Embrace the ease: Ideal times to negotiate pay

If you suspect you could be worth more than your current salary or day rate, you could actually be right. Compared to men, women the world over generally earn less in equivalent roles (also known as the “gender pay gap”), don’t negotiate pay and benefits successfully (if at all), and work in female-dominated industries and professions with lower average pay. It’s not until women like us decide that we are worth more and go get that higher income that we can start to pave the way for other women and shift the global paradigm of being underpaid and overlooked.

Even though I often advocate for changing roles and changing companies to get a pay rise (see my previous blog post “3 sound strategies for getting a bigger pay rise in 2025”), there are definitely opportunities to negotiate internally. 

But it’s SO HARD to negotiate a pay rise, right?

Rather than just going for it at any particular time, there are some choice moments when you can negotiate pay. 

They’ve come to you with a role

If you’ve been tapped on the shoulder for a role, it’s a great time to negotiate a pay increase. If they had hired externally, they would've had to pay maybe 1.5x what you're currently on, along with recruiter or job advertisement fees and onboarding costs. That's one of the reasons that I talk about what those rates are in my Intro to Change Management webinar. Know your worth and what they would be paying externally in the market and use this ideal time to negotiate a pay rise either for right now or three months or six months’ time. If they say no on the pay rise, at least try to negotiate training, benefits or a title promotion. For example, if they're offering a Change Analyst position, you could say, “Well, given my transferable skills, I'd actually be coming in as a Change Manager.” It's a great sign if somebody's coming to you and offering you the role to just ask the question. It shows that you are a high performer, that they trust in you, that they believe in you, that they value you, and that they want to keep you around. So it's a great opportunity to say, “I’m so honoured. I’m so grateful. I would love to take on this opportunity. And is there the possibility of X, Y, Z?” Just open the question and ask, because sometimes they haven't even thought about it.

After you’ve delivered a great result

I always negotiate after I’ve delivered a really great result. And that's actually how I got my Change Management certification paid for me, because I delivered very well on a project, got incredible feedback from across the business, so simply asked the question: “Will you pay for my Change certification?” And thank goodness they paid for it for me because if I’d invested my own money I would have been really disappointed - it wasn’t practical or valuable like my own course Leading Successful Change is! Regardless, I got the training paid for me simply because I was strategic about when I asked, and the same goes for pay rises.

At contract extensions or renewals

If you’re on a fixed-term or day rate contract and you know your employer wants to extend or renew, you might as well ask the question! This is how I’ve secured pay rises on my day rate contracts in the past, and often if it’s between them losing you as key talent or providing a bit of a bump up in pay, they’ll choose the latter. It's just an ask. They can decide yes or no and you can decide if you want to extend/renew or not based on their response. 

We owe it to ourselves and our gender to claim our right to be remunerated and compensated appropriately and fairly. Rather than rail against the resistance, embrace the ease.

I’ve just kicked off my free Underpaid and Overlooked Workshop and our Live “Earn Your Worth” is tomorrow Wednesday 12 February. You can ask questions and get scripts to negotiate a pay rise, promotion or career change. 

Register here for my free workshop and join me live tomorrow

Lata xx