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Negotiating Salary Packages
by Alyson Dalby

Let me open this article by stating clearly that I am no expert in this field. I’ve not negotiated a hundred salary packages, nor am I particularly good at scholarly research (my library school marks were nothing to be remembered by!), so this is less a review of current literature and more a report on my recent experience, with some thoughts added.

I came into what I originally believed was an unusual situation – my first professional position was in an organisation where I was the only full-time staff member in the library. There were no internal benchmarks, and my experience was so far out of whack with my responsibilities that comparing myself to the guidelines set by the Australian Library and Information Association was, at best, intimidating. Having spoken to many new librarians in similar situations, it occurs to me that I might not be all that special after all.

Negotiating salary packages and pay rises is always tricky, or so we are told. Personally, I’ve found that it depends very heavily on how open and honest your relationship with your manager is. Theoretically, they should know about your achievements, and you should be able to trust them when they communicate to you the constraints that they are under. Often we find our managers don’t know what we do, especially if they have no actual involvement with the library.

There are articles, even books, instructing you how to prepare for salary negotiation. I’ve listed a couple at the end, but as I said, scholarly research isn’t my strength. But they all say similar things:

Prepare and compare
Be honest
Be flexible

So there I was, trundling into my first real salary negotiation with those three things in mind. I prepared a list of the previous year’s achievements and a list of goals for the next 12 months (and beyond). It’s one thing to say, “This is what I’ve done,” but unless you’re following it up with “and this is what I’m going to do,” your salary negotiation becomes a reward for service rather than a motivation for the future. This is where my thinking about salary packages seemed to be a bit different from what I was reading in the literature.

I rarely hear my colleagues speaking of salary packages that have any real impact on their work. They talk about what they would buy for themselves if they had a larger salary. I’ve never heard anyone honestly say to me “if I were paid $5000 more per year, I would work much harder than I do now.” Perhaps this is because, in the library world, salaries are generally low. Most of us are here for the job, not the salary. It seems not to occur to us that with a bit of creativity we can turn a salary review into something truly motivating.

How your salary package can change the way you work

I see my salary package comprising things that will allow me to achieve the goals I have set for the next 12 months. Of course, this includes money. If I don’t have enough money to eat and get to work, I won’t be much use to my employer. But once the basic financial needs are met, non-financial rewards can have a very positive effect on your work, your career, and your relationship with your employer.

Have a think about the usual constraints on your work, particularly in a small, special library. Apart from things like staffing, resources and budget, the most common problem that I face, and see other people facing, is that they don’t know how to do the things they are meant to be doing. Perhaps this is because I tend to be around new graduates, but it seems to me that our roles are changing rapidly and even the most seasoned librarian has had to learn new tricks. Including elements of training and professional education in your salary package can be a great way to improve your performance at work, improve your career prospects, and also – and here’s the trick – get more bang for your buck.

My amazing salary package

I was invited to write this article after the editor heard about my recent professional development experiences. I have to give credit here to my boss – he is flexible, and believes in nurturing talent, even if it means I take that talent elsewhere. Which, in turn, means I respect and trust him more. I understand that most bosses aren’t like that, but don’t assume they won’t be open to ideas unless you try them first.

In my first salary negotiation, I pointed out to my boss that he had a novice expected to do an expert’s job. Because I was new, he could pay me less, but the trade off was that I didn’t know what I was doing, so we agreed that, while my salary reflected my experience rather than my responsibilities, he would happily approve generous professional development funding. This allowed me to progress professionally at an accelerated rate, and had a huge impact on the job at hand.

The second salary negotiation became very interesting. My main brief, at the time, was to revitalise a library on the verge of closure. I had to generate interest in an obscure topic, and my boss wanted the library to become a cultural hub representing the organisation. Big goals. The biggest problem was that I had no idea where to start.

My work involves the topic of the history of medicine. There isn’t a huge amount of history of medicine activity going on in Australia, though there is in the UK, and our organisation has excellent links with similar organisations there (it’s a colonial thing). My boss suggested that I go and visit them, look at what they are doing, and find out how to apply the same principles back home.

So come March, I found myself in London, on a two-week employer-funded study tour of institutions that do work in the history of medicine. I met with people from the Wellcome Trust, the Royal College of Physicians, the Royal Society of Medicine and the Royal College of Surgeons. I was given a lump sum to spend how I wished (it was almost enough to cover the costs), study leave, and, most importantly, the official backing of my organisation, without which I would not have gained access to these venerable institutions. I asked them about their programmes, how they set them up, which were the most effective, and so on. I came back with a list of 10 programme concepts to explore and possibly implement.

It wasn’t all peaches and cream, however. The money I was given was almost enough to fund a very tight trip – I stayed in youth hostels and ate sandwiches. If I ran out of money, it was my problem, and it was expected that I would have to put some of my own money into the trip. I worked hard – most nights I spent on my bunk writing notes and researching the organisations I was going to visit. I got sick, but was unable to take a sick day. I had very little time for sightseeing or socialising, and I was expected to implement something practical once I was back in the real world. I had to be flexible and reflect the needs of my employer.

But hey, I got a free trip to London! I got access to buildings that my London friends had always admired from afar, and I gained a huge amount of confidence in my work. I developed a wider view of what I was doing, and I feel that my professionalism over the course of the trip will reflect well on my career prospects.

My boss loved it, because he got a librarian with a whole bunch of great new ideas. He strengthened the relationship between our organisations. He was very pleased with the reports I have of the trip, and feels that it was money well spent.

Some suggestions for non-financial inclusions

Here are some things you might like to consider including in your salary package, just to get your brain working on the topic:

Conference funding, including study leave, or part thereof.
Funding for a training course (again with the study leave).
Additional leave granted for a particular extra-curricular project, or even a personal issue for which you need extra time off.
Time granted during your usual working hours for you to dedicate to your own professional development. This could mean study, or involvement with your professional association, or just time set aside to play with and learn a new computer program.
Company support (be that study leave, funding, or even just being able to claim the backing of your company and trade on its good name) for professional visits to other organisations.
Use of company resources to help write an article or conduct professional research.

What was that “more bang for your buck” comment?

Funding that you receive for training purposes is tax free (at least in Australia). It’s that simple.

Consider a standard, financial salary increase. You might get an extra, say, $2,000 per year. Much of that will be taken in tax, so you’ll only get maybe 60-70% of that (depending on tax in your area). However, if, instead of giving you a salary increase, your employer pays for $2,000 worth of training, you get exactly $2,000 worth of training. You get to use every dollar. If this is training you might otherwise be unable to afford, or may be paying for out of your own pocket, the benefits are clear.

One word of warning

You may have already considered this, but if not: remember that you need to keep track of what the total of your salary package is, and, at each negotiation, build on it. If your salary is, say, $40,000, and you get an extra $5,000 worth of inclusions, at the next review the value of your salary must be recognised as being $45,000, and should start from that base level. Do not let them use this extra funding as a way never to increase your salary!