Employee Survival Guide® - S6 Ep136: Art of Negotiation: How to Get What You're Worth

Episode Date: September 15, 2025

Comment on the Show by Sending Mark a Text Message.The art of negotiation is a critical skill that can significantly impact your career trajectory and compensation, requiring research, preparation, and understanding the psychology of the negotiation process. Mark shares insights on how to approach negotiation as a strategic process rather than a confrontational event, emphasizing the importance of knowing your value and understanding your employer's perspective.• Negotiation is a process over time, not an all-at-once effort• Effective negotiation requires removing anxiety and taking a methodical approach• Understanding the psychology of your opponent is crucial to successful outcomes• For new job offers, research total compensation including "hidden" elements• Document accomplishments throughout the year to build your case for a raise• Base negotiations on business logic rather than personal needs• Being in the engaged 30% of employees strengthens your negotiating position• Non-monetary benefits like work-life balance can be valuable negotiation wins• Develop your own authentic negotiation style that aligns with your personality• Practice and experience will improve your negotiation skills over timeThe Employee Survival Guide is expanding to include more proactive career development content beyond just legal information, helping you become more successful in all aspects of your work life. If you enjoyed this episode of the Employee Survival Guide please like us on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. We would really appreciate if you could leave a review of this podcast on your favorite podcast player such as Apple Podcasts. Leaving a review will inform other listeners you found the content on this podcast is important in the area of employment law in the United States. For more information, please contact our employment attorneys at Carey & Associates, P.C. at 203-255-4150, www.capclaw.com.Disclaimer: For educational use only, not intended to be legal advice.

Hey, it's Mark here, and welcome to the next edition of the Employee Survival Guide, where I tell you, as always, what your employer does definitely not want you to know about, and a lot more. Hey, it's Mark, and welcome back to the Employee Survival Guide, where I would say all things your employer does not want you know about a lot more. Today's topic is the art of negotiation, how to get what you're worth, very worthwhile topic, no pun intended. But before I start, the topic is really an example of my moving in a direction to expand upon the content you're getting in this podcast. We currently talk about topics of whatever is happening at work, performance reviews, or whatever, you know, the list. is endless, and usually it's generally reactive to what's happening and try to give you skill sets that we also have podcasts about actual case examples where you get to listen to a storyline narrative

about what the case is about or what happened, and now I'm going to start to add content to the website, to the podcast episodes, like, for example, today we're going to do the art of negotiating and other topics will be more like proactive in terms of your careers and because I've seen a lot of things about employees and executives throughout my time doing this whereby they've you know let me allow me into their works lives and I've gotten to see a variety of styles of working you know again it's you know from the vantage point of the attorney-client relationship with the employer executive, but nonetheless, you pick up a lot of detail about the relationships with their managers, with their peers, and so I wanted to give you a lot more in terms

of the content to allow you to develop more skills than just beyond the legal reactive aspect of, you know, what's a sexually hostile work environment. So we're expanding the scope of what the employee's survival guide is about. So with that said, negotiating. I negotiate all the time. I negotiate whether I'm in court or out of court. I negotiate with judges. I negotiate nonstop as an attorney as a litigator.

And you learn a lot about the ways that your opponents negotiate as well. And you learn what's effective, what's not effective. And this podcast episode is about negotiating. And I wanted to just start off with, you know, the basic premises about negotiating so you understand from my vantage point, I think they apply for just work issues, but, you know, realize circumstances. But negotiating is about a process over a period of time, not on all at once effort. Don't expect things to happen just because you ask. Don't lay down demands and threats, et cetera. But in a podcast episode, we're going to talk about specifically the new job offer or negotiating a raise and negotiating other terms of your job.

But I want to make sure you understand the basic premise behind negotiating. You may feel you're a good negotiator or not. But I've tested myself in every single negotiation, typically to mediation or settlement discussion. It's high stakes, a lot of money, a lot of emotion involved. I'm dealing with, you know, clients who are aggravated by their employers, what they've done to them. So that's in that context. Typically, it can be in-court negotiations with a magistrate judge or it can be privately between lawyers or using a mediator to do so with the parties. And so I've done a lot of mediation, a lot of successful mediation.

And what I've discovered is that the process of negotiation, you should allow yourself time. So take out the anxiety of negotiating. That's the first, I guess, hurdle most people have, is I don't know how to negotiate. I couldn't negotiate behalf of myself, et cetera. So avoid that anxiety aspect, but look at more of it as it's a process. And you want to get into the research of what the issues are and what motivates the other side. A starting point is a famous book years and years ago. It's called, you know, getting to yes.

It's a famous book now dated in years, but it touts the ideology of, you know, two sides can win during a negotiation. Well, I get some contradictory type of messaging in my line of work because, for example, judges will tell my clients, you're not going to like the result of the mediation settlement, but you'll, you'll, you'll learn to live with it. I don't necessarily agree with that. I think you can create a circumstance of negotiation solution and still, you know, just label that as a success, a win, even though, you know, you're resolving a case in the legal context and you're getting paid a settlement fee, money, the, and you're not going to a verdict in front of a court or a jury, it is still a win because you're preventing the outlay of money and time and duration to an emotion for a protracted circumstance, a legal battle. So defining success is really important in the process of negotiating.

So a longer time frame, you know, days, weeks, potentially, you know, scaffold out your approach to negotiating. think about, you know, the intro, the middle part, the conclusion part. Look at your opponent. Who are you negotiating with? What's their style? Are they just simply, a lot of people like to say no because it's easy to say no as a response to negotiating. I don't generally listen to no because people tell me no all the time, but that's not how cases are resolved. And look for the process of scaffolding, you know, your offers and counteroffers.

as you move through the process, as you learn more information about the other side. So in the context of, you know, work negotiating, you want to learn about, you know, what's good for the employer. And I'll get into that in a second. But just look at the process. It's going to take time. Don't expect dramatic, you know, responses, yes, we'll give you what you want. That never happens. And then understand your opponent and understand the style being used.

To understand the psychology. I mean, this whole podcast is really about psychology because that's what negotiating is. I'm teaching you to change your psychology to one where you're more open-minded and mindful of your approach, not necessarily in removing your anxiety about it, and putting the time and energy into your negotiation to understand, you know, what is the goal? How am I going to get there? what am I willing to give up? What's reasonable? And so go through the mechanics of goal assessment and setting out and, you know, just take it more slowly. And then it's the same process I use with legal cases.

And by example, I'll give you this, that I'll be in mediation and I'll prep a client for what the process of mediation is like with a mediator and, you know, what the process of negotiation is like. And I'll tell the client, says, it may not resolve today. And, of course, clients are like, it's got to resolve today. By God, it's got to resolve. And because they're panicked and freaked out. They're spending money they don't have, typically. So it's a high-stress environment. But I tell them that because oftentimes negotiating the first day of negotiation,

it's not your last day. It's just your first day. And so plan on multiple days of negotiating. And it happens. And I say this. It's happened in quite a few high-profile cases. These are cases that never hit the Newsday desk. They never hit public knowledge.

They're just high-profile cases, but they resolved. But they took several days of working with a judge to help the parties resolve matter. And because it was, you know, maybe it's sensitive. People were adjusting the positions. Maybe they were just initially fishing to figure out, you know, know, let's just give them a no answer and how they react to it. And so a lot of things play into how people negotiate from the employee standpoint. So multiple days is very, very common in complex situations.

And you may have complex situations at work. So let's get into the work negotiating. I promised you the new job offer, the negotiating you raised and negotiating other terms of your employment. Again, all part of giving you more content and skill sets. to understand real life circumstances beyond just the, you know, here's the podcast about so-and-so case, or here's a topic of a legal nature, getting into the nuances of, you know, your work life because it does matter to you and you spend a lot of time there. So, in short, when you think about negotiating, you think, you know, you basically have some,

your palms start sweating and, you know, you get really. tense. Whether you're a new hire, a season pro looking for a raise, or are about to walk into a new job, the ability to negotiate is one of your most powerful tools. And it's a tool most employers hope you don't know how to use. You know me. I'm like, I'm going to give you everything your employer does not want you know about a lot more. You can't really learn about negotiating at work. Well, because they don't teach it there. I mean, duh. So you're going to learn it here. And I'm going to going to spend a lot of time, not just one episode, but several episodes over a period of time, at different aspects of negotiating. So, you know, you pick up skill sets. And you should know these things because it's how you, you know, rise up the ladder of income, rise up the letter in the office space. It's through negotiating. I mean, I can honestly say that I built my career negotiating. All right. I do my job, of course. I get my skill set of my job, but I negotiate. various forms. So let's be clear. Negotiation is not a fight. It's not about being aggressive

or making demands. That's a rookie mistake. Negotiation at its core is an information gathering process. It's about finding out what the other side wants, what their limitations are, and how you can position yourself to get what you want all while leaving them feeling like they got a good deal. That's the getting to yes format. It's hard, but if you look and work at it, you can get your opponent or your employer, your boss, to the yes point, to say yes to whatever your, your demand is. So, again, three scenarios you're going to look at, job offer, negotiating a raise, negotiating other terms of your job. So you've just gotten the call and they say, we'd like to offer you the position, and congratulations. Now this is, and this is not the time to say yes right away, of course.

You want to pause. You want to say, and I tell clients to do this. I'll take it under advisement. I'll get back to you because you want to think about it. Maybe you're an executive and you're having a term sheet announcement, discussion with your employer over the phone, and you want to go talk to me, your employment attorney, to talk about, you know, what the contract is going to be because it's, you know, several million dollars and there's a lot at stake, and so you need to kind of go through it very slowly.

You say basically, thank you very much. Take it under advisement. I'm excited about the opportunity. You want me to get back to them. Let's take a quick break. It's Mark Kim. We have a new product for you. It's called the Employee Survival Guide or Employees Survival.com.

And it's a site that you can obtain PDF products that I've created myself. It's spending too many hours, way too many, researching and writing about it. for example, the performance improvement plan or beating them. And the second one about negotiating severance negotiation agreements to the most important topics that we see in terms of the web traffic and podcast traffic we have. So check out Employeeservival.com and see if this can try to help you and you don't need an attorney to use it. Thank you.

So you need this time to gather information about your. opponent. Here it's a new job and learn as much as you can about the employer. You've already done that at the point where you interviewed, et cetera. And now you understand the full picture, not just the base salary, but you're looking at base salary, total compensation, benefits, the hidden stuff. So base salary is the market rate for the position, you know, realistic, you know, what they're offering. What about the location is the base pay in Texas, the same as a base pay in like New York City. And you should have already researched this information.

And here's the problem with, you know, there are two forms of information. There's, well, maybe three. I'll start with the third. The third one being the, you know, anecdotal, like, you know, your colleagues and friends talking about what salary is. Second is salary.com, it's a website out there. I think they're still out there. And then there's professional databases you can pay to acquire information.

This is typically for the management executive level. I think the company is called equilar.com. And in there, they basically give you kind of an apples and apples approach to similar positions in the same industry, et cetera, to where you can look it up. It doesn't go below the C-suite level, I do not believe. But then there's maybe a fourth category information gathering. You can have a headhunter, and they have information provided because they maintain databases. Total compensation, that's the next topic. You know, it's bonuses, equity, stock options, do they have a profit sharing program?

You want to get into what they have. If it's a public company, now you can go into the SEC.gov and research the company you're looking at to find out all things there. and typically go to the annual report 10K and look at the exhibit list. And then in that list, you'll see, you know, the various equity incentive compensation plans the company is willing to offer if you're an executive. If it's 401K, it's just they're going to give you a participation of 401K. There's no more defined benefit pensions any longer if that's over. Typically, most people are offered 401K if they're lucky.

Next item on the agenda for your, what you're trying to review here is, You know, the benefits, health insurance, 401k match, paid time off, and other perks. These have real dollar values. So, for example, is the company providing four weeks paid vacation? How many of those national holidays are you going to get off, like 10 or 15 days, you know, in addition to your vacation pay? Benefits are really important. Health insurance, of course, important. I can't understand that one.

But the aspect of benefits is really where the company is setting the cultural tone of the organization. You need to find out what that is. If it's, you know, two weeks vacation, that's, you know, that's very limited. They're going to work you to the bone. So the more benefits they're providing to the employees, the better, and that defines the culture. You have to look past the website and kind of the marketing stick that they put on the website about, you know, their culture. or maybe ask around, do some research about benefits. And then the hidden stuff.

The hidden stuff of the job offer is, you know, is there a sign-on bonus? Maybe you're leaving behind money due to whatever circumstance, equity or a bonus hasn't come due yet. You can forward that to your employer, the new employer, and saying you want to sign-on bonus so you can recoup that and not take a loss. there. And so maybe there's another topic of relocation assistance or a non-compete clause that could restrict you later. You want to know about them in advance. Non-competes are still around and still a sticky matter for people to understand the FTC rule came out, but it's in limbo

right now through court of appeals process. It's not a rule. So that issues. And given the current political climate on the pro-business mindset of the federal government right now, I don't think that the non-compete issue is going to come up soon. If the federal courts, I think the Fifth Circuit down in Texas is handling this at the appellate level, maybe that rises to the level of Supreme Court, who knows, but we don't know the outcome of that just yet. So non-competes can be an issue of the hidden stuff. So now you've done your homework. You research. the company in the market, you now know what you're worth. And you prepare a concise, well-reasoned counteroffer to the initial job offer they made you. And don't throw out a number

without a reason. Think about it in advance. Tie your request to your value. Something like based my research in the market for this role and my unique skill set and mentioned the specific skills that you have. I was looking for a base salary of so-and-so, closer to X dollars. And that's an offer or a counteroffer you're making. You're not demanding. You're just simply stating your value based on the data and you make an encounter offer. The employer may say, no. They may meet you in the middle or they may surprise you with a better offer.

But you'll never know if you don't ask. It's a really, and everybody kind of knows the circumstance. If you don't ask, you don't receive. So you got to ask and, you know, take the time to. go through this process. If you need to stall out the process to potentially aggravate your employer, the potential employer a little bit because you know you're worth and maybe you have multiple offers and people are probably thinking about, well, what if I have two offers? You need to play that out because, you know, if you tell an employer that you have another offer pending

and they're lowball on that offer, you need to make them feel insecure. Again, it's psychology. psychology that both parties play in. Now, the employer thinks, you know, this mistaken belief that just because they're the employer, they get to dictate terms. That's not true. Great example today is the issue of this trajectory of companies trying to capture the best AI professionals they can. They're just beating themselves up. The competitors are trying to throw as much money as possible to get the best AI development. as they can. And so that's an example where the companies are not in control. They're trying to, they're having to bargain with their competitors to get this new, you know, prized, you know, employee to come over to do AI research. So it's an example. So most employers do this dumb mistake, and I'm going to say it's a dumb mistake. They always try to start with this, employers are always right and they're going to get what they want approach. That's not true.

And if you let them have that and you've given any indication during your discussions with them that there's a weakness in you in your discussions about giving employer too much power, they're going to manipulate that. They're going to see it. They're going to feel it. So go into the negotiation strong, confident, not cocky, but just you know you have, you know what your value is. It doesn't matter what the job is. You just know what your value is. It could be the best, you know, human compassionate person possible to. you're the greatest AI developer.

It doesn't matter. Just know what your value is and make it clear to the other side what your value is. And don't do it in a cheesy way, please. Just take a good stock about who you are. You should know who you are. If you don't know who you are,

then work on that. It's a separate episode. So just know who you are and what your value is and take it slow and take it methodically. You know, maybe it's several conversations to get to the point where you need.

throwing out offers that start at some point as a counteroffer in response to the employer's offer and then work your way down slowly and then figure out what your bottom line is. Maybe your bottom line is the other counteroffer. Maybe your bottom line is economic because of your own financial wherewith position. You need X dollars of income to satisfy your current economic status. So figure out bottom line, figure out why you want that bottom line and negotiate slowly down towards that. If the employer gets a little like, you know, I don't know, just upset with your process, you know, start to make them understand that, you know, you are, you know, you have

value. You can improve the company's current position. If I can say this to you, if you can think like the owner of that company or the management of that company that you're trying to go into, think like them in terms of what they're selling, what they're doing, what service, et cetera, that will enable you to connect with them and figure out what their current problems are. You're not just filling a seat. I always try to ask people to think about, you know, as an entrepreneurial type of thinking, really it's just a matter of, you know, thinking out-of-the-box approach when approaching a new job offer about the new employer what they're facing because they're hiring you because the last person that you're

replacing, it probably didn't do the job very well. So they're looking for somebody to come in and do some change and to do it in a more creative way. That's why there's a new hire and figure out are you replacing somebody or is this a new developed position? Is it a new position with, you know, parts driven from different positions that they had maybe downsized or reorganized. You need to figure out all the mechanics of what came about the new position you're being offered, think out what happened, ask a lot of hard questions, listen to the responses about what they're saying to you. You'll learn a lot in terms of what has taken place to that point in time to see, is that the right fit job for you? It may not be if you hear the word. I was just by example

reading a story in the Wall Street Journal this morning. Some folks went to to a company, was a new stock market that was trying to get approval by the SEC, the Secures Exchange Commission, but the article smack on the front page to Wall Street Journal is the employees started getting indoctrinated into Scientology, and they didn't know that, and they started taking trainings and the like. It was a very long, you know, so ask questions and figure out if the right fit for you in the particular job you're looking at, by asking, asking hard questions and listening to their reaction. So listening is really one of the important parts of negotiating.

Listen to the tone, how somebody says something. When you pop a statement out that's pretty demonstrative or powerful, influential, whatever that's going to be, listen to the reaction. And it can tell a lot. And I do that all the time. Because sometimes with people who are really good at negotiating judges and lawyers, you really have to just discern how it's being said, the pause, the hesitation, and look at the reaction. You can pick up patterns of how people are processing what's happening in real time. So negotiating requires listening skills to discern what's taking place at a moment by moment so you can, you know, know, swift and dodge and maneuver to get what you need. But it doesn't, it's not a reactionary

thing. You just want to listen for it, take notes, and reflect upon it, and then come up with your next move, so to speak. It's kind of like a chess game. So listening is very, very important to figure out what's not being said that's happening still in the room, even though it's not being said or there's a how it's being reacted to or the comment you're making by how their body movements or their voice and tone. So that's a little bit further expanded version of the negotiating the job offer. So next one is negotiating a raise. Okay. So you already have the job. And you've been a rock store, of course, because everybody thinks they're a rock star. They don't have any, you know, negative side or red flags to them. And you feel,

you deserve more money now. This is a very different negotiation than a new job offer because you have a history with this employer, and history is your leverage. Okay. So, first thing is it's not a one-time conversation when you're asking for a raise. And you should be documenting your accomplishments throughout the year, of course, in real time, an email to your manager, not necessarily, hey, I'm going to get the raise in a few months, you know, but I'm going to send you this email.

Just think, you know, strategically through this process, take your win, applaud others who are also responsible for that win at the same time, but, you know, send some nice emails to your manager that you're not gloating about the win, but essentially later on you're able to use those emails and, you know, argue with your employer for a raise. So, you know, you want to keep these emails in a folder somewhere. And every time you exceed the expectations, you know, save the email and the accomplishment. And or if you get the positive feedback from a client or you've learned a new skill or, you know, maybe you graduated and got your MBA. And you write it all down. And this is, you know, your brag sheet, all right. So you schedule a meeting with your boss and you frame it as a conversation about your career and your future with the company. and don't just show up and say, I want more money.

That's a guaranteed way not to get it, and you'll receive a no. Instead, the conversation should be recapping your value to the company. Quote, unquote, in the past year, I've been responsible for a list of accomplishments, and, you know, you recognize me at certain dates, and you said the following to me about these accomplishments. So they make your case why your value is increased. You know, based on these contributions to my, my, expanded role and responsibilities to the company, I believe my salary should increase by X dollars and be a fair reflection of a current market value for my current talents. You know, you get the gist. So your argument's not based on your personal needs. It's based upon the business logic. So here, you know, I'll take, for example, when people negotiate severance without any claim, I say, you know, give me 10 things that you did recently that the employer knows. And, uh, And they can agree that, you know, you did those things well.

And that's the reason why you want to be compensated in negotiation beyond what they offered you. Because without a claim, you really can't negotiate a severance increase than other than what the employer offered you. So that's a goodwill negotiation. The job raise negotiations similar to that. Obviously, the difference is you're still working. And so in this circumstance, you want to come up with your – list of accomplishments, Databoys, or

whatever it is that your company follows in terms of culture. But again, negotiating raise, people approach this with sometimes the worst strategy possible that they're deserving it because they just need it

or maybe they're economically pinched and they need it. It's really about, I believe, looking holistically at the employer from the employee's standpoint about how they've benefited the company in large measure that's real. The company has, you know, receives a large benefit of their work. But I'm trying to get at is, you know, you're a long-timer in the employer.

You plan to spend a long time with this employee, that you, you know, eat, drink, and crap, you know, the employer's culture, and you're not faking it. There are people there, I think that's probably currently less than 30 percent, who are so unquote, quote unquote, called fully engaged. And maybe you know those people I'm thinking about, that they live and breed the company. But 70 percent of you, by the way, are disengaged and you know who you are. It's basically people who are just taking a paycheck or hugging the job, so to speak, these days. they're not quitting and running to another job. But so that's a unique environment to be in today to ask for a raise.

Most, when you ask for a raise, employers are going to probably say no. So you have to do your homework to convince them to say yes. And what is the benefit they're going to gain from it? And you're working with the stack cards is against you here because, companies are reorganizing and shoving more job duties on each employee already present. So you're getting basically more job duties, the same pay. And if you didn't know this, that's a way of saving money for the company because they can make you do it because you don't have any leverage, at least they think you don't. And it's happening currently in 2025, it may shift and move in less or so, but companies are currently doing this to save money.

They're also laying people off too. So asking for a raise is like you're battling uphill, but doesn't mean you can't ask for it. You should. The other aspect of asking for a raise is that you believe and you're communicating to the employer that you deserve it and it's beneficial to the company and you know, you're making it with a straight face and you're not bullshitting the issue. It's real and you operate with the facts that the company knows the same set of facts. and that, you know, you've got to convince the employer that, well, if you don't incentivize me with a raise, like a bonus, but a raise is similar, it's long lasting, it's larger over time than a bonus, that you may, you know, want to jump ship. It's doable. You can make that, you know, employer believe that they can become insecure that you may want to jump.

You may want to throw in, you know, a raise or promotional change, whatever. Raise and promotions are kind of a similar thing, but making the employer feel insecure, sorry, about their position that you may ditch them, right in the middle of a huge project, whatever it is. And it's okay to do that because, you know, it's negotiation. Negotiation is not just one rule of thumb. It's an approach taken with a lot of information that you've gathered to understand the employer's strength and weaknesses. You want to focus on a weakness part of it. Obviously, you're touting the strengths you have to benefit the employer, but, you know, targeting their insecurities. And I do this as a living.

I target the insecurities of companies all the time. When I throw claims at them, for example, of whatever, discrimination or something that's a whistleblowing that's happened, you know, they don't want that known by the public. public. So it's an insecurity. So that's the reason why they negotiate because they don't want that publicly known. So it's an example, you know, lawsuits or at least threaten lawsuits, threat or target and shame employers before they're filed as a means to target their insecurities. Employers have them. You just don't know that because you're not in my line of work where I see it all the time. You can see that insecurity in the form of the cases we put up on the podcast. You know, employers are getting whacked for millions and millions of dollars because, you know, they have insecurities.

They did something wrong. And, you know, if they want to play that hard game, they can lose and, you know, they can get verdicts against them. And that's what the purpose of those cases are about to showcase that. So employers are not, you know, long answer to all this about negotiating a raise, employers do have weaknesses. You need to exploit them. Find out what they are. They can be large and small. and exploit them, but don't do it in a way to, you know, shame them or anything.

Obviously, a professional. You want to, you know, you can sometimes intimate things, you know, without saying things directly, you can say things, you know, under your, you know, by implicit nature of what you're saying. But do your homework about an employer. Don't just go in there and say, I want to raise. That's utterly crazy. And you want to, I think the best, I would give a raise to somebody who really,

took the time to understand what I was doing as an employer and went into detail about it and even came up with ideas that I didn't even think of. That shows to me that the employee is believing in the core mission that we're setting out to do above and beyond just collecting a paycheck. Collecting paycheck people can be easily spotted, by the way, and you don't want to be one of them. You want to be the person who's making a paycheck, or at least making your employer feel that they that you know you're a very valuable resource to the company and uh employers know the two different types of people there's people who take the paychecks and sit on their jobs and a job hug because you know they didn't get you know they're engaged but they're not fully

engaged and we have a really harsh current circumstance today in this workforce of 70% of the employee population are disengaged if you don't understand what that means it means means that people are just going to work waiting for Friday and collecting a paycheck. I mean, that's not a great position to be in a kind of nationwide basis, but you don't want to be in that crowd. If you want to fake it and make it look like you're in the other crowd of 30% who are engaged, those are a go-getters. Those are people who are thinking out of the box. They're not backstepping at work. They are playing the game critically. They are measured steps. And negotiating a raise is a measured step. So you want to be in that category. So it's kind of a

nod out to this issue. If you think you're disengaged at work, change your mindset about this into the engaged part, even if you have to fake it, but be realistic about your faking it. Maybe you'll fake it to the point where you actually do enjoy your job again. But maybe you're disengaged for a lot of other reasons. But understand why you're disengaged. It's really an unhealthy position to be in and the current, you know, thinkers of the world don't really understand the why part. They just tell you the statistic, Gallup in particular. So negotiating arrays, there's a lot goes into it, just like the job offer. Negotiation, as you can hear it, it's got a lot of nuance to it. It's a lot of style. You know, what is your style, for example?

Ask yourself that. Mine is kind of a blunt force trauma approach to it. Typically, worst case scenario, and I kind of throw it all at the employer factually. I don't engage in tiptoe approach. I just say, here is everything you need to understand what is going on in this particular case, or if you're negotiating a race, everything that's going on here as I see it, Mr. Employer. And it can be the good, the bad, and the ugly. And, you know, it shows a comprehensive approach to it. So approach negotiation like that. Style is my other part of my style, just negotiating, I really didn't talk about this so far, is a consistency approach.

I'm going to start with a telegraphed assortment of things that I'm going to do, or if you know me well enough, you know, you can just ask colleagues on the opposing side and find out, here's what Carrie does. And that's fine because it might be deliberate on my part to let people know that that's what I do because I may have a game strategy that's different than that. Let's say I come to the table with, you know, all guns of blazing at the negotiating table. And then I do an about face and I do something proactively positive that has a lot of compassion for the employer, you know, kind of a mind screw for the employer. So think about the psychology and the style that you're using for negotiating. You're going to have to figure out what your own style is. Typically it's characteristically driven by your own personality. But give it a thought.

It does matter. And, you know, a well-orchestrated negotiating strategy and style can look like, just think of a person who's slow in the response to the things that are rising during this discussion. They're thought through, they're digested, not necessarily the person who's very reactive. I mean, I know a lot of attorneys that want to just scream and shout at me, they're not very effective. They just whine like little children. So you have to figure out your style. And I'm always looking to assess that. Who's my opponent?

What's their like? I look them up before I go meet them. I look up judges before I go talk to them. You know, anything I can get to figure out who my opponent is is going to adjust the style of the cap I'm going to wear for the day. Because I'm going to change character. I can be a lot of characters. So it's a little bit of acting in this approach when you're negotiating. And so as you can see, there's a lot to negotiating.

There's a lot of nuance to it. So it's just simply not asking for a raise. It's so much more. Now, the next thing is negotiating things about your job that don't involve money. It's about anything and everything related to your job. So it can go like this, the work-life balance, the professional development, a new title, a new start date. And so work-life balance. Well, hell, we just went through that entire discussion in the last three, four years,

and now we're at the back end of that discussion of work-life balance because most of you are being ordered back to work. In my office, we never did that. We just were remote work from before the pandemic happened, and people are fine. And by the way, you can be successful as a business and have people work remotely. It does work. The only reason people are put back to work is because of rents. Employers have to pay rents. So the work-life balance is an important aspect for a lot of people. If you have a medical issue, if you have child care needs, et cetera, you know, that's going to be an issue. It's a non-monetary thing. You need to negotiate that. And let's just target this a little bit. Are there other people in the organization who currently work there that have remote work? Why do they have it? Is there, if the employer has a blanket approach to it, I'm sorry, but there's, the only way to get around that blanket approach, if all go back to work, et cetera, is if you have a disability of some form. And you have to document that and make an argument why you need a remote work schedule to accommodate your disability, whatever that may be, physical mental, mental nervous.

So work life balance also is, if the employer doesn't have a blanket approach to, you know, basically all people, work at the office and they don't allow for remote work. You have to then dig down into do I present a value to the organization that I can negotiate a one-off because I'm special, meaning you are special. We know you're special. But I'm being funny. But, you know, is there anything unique about you that the employer wants to bend over a little bit backwards for you, even though others will see it to allow you to work remotely? Okay. So there is those, that circumstance, and you want to play politics to get that. The professional development aspect is the company pay for certifications, conferences,

advanced degrees, you know, that type of professional development benefits the employer. You know, for example, I asked, just told employees, you know, read the newspapers because I want them to read and learn or just hear about current topics. And I said, I'll pay for your subscription. The other thing is, you know, I pay for, you know, a gym membership because they need to get out of the computer work seat and go just exercise because it's very important because we spend our time in our seats. At least I don't. I don't do that. I definitely get out there and exercise.

But professional development is a feature, but it's not monetary related. And it benefits both you and the employer, of course, so you can negotiate that. A new title, you know, it's similar to the raise. and it's non-monetary. This one I don't really see so much as it's more of a reputational thing. If you need it, I see employers do this, and this is why I'm so negative on it. They always, they award new titles as, you know, something of like value to you, but reality you're still doing the same job.

Or maybe they gave you more responsibility, but they didn't give me more pay. So screw you, the new title, I don't care. or they get fuzzy with, you know, changing, you know, from director levels to some of their, or senior VP to some change, but in reality, it's still the same job. And who knows why they do it, it's kind of, you know, weird, but, you know, blame HR, I guess. You can negotiate the start date of when you want to start. So that's actually an issue that comes up a lot of times with, you know, when you're leaving a job and you're negotiating a severance. I tell clients that you want to try to orchestrate the severance execution of the agreement and give a little time a week or two for maybe a vacation.

You need a little break to start the new job. A lot of times the new employer is going to want to rush you right in because they don't give a shit. They just want to have you start and they want to just check that box and say that we're done with that project. We've got a new hire and begin the training process. So you can negotiate the start date. So as you can see, the negotiating process with the employer is nuanced. It can take a longer period of time, more than just a one-off conversation. It's going to take a lot of diligence on your part to understand what the employer needs, how you can benefit them.

And it takes some artistic creation on your part of your style. And you may even learn that you become a more articulate negotiator doing other parts of your job because of that process. And if you don't challenge yourself to learn new skills, here it's negotiation skills. And there are tons of books you can read about this. I gave one example getting to yes, which is a famous book. So take the time if you are serious about, you know, asking, trying to get a new job or asking for a raise or, you know, non-monetary perks for the job, take the time to put together your game plan and then orchestrate it well and have some flexibility with it, of course, but then also even create a secondary position to potentially you may have another job offer elsewhere. Even when you've been at this job for 20 years, you may have another job lined up. I mean, so you want to really think strategically about your negotiation.

It's more than just a one-off. It's a process. And you have to expect the unexpected through the process and be able to pivot with certain things that happens. That happens a lot in my legal cases, and we do that. So I hope you enjoy this part of negotiation as a lot. skill set to learn. I'll come up with other topics in negotiating as well. I'll come up with other topics that allow you to learn skill sets as part of your job. The employee survival guide is going to do that for you. In addition to you be the basic baseline of legal knowledge based, you're going

to get that. But we're going to jump even to further in making you a really good candidate for all your employers and make you successful doing what you're doing. That's what the employee survival guide is really about. Right. Take care and have a good week. If you like the Employees Survival Guide, I'd really encourage you to leave a review. We try really hard to produce information to you that's informative, that's timely, that you can actually use and solve problems on your own and at your employment. So if you like to leave a review anywhere you listen to our podcast, please do so. And leave five stars because anything less than five is really not as good, right? I'll keep it up.

I'll keep up the standards up. I'll keep the information flowing at you. If you'd like to send me an email and ask me a question, I'll actually review it and post it on there. You can send it to m-C-A-R-U-I at C-A-P-C-Law.com. That's capclaw.com.