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Here are today’s HR and workplace news headlines from Workology Go Podcast. I’m Jessica Miller-Merrell. The Workology Go Podcast is sponsored by HSA Bank.

Ep 16 – Wages Expected to Grow in the Next 12 Month in U.S.

With the US economy operating a pretty much zero unemployment levels, wages and salaries haven’t necessarily kept pace with the demand for talent until now.

An article recently published by the Wall Street Journal found that a majority of economists believe we will experience a substantial wage increase in the next year.

The majority of these private-sector forecasters surveyed which was 64% expect wages will grow at a somewhat faster rate over the next year, while a further 5.5% of economists said wages will grow at a substantially faster rate.

The ACS Census found the average household income in the U.S. across the board was just over $60,000 in 2017. In California, that median household income is nearly $72,000 compared to Texas where I live which is just over $59,000 and change. Not to leave out the West Coast the median income in the state of New York is $65,000.

The article that inspired this podcast episode is titled, “Nearly 70% of Economists Expect Faster Wage Growth Over Next Year, WSJ Survey Says.” We will link to the article along with the median household income data I mentioned.

A couple of things that this article has me thinking about. No 1 is that it’s probably time for HR leaders to think about a compensation study and survey to determine what the market is dictating and what your biggest competition is paying. We should also be looking at other benefits like 401(k) matches, vacation, flexible scheduling, and paternity leave.

Secondly, this is a time for us to think about ourselves in HR. Our roles are probably the most demanding they have been not to mention all the additional responsibilities we have with new technology implementations and staying up to date on the latest economics changes, employment law and working to develop and retain our people.

I recently talked to a career coach, Katherine Jewell and she shared about when is the right time for us in HR to approach our boss for an increase in our own salaries without having to find a new job. Here’s what she had to say.

Well number one you want to keep your eye out for higher level jobs within your company. Because sometimes a way to get a substantial raise is to move sideways in the company. And I’ve seen a lot of H.R. professionals move into other departments such as operations training if they have a separate training department. And so you want to post for higher level jobs. But another great idea and I’ve had a number of clients do this they actually propose a new position that does not currently exist but really is necessary. So for example one of my H.R. clients who was in training under the H.R. banner decided that the company needed a learning management director and this is a person who would basically catalog all the job knowledge for the entire company and be a resource to the training department and the H.R. department. And he actually proposed that job and got that higher level job. And it was a raise for him from about this high 70s to the low one hundreds.

I like it. I think this is interesting because not once did you say ask for more money in your current role. Do you think that’s an option. Or do you think that’s a career killer.

You absolutely wanted do that. But timing is everything. And the performance review is the obvious time to go in and you want to come in armed with information you want to be armed with information about what are other people being paid at your level and so you want to do your research on salary dot com and make sure that you are being paid equitably for what your you know for what your title currently is. The other thing is you want to bring in your achievement list and show how you are actually operating outside your position. Most people who have been in a job for let’s say more than four or five years are actually operating one level above their title. And if you can convince management that you are actually operating at a different level you can really substantiate maybe a twenty thousand dollar increase in pay.

Katherine goes on to share that many of her clients have been able to increase their salaries by 20 even 30k per year and are able to stay with their current employer instead of starting a new at a new place which I think it’s really hard to leave a place that we enjoy, but we don’t feel like we are being stretched enough or could use a bigger pay bump than we’ve had previously.

I think we’ve been lucky the last few years in that we haven’t seen compensation take a huge jump, however, I think retention is becoming more important and those standard 3% increase at annual review time are no longer enough. In order to keep our people, we will need to think about an aggressive compensation increase for employees.

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Featured Story

Nearly 70% of Economists Expect Faster Wage Growth Over Next Year, WSJ Survey Says

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