Three Easy Steps to get to Win/Win when Negotiating Salary with your ERP or CRM Employees:
Are you paying your employees too much or too little in salary?
For the past 20 years, my recruiting company (DyNexus Recruiting) has recruited and hired hundreds of IT professionals, mostly ERP and CRM consulting oriented positions. We’ve seen successful and unsuccessful salary negotiations, and we’ve learned a basic truth: Negotiating a successful salary, from either side of the table, is ultimately based on what is, and what is not, REAL. This, of course, is frustrated by the difficulty of employers and employees agreeing on, or at lease caring about, what the other sees as real. Nonetheless, reality is a good starting point. The following are 3 easy steps to get you to win/win with your new employee in terms of salary:
Step 1: Know the position.
Take the opportunity to really examine what this position is, and what skills/attributes are actually required. Many people, much of the time, tend to, with the interest of caution in mind, require more than is actually needed to perform the functions of the position. Not surprisingly, a like number of other people, much of the time, tend to, with employee development in mind, require less than is actually needed to perform the functions of the position. Too far in either direction is a mismatch. Go through a disciplined process to make sure the position, as it really will be performed, is well-matched to the person being hired to perform it, and no one is being paid too much or too little.
Step 2: Know the statistics.
You don’t want to gamble with something as important as salary. Don’t go into this blind. Everybody needs to see everybody else’s hand. It’s got to be a win-win. Know what salaries are for the position in your specific market, and be reasonable. There are two basic factors in salaries: (1) demand for skills/talent, and (2) cost of living. This is very specific with regard to occupation and location, and is in a constant state of flux. Know the statistics, and believe them. For an extensive look at wage data location-wide and occupation-wide, see this by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (https://www.bls.gov/bls/blswage.htm). For a look specifically at wage data in the ERP and CRM world, take a look at a survey we published on our website (Salary Survey),which we developed from personally recruiting and hiring ERP and CRM professionals.
Step 3: Make appropriate exceptions.
Here’s where the questions about reality come into play. Whichever side of the table you’re on, keep your eyes and mind open to recognizing diamonds in the rough, and be open to making investments in potential. At the same time, don’t take off in flights of fancy that most independent people would question. A good practice might be, when you’re considering such an exception, present your thoughts to the person you think might most disagree with you, and listen to him/her. If you come away from the conversation feeling comfortable, go for it. Making exceptions is always risky, but it’s also often where the greatest opportunities lurk. The more you do it the better you’ll get at it.