Assertion of interest during wage negotiations?

You just lost if you get emotionally involved!

Why do I start with this one?

Because it is easy to be "very clever" when it comes to asserting our interests .

It's so easy to give tips:

• for our child,

• our spouse,

• friend,

• a colleague,

• etc.

but is this when we can actually help, or is it "blind leading the lightless"?

It is easy to "advise" on important interest assertion situations in other people's lives, because we are NOT EMOTIONALLY INVOLVED, but unfortunately in most cases even the best "advisor" does not know the basic laws that allow us to be successful in ASSERTION OF INTEREST.

I will look at the situation from BOTH sides.

Employer (the HR person or manager) VS Employee

1. Rule number one: DO NOT get emotionally involved! This is business, not personal!

On the employer side: as an HR person, as a manager, it is easy to feel that finding the right person for the job is "Mission Impossible" (and this is already Part 6) :).

Then we make our offer and the other side just says: "not good enough....".

How does it feel?

On the employee side: we imagine a nice amount of money and our friends and relatives say it's realistic (and even "you asked for less") and then tehy offer 60-70-80% of we previously imagined?

Shocking! No? :)

Well... How NOT to get emotionally involved?

Let's do a proper PREPARATION. What should we prepare for?

They say: for FACTS AND INFORMATION!

But what are facts and information? 99% of the time they are subjective opinions! NOTHING MORE!

And most of the time we take the "facts" that support our point of view.

Yes. There are no facts. In interest assertion / interest reconciliation, FACTS ARE WHAT EVERYONE AGREE ON!

Employer site: "the wage is based on surveys....".

Employee site: "Wages in other countries, states are... I have a friend in the same position in a similar company... I read the news and it's clear that…"

So facts? A FACT IS WHAT BOTH PARTIES CONSIDER TO BE A FACT!

We should not be concerned about that! LET'S PREPARE for what the "ARENA" is that we can agree on in certain circumstances. Because that is the only thing that really MATTERS!

Everything else is only good to influence us and get us emotionally involved.

There is also a more detailed methodology and system of preparation that can be used to precisely define and frame our advocacy position.

This alone, and NOT "power" or "I'll show you" or "I've got the brains", is the basis for getting what we want.

Of course, there are many - many other important things that we MUST APPLY in wage negotiations, on both sides, but I will deal with this and other rules on wage negotiations at another time.