How to handle salary reviews

This is a post aimed at CGI managers who need – as part of their loooong list of duties – to meet with their subordinates on an annual basis and discuss their performance, their objectives and (gasp) their salary.

First of all, I strongly encourage you to use the term “salary revision” or “salary review” rather than “salary upgrade”, as the latter directly implies “more” and it’s a bad negotiation start when your position is a manager. Altering perceptions by changing language is one of the basic skills of any successful person.

Next, you need to read our latest financial news, take a yellow marker and outline any fact that could be used to dampen any eagerness from the employee to get a fat raise. For instance, if you work for CGI in Canada, this is what you should say to your subordinate: We're still operating at a negative growth level in Canada. Negative growth, catchy term eh? This is what I mean by using language in a clever way.

And then you say that revenues generated in Canada fell to $2.17 billion from $2.34 billion in fiscal 2008. Never mind that there are other good news in the pipeline, your job is NOT to cheer employees. At this point you set the stage and the employee is forced to listen to this deluge of bad news, which puts a bucket of icy water into his personal gain perspective. If you master the art of observation, you should notice that the employee face has changed a bit, like a cloud is now blocking the sun.

Then you move to a more global perspective: CGI spent $35 million in severance and costs related to “rationalizing excess real estate” as jobs were transferred to "low cost offshore operations" in India. That’s double talk for firing douche bags at all levels who didn’t sell or bill enough to pay for their own salary.

In addition, if we can get rid of a $50K SharePoint specialist in Ottawa and do the same job by a guy named Apu in Mumbai who charge 4 times less, everybody wins. But CGI had to spend $35 million to do this, so it’s less money for potential salary upgrades. You understand?

Once you got through all those negative news, you put a cheery upswing before you deliver the final blow, like : despite all the bad news that are going on these days, CGI wants to show you how much we appreciate all those long hours that you’re putting for the company, so here’s 2%, that’s the best we can do under the current gloomy conditions.

If you play the right cards before this moment, the employee should feel happy to get a 2% raise. He feels he’s not considered as “excess real estate” but a “strategic resource” for CGI, and it’s the side of the fence where he wants to be. Again, it’s a matter of managing expectations and altering perceptions.

So let me know if you have any questions regarding this, feel free to share your experience, what works and what doesn’t. Fake Mike Roach at GMail Dot Com.