5 Worst Times to Ask for a Raise

5 Worst Times to Ask for a Raise

When it comes to crucial conversations about your pay, timing is everything. After you have completed a detailed research about your market value, succinctly pinpoint your biggest recent achievements and go above and beyond, it’s time to ask for a raise, right?

Wait a minute!!!                                                                                       

Make sure you don’t ask for a raise during these five worst times:

1. Let it not be a MONDAY at least J

It is good if you are reading this article on Monday. But please don’t you ever think of asking a raise on any Monday – being the first day of the week. Let your boss settle through the week. Work hard till the mid week & then nail it at the right time.  

2. Just after you’ve been OUT

If you’ve been out of the office for a while—it’s better to wait until you’re back in the game before you ask for a raise.

Even if you are legitimately out sick or on vacation, it is not wise to return and immediately ask for a raise. Instead, get back to work, keep your head down and once you are re-engaged, then it may be time to consider such a request.

3. During Company’s Financial Rough Patch

Learn the fiscal rhythms of your company. No one is getting a raise just after the company announces less than expected quarterly earnings. This can rather backfire.

4. When Your Boss is in a Bad Mood or Hungry

It sounds like a scanty reason, but catching your boss during a bad mood could alter how this very important conversation will go. Read your boss—is she more of a morning person or a little more chipper in the afternoons?

We suggest (jokingly) to employees that the best time to ask for a raise would be right after lunch. Also, as a ‘morning person,’ early afternoon is one’s time of least resistance. First thing in the morning when Boss has rushed to the traffic & rain and just before lunch, when his stomach has priority, are the worst times.

So, why risk it?

In terms of what time of day to bring it up, after lunch and in the early to mid-part of the afternoon is a great time to talk to your boss regarding the hike. Everyone's blood sugar levels are up, making potentially tough conversations easier.

5. When you haven’t been killing it at Work – Just Need the Money

Raises are generally tied to your performance. So, if you just haven’t been killing it at work, focus on that before you start pining for more pay.

Don’t just ask for a raise when you’ve suddenly had some big financial issue. If you need more money, that’s never a good reason to ask for a raise.

5 Steps to start a Productive Day

5 Steps to start a Productive Day

Before you dive into your daily office gossip, your regular coffee break at around 9:30, and before you click on your favorite FB account there are a couple of things to do first. It’s a common misconception you need to follow routine to be successful. For most people a routine will dull their work and will push them towards a burnout much quicker. Instead, I prefer getting through the stress points first, and easing into the rest of my workload later.

There are a few things you need to keep in mind when starting off your day, and they don’t start at work. Some of them start in your home, on your commute, or as you’re walking into work. Everyone is different so you can tailor this list to best fit your needs and quirks.

1. Eat breakfast. Here goes…this is the most important meal of the day! How many times have you heard this? A healthy breakfast can lead to more focused thinking; just what you need to stay focused while you work. We can’t always ignore the distraction of the “ping!” from our social notifications, but a healthy meal or snack in the mornings can keep us from bottoming out before lunchtime.
2. Say out loud one activity you’re looking forward to at work that day. To me this is the most important. On some days I’m excited about the iced coffee I’ll be grabbing on my way in, and the phone call I have with a prospective writer in the afternoon. It gives me momentum to get my day started, and I have something to look forward to.
3. Greet the first person you see with a hearty “hello” upon entering your office. We are entirely too anti-social in the mornings; well a majority of us are. It’s not a joke to say that most people need their coffee to function and be decent. Sip your coffee before you get to work, and you can even check some of your social channels if you’re in need of a pick me up. Being exclusive about who you say hi to is alienating and that bad mood can spread like a wildfire. Pay it forward with a simple friendly greeting each day.
4. Before you open your email complete that one trivial leftover task from the night before. If you’re constantly connected through a company work phone then turn it off when you first sit down at your desk. We all have crazy mornings and being off of email for 10 minutes won’t hurt anyone, but it will help you to stay focused on eating that frog first thing in the morning.
5. Move onto that activity you’re enthusiastic about for the day. We’ve all heard about the sandwich approach in management, and I think its relevance carries into task and project management. For every tedious or frustrating activity you perform you should alternate with an enjoyable one. Some people enjoy copy writing as a form of stress relief, and others enjoy responding to clients. This might even be a good opportunity to pitch that idea you’ve been working on for a month, just make sure you’re prepared.

You don’t need a secret formula to be a success all day long. Some of us deflate after a bad meeting, and others just perpetuate a bad mood by piling the work on just to get it done. If you’re serious about making a real effort then give some thought to this list.

How are you using your time makes all the difference!!! Take these 5 simple steps to increase productivity by guarding your own time which can be followed in 5 minutes or less.

How are you using your time makes all the difference!!! Take these 5 simple steps to increase productivity by guarding your own time which can be followed in 5 minutes or less.

We all have exactly the same number of hours each day with us ---- 24. If we don’t guard those hours, we’ll waste them. That can happen in a number of ways. Often, because we are so connected, we allow others to dictate our day. We find ourselves responding to others instead of setting our own priorities. An e-mail comes in and we respond almost instantly—it’s what people expect. The phone rings, and we pick it up. Someone else is again dictating our day.

I think we all need to guard against wasting the precious time we’ve been given each day or allowing others to determine how we spend it. Because it’s what we do with the time we have each day that makes the difference. And that’s the question, isn’t it? Do we make a difference with the hours we are given?

1. Write a “thank you” note. It’s not hard, and it doesn’t take long to jot down a few sentences that convey your appreciation for another person. But the gesture is significant. Here, in a world where most communication requires an electronic device is a simple five-sentence letter that speaks volumes about the person who took the time to send it.
2. Walk down and speak with a colleague you typically don’t see during the day. In just five minutes you can learn something about the person and what’s happening in her life. It doesn’t have to be a long conversation, but a few minutes of attention focused on someone who might just need it can go a long way toward establishing a relationship. You might be amazed to learn what you have in common with people you seldom see or talk to around the office.
3. Set a goal. It doesn’t take long to come up with something meaningful that you want to achieve. In less than five minutes you can write down that goal and tack it on your bulletin board or slip it in a drawer you open every day. That written goal can serve as a daily reminder of something you want to accomplish. Maybe your goal is to write one “thank you” note a week for a year or to spend five minutes with every person in your office during the next 12 months. Whatever it is, jot it down.
4. Find the answer to one question. We all wonder about things every day. Why is something done a certain way? What’s the definition of a word we’ve seen or heard? Who was the first person to do something? It doesn’t take long to learn something new. Type a few words into Google and spend five minutes discovering the answer to something you’re curious about. Knowledge is power, and in today’s world, it doesn’t take long to discover the answers to our questions.
5. Quiet time. Take five minutes to shut everything out. As I said, we live in a world where we’re constantly connected. Our phones provide us with the ability not only to speak to others but also to text, e-mail, and browse the Internet. And that’s just scratching the surface of what these handy devices can do. But I encourage you to spend five minutes each day in peace and quiet. Put it on your calendar. Five minutes each day with the phone off, the computer off, everything turned off. Who knows what you can dream up in those few minutes when nothing or no one else is in control.

I’m sure you can come up with your own list of things you can accomplish in just five minutes. In fact, take five minutes right now and come up with your own list of things you can do in just five minutes a day. Then make it a daily habit to spend some of your precious time doing them. Five minutes represents less than one percent of your day. What are you doing with your time that will really make a difference?

Once we begin to guard our time and make sure we use it productively, it’s astonishing what we can accomplish.