Let's talk about salary pay bands

Alright, let's talk about your salary. If you work at a company that is large enough to have an HR function, I guarantee they have salary strategy. And here's what you need to understand about it so that you can feel good about how much you're being paid or start looking elsewhere because there's no way for you to get higher than where you are already. The first thing that you need to know is that every role within every organization has an approved band in which they are allowed to pay the people who perform that role. That band or that range of top and bottom of the pay that they are able to provide is based on a myriad of factors. It could be cost of living, cost of labor, it could be the strategic influence of that role, the value that it is perceived within the organization. But the band is then split into four quartiles. Those four quartiles are what dictate the salary allowance that they can play with when they are offering someone a new job, when they're giving someone a promotion, or when they're giving someone a raise. The way I like to look at it, just to keep it so simple, is that anything in quartile one, if I'm given a salary option from quartile one within that range, I feel pretty confident that I can negotiate at least into quartile two and maybe into quartile three. Anything in quartile four, I know that this company has already pushed to the absolute max of what they can get approved through their HR functions to offer me that salary. The way I look at it is that quartile one, they're being really conscientious about how they're spending their money. I'm gonna advocate for myself and I'm gonna negotiate for more. Quartile two, they're being fair, they're being good to me, they're thinking about my best interest and they're trying to strike an even balance for both of us. Quartile three, I look at as they really want to bring me on and they feel really motivated by what they believe I can offer to this company. They're doing that in good faith and I can feel pretty awesome about accepting an offer from quartile three. Quartile four is almost unheard of. It's likely that they need a ton of help and your expertise are the exact perfect fit for what they need. And they're expecting you to come in and perform at a high level from day one.