll bring this up.
So, how do I approach HR to give me a raise? How to I set up a meeting for it and how do I professionally persuade them to give one to me? Do I ask for the highest amount I want, or something in the middle?