Alternative Benefits to a Pay Increase

Are you expecting a salary increase in your next review? It may not always be possible so you better consider these non-cash benefits as alternatives to your pay increase to suggest to your employer.

Negotiating a pay increase can be a long shot especially with the current economic reality in which your financial expectation cannot be met. After the lockdowns due to COVID, many businesses are rebuilding. However, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be fairly compensated. 

Here are some non-cash alternative benefits to ask for if the boss rejects your request for a pay rise. They won’t break your employer’s bank, but can still fill the gap until your boss comes to the table with your pay increase.

Salary packaging

Salary packaging is an agreement between employer and employee where the employee agrees to forgo part of his future entitlement to salary. In return, the employer provides the employee with non-cash benefits of the same value. One of the  advantages of salary packaging is it reduces your taxable income and the amount of tax you pay.

Some of the common packaging arrangements include salary sacrificing into super to boost your retirement savings, car lease funding, or purchasing a laptop or mobile phone.

Talk to your boss to see whether they offer salary packaging as a benefit and what items they have for their employees to package.

Performance-based benefits

While an improvement on your performance-based benefits does have financial considerations to your employer, they aren’t instantaneous. The fact that they are usually tied to a successful outcome for the business, this could make your employer more likely to agree.

If you will suggest performance-based benefits to your boss, make sure to plan it before the meeting. Envision what success is when it comes in your role and always tie it back to how the business will benefit.

Intangible benefits

Although there’s a rare chance that more money will go to you, intangible benefits such as a work situation improvement can be a priceless gain when it comes to your overall wellbeing and happiness. Working from home on a certain day a week or flexible working hours could also do wonders for your family life and lifestyle.

Make sure that you don’t abuse them if you are offered intangible benefits at work. If your employer thinks that you’re taking advantage of these new privileges, it could lessen your chances of receiving an actual salary increase.

Personal development

Why not ask your boss to invest in your development rather than just to pay you more? They might be more than willing to agree to this. If they think a personal development will add to their employee’s skills and help with their business and profits, it can be a sure shot.

Ask whether they run in-house workshops or they can organise training with education providers outside the business that you could benefit from. Your boss can also gain from this as staff training comes with tax advantages.

Finally, if you still have nothing to show for all of your efforts, perhaps it’s time to look for a new job. This way you can negotiate a pay increase during the hiring process.

If you liked our “Alternative Benefits to a Pay Increase” and find it useful, check our blogs regularly for more info on how to get out of debt and updates on the best budgeting apps in Australia.