I work a FT professional job. I like the work, I like the boss, and I work from home. I am paid reasonably, or so I thought. There are no benefits, but was happy to overlook that missing compensation because I WFH and like the flexibility (kids, etc) and that counted as an alternate benefit to me. But early this year I looked at some salary surveys and realized that I am pretty vastly underpaid. Like, if you gave me another $10k per year, then I’d be at the 25th percentile for my job and in my area. I talked to a recruiter for one of the companies that puts out a salary survey, and she said since I’m with a small company (about 125 people) I’d be doing okay if I were in the 50% range EXCEPT for the lack of benefits, which she said are worth roughly another $7500.
I am a creature of habit, and averse to change, but no longer afraid of it. I need to ask for a very significant raise but I’m unsure how to approach this. The company I work in is primarily related to sales so raises usually involve discussion of sales goals and what a person is doing to benefit the company. But I am not in a revenue-generating position, so the usual successful talking points don’t apply to me. Pretty much all I can point to is the salary surveys, the fact that WFH is no longer a hard-to-find benefit, and the fact that I am an extremely reliable and efficient employee. There’s nothing “special” about me except that I show up, put in my time, do my job well, meet my deadlines, respond timely to inquiries, go the extra mile when asked, etc. All the things people used to do as a rule but that aren’t so common these days. Still, I have 2 degrees and a good work ethic and should definitely not be making less than damn near everybody else with the same job.
I've been stewing on this for 6 months now. How do I broach the subject, where I’m looking for a compensation overhaul, not just a “raise”. FYI this will all be via email, so it's mostly a matter of finding the right wording to begin with.