How to Calculate a Salary Raise Percentage for Your Employees

how to calculate percentage increase

Rewarding deserving employees is not only a sign of appreciation but also an intelligent method of increasing employee retention. If you want to provide your employee with a salary increase, it will be essential to decide how much percentage increase would be ideal for it.

Steps on calculations to arrive at the right salary raise percentage.

1. ASSEMBLE PAST INFO ON EMPLOYEE PERFORMANCE AND CURRENT COMPENSATION

When deciding the raise amount, do not give a percentage before gathering the current salary, performance, and past salary history with your organization. Key details to have on hand include:

- Amount of base salary that one can currently get
- These prior salaries and the previous percentage increase in remunerations of prior years
- Ministerial inputs affiliated with their performance reviews
- Analogue gross basic salary data for the respective positions from salary databases
- It helps to create and manage company budgets and to determine the amount of funds to be raised for company needs.

This is to get a fuller background to enable make the right decision on a possible raise.

2. Knowledge of the Research Industry And Local Salaries

An employee’s salary increase should bring the individual to the normal range or put the person squarely in the middle of the range for that position in your area of operation with similar experience and qualifications as the new employee. Get detailed information on the average pay scales and the range for the particular position using tools such as PayScale, Glassdoor, Salary.com, and governmental data sources. Taking the midpoint and the higher limit within each of these salary bands, managers should choose the new, greater rate based on the employee’s skills and experience level.

3. Budgeting for pay increases is another critical step since it helps in determining the total amount to be spent on the raise.

It is understandable that as a business, there is usually a predetermined and finite annual budget that can be spent on those raises. Divide this number by the number of employees to recommend an average raise pool per employee used in the company. Appreciating the fact that there is a maximum limit that the company can afford to raise will help to determine how much the pay of each employee can be raised.

4. Performance as one of the aspects of reward can be adopted.

This means that if an employee has performed well in his or her duties and brought tangible results, then this must be your major consideration when awarding a raise. Discuss prior appraisals and measure others’ extra performance that extends beyond mere compliance with formal standards. It is advisable for the personnel who produce the most to get the biggest percentage increase in their wages annually. Some examples:

- High performer, employee achieved all the major KPIs – 5% raise
- Employee achieved some objectives yet failed to meet other objectives – 3% increment
- Never promoted or met the basic goals – a small increase of 1-2%

Promoting staff raises with performance ensures they continue working towards the next level.

5. It is also compared to previous amounts raised as well as to the target amount of the raise with the help of indications and trends.

Recall how much the employee has been paid in the previous years and ponder whether he or she has been paid enough for the pertinent skills, experience and accomplishments. If in the previous years, they have received only a few percentage point increases of 1-2% annually then you should consider giving a larger this year. If they have been getting above 5% pay increases for several years, you may need to reduce while at the same time ensuring you offer a competitive raise. While making decisions about the past years only past performances should be taken into account but for the current year past trends should also be taken into consideration but their weightage should not be as important as the current year’s achievements.

6. Incidental Consideration: Cost of Living and Inflation

Although merit and performance tend to dictate when an employee receives a raise, factors such as cost of living adjustments and inflation also influence the salaries. Reflect on inflation rates for the last year and how the cost of living increases are anticipated to be estimated in your region. At least providing a cost of living wage increase has to be given to employees to make sure they do not experience a real wage cut. Often, a COLA of 2-3% is added to the 1-3 % merit increase or more in some cases depending on the performance of the employee.

7. Consider Internal Pay Equity

Employees can work for hours and produce different results, so be careful with large gaps in wage differences between workers with the same job descriptions. Suppose the action of raising one person’s pay to a level even higher than that of another comparable worker; this may cause certain unrest or tension in the organization. When disbursement decisions involve offering increments, review the salaries at the company’s level to ensure internal equity.

8. Link Bonuses or Promotions to the Organization’s Sales or Net Profit

If you are in a position to know that your business has done well this past year in terms of profits or having increased revenues, then there should be some of that extra cash that is put aside for payroll. Ensure that at least a portion of positive business performance is translated into improved remuneration of employees. When people are intrinsically motivated at work, they tend to give their best in whatever they do for the organization.

9. Inform the Employees in a Clear and Comprehensible Manner of the New Salaries

After you have implemented your decisions regarding salary raises for employees, you need to inform the concerned parties about the new pay and when they will take effect. Meet with staff 1:1 to justify the rationale and relate this reasoning to the achievements. Employees should be aware of the performance targets, the amount of money allocated, and the procedures that were followed to determine the raises. This openness makes employees aware of the reasoning behind the approach and feel that they are involved in the process.

10. Conduct Salary Benchmarking

It is also important after having administered raises, to conduct assessments on the existing local salary structures to determine your new adjusted salaries. When comparing salary against similar positions, assists you in being aware of the trends and the necessary changes that may need to be made to meet competitors’ levels. Annual analysis of salaries and strategic planning for the future cost of living or merit increases keep your people in place.

Key Takeaways

This is a tough task to determine how much percentage of salary increase for the employee since it is a function of factors including individual performance, company’s budgets, salary range of the industry, past trends, overall economic environment and internal equity. From these best practice steps, you’ll be able to make fair, transparent, and motivating decisions. Granting salaries based on contributions and consistent promotions ensures that staff is encouraged to work harder and stay longer with each other.

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