"Pull this on you"? You sound like a real joy to work for.
This is expressly why I choose gigs where I'm working directly for an owner if at all possible. If you've created value, owners know how important you are and will take your request seriously as long as it's reasonable.
In my career, I have received 100% of the raises I've requested ... at least a half dozen times. I've never once received a no or even negative push back. Owners were eager to retain me.
Even if your intention as a "line manager" is to not give the raise, the right move is to at least feign consideration for a few days and show the employee his request at least matters enough to think about.
Letting everyone know they'll immediately be shown the door if they dare request an increase would create a terrible culture. Clueless management.
The person to whom you're responding explicitly drew a distinction between discussing a raise with your boss vs going to your boss with another offer that you have secured.
I can see the importance of that distinction. To put the relationship in a different context: Imagine the difference between a girlfriend who says, "Hey, we need to discuss the amount of time you spend playing video games. I'd like you to pay more attention to me." vs "Hey, I don't like the amount of time you spend playing video games, so I've been talking to this new guy about being my boyfriend. Your move."
Because it's only OK to ask for a raise when the boss has the upper hand?
That would be the upper hand.
Before that, it's just a discussion.
This industry doesn't value engineering experience. It values breadth over depth. There are some exceptions. But the data are what they are.
Every day I go to work, the implied threat is that my company could assign all my work to someone cheaper--generally speaking, give 1/Nth of my work to each of my N co-workers, then advertise an open position if that puts the team over capacity--and abruptly end our work-for-pay relationship. Or maybe they allow a tester to jump up into development, and give them tester+1 pay instead of developer pay. If I meet with my manager with competing offer in hand, that may invert the status quo of the power balance for all of 15 minutes. How unnerving for them.
You always need the company more than the company needs you. That's a corollary to the whole point of having a company, which is to produce an entity separate from and greater than its constituent parts.
Personally, I'd just keep silent about the amount of the competing offer and ask for a raise. They can do their own calculations about how much they can afford to give, and if they can't match the competing offer without knowing what it is, I'd take it. Telling them what that offer is makes as much sense as divulging your salary history when seeking out competing offers, which is to say it does not make sense. Let companies do their own calculation regarding how much you are worth to them, instead of copying the answers off of each other.
Besides, that's exactly how they gauge what kind of wages to offer when they hire you -- from what others would accept in your place.
You don't fire your girlfriend in tough times, but your boss will fire you if he had to. It's a stricylty pay to play relationship.
Spouses are loyal back, businesses are not.
Not saying that you should be concerned about getting fired everyday. But if you don't create demonstrable value to your company over a longer period of time (a couple of years perhaps) don't expect to keep the job. Things are moving wayy too fast today.
Outside of my own direct experience, I can also recall many other co-workers' experiences where the companies I've worked for went above and beyond in their commitment to their employees. One time that meant making many extraordinary allowances for an employee suffering from a mental breakdown. At times it has meant extending the employment of someone who was looking for a life/career change, but the company kept on paying a salary until the employee found somewhere new to land - way beyond where the employment had any real benefit to the company. There are many others.
By all means, takes some precautions. By all means, stand up for yourself. By all means, make sure that you're being fairly compensated... but if you go into every relationship, personal or business, with your shields raised and phasers set to kill - you will reap what you sow.
I know that personal relationships aren't exactly the same as business relationships, but to pretend that they aren't somewhat analogous doesn't line up with my own experiences. I've had a lot of personal relationships in business. Almost every boss I've ever had has been my friend on some level and the same goes with a lot of people who've worked for me.
When you treat people with respect, consideration, and friendship in your work life - you'll be surprised at how often you get the same from them in return.
Getting independent information of your value isn't "guns blazing."
Going out and getting a job offer is a step beyond that.
Work is NOT like having a girlfriend. Like the other poster said, a better analogy is your relationship with a prostitute. But it's good you brought up this incorrect analogy, because I think it really shows the horribly wrong mentality that bosses have, because they believe this to be a good analogy even though it isn't.
I'm not showing up to work every day because I have any warm and fuzzy personal feelings for the people there (especially the management). I go to work because they give me a paycheck. That's it. It's no different than prostitution, except not quite as icky. If my girlfriend tells me she needs to spend less time with me for a little while because she's going to spend some time with her family for some family problem, or she's working on her own start-up business and needs to spend extra time on it to make it successful, etc., then sure. If, however, employer tells me they need to cut my pay in half because they're having money problems, I'm immediately going to look for a new job. I don't have any personal feelings for my employer, and I don't expect to grow old and retire with them either, and I also know that if they don't need me any more, I'll be out the door with a pink slip that day.
I think this analogy really shows how many employers think (wrongly) that employees should have some kind of loyalty to them, even though the employers rarely have any loyalty back to the employees.
On the other hand, sending every other employee the clear message that the only way to get a raise is by showing up with a better offer isn't the path to the best of cultures either.
Those that imitate the tactic are not the ones to be concerned about, the others are, those who have nonmonetary reasons to stay. Employment isn't equally fungible to all employees. The less mobile will feel screwed and their motivation and productivity will suffer. Getting paid less than market rate is much easier to not mind about than getting paid less than the guy across the table. Secrecy could be a solution, but before you embrace it all too enthusiastically ask yourself twice about the gossip level in the organization.
In the end, the ratio of "will imitate" employees to "will grudgingly accept" employees determines the better answer. The former will hate "aggressive bargaining will not be tolerated", the latter will hate "only aggressive bargaining will be rewarded".
If my manager wanted that, it would have been in the contract [that I have never had as an "at will" employee], and they would have had to pay something to me as compensation.
If I have no contract, I owe my employer nothing. The loyalty I give them is equal to the loyalty they promised me: zero. They explicitly told me I could be fired at any time for any reason from an enumerated list ten pages long, or for no reason at all, if the whim merely struck them one day.
As an employee, that is a big "fuck you" to me from the management, and they should be happy that I even let them know I might quit if they don't do something soon to prevent that, instead of just calling my manager up to say I won't be working there today, as another company offered me a better deal.
If the answer to that is no, no amount of backup will convince them otherwise. Then you get into the question of "why am I working here" and it forces you to leave anyway.
Somehow, all paths lead to leaving. And I think this is what the original article is getting at - if you want more money, your best bet is to leave.
As your potential employee I'd be more than happy to shake your hand and leave. Very rarely does a company deserve employee loyalty, and you as a linemanager should at least try to earn your employee's loyalty by paying them what they are worth, rather than what you can get away with.
Remember, you too have a boss, treat your subordinates like you would like to be treated.
I did just recently have a good turn where the recruiter who helped me land my current job helped negotiate a bit higher pay and a week of vacation. I wasn't going to push that hard because I needed to be working and not sitting on my ass, but he did this for me without my asking and it worked. I was pretty thrilled that after so many years, someone else gave a damn about me. First time.
This makes it impossible to adequately take employers up to your real market worth as a long term employee. Too many of your coworkers will accept 50% of their worth rather than risk stress and a crises if a change falls apart. So as long as the employer only needs a kernel of long-term employees only a union has the necessary leverage.
One of the most important reasons software development is not like actual engineering is because the practices associated with actual engineering aren't valued in the world of software, even though the political components of employment (e.g. loyalty, longevity at a company) are considered signals of high(er) quality.
The vast majority of developers simply don't have quality employment options for most of them to consider long-term (> 3-4 years) employment with a single company to be a good economic or career decision.
In a smaller company, I would be worried about 'revealing my hand' to a potentially vengeful manager asking for a raise and I would rather just leave than try to get them to counter offer. That is, if I ask for a raise and s/he denies it, I would feel that I would probably be the first one to get cut when the time comes so I might as well leave. In a larger company, I might try to work with the manager on a 'career plan' assuming the manager in question is not toxic; the toxic ones will pretty much ensure that one gets a 'needs-improvement' type rating, which pretty much limits any movement for the unfortunate employee from that point on.
This doesn't agree with the research here, and your first statement doesn't agree with your second. If you value your team, they shouldn't end up unhappy with their salary, and they shouldn't be thrown under the bus for exploring what they're worth outside the company. The tamest threat to fire them reinforces the point.
https://hbr.org/2016/07/setting-the-record-straight-using-an...
Outside offers to get a raise are a risky business at best. If someone is unhappy enough to do this it isn't just compensation most of the time.
It all depends on how you are managing the compensation growth appropriate for people who are growing in their careers - if you're doing it properly and proactively, then people won't be repeatedly coming to your office with solid evidence that the actual market rate is much higher than whatever you're paying; and if you're giving appropriate raises only when pushed to, then doing that seems to be the only way how your existing employees can continue to get paid market rate.
The probability of someone leaving didn't change because of the new offer, the manager perceives a power differential and is responding to that.
It isn't the wrong call to keep someone on and counter, it is just a tricky situation.
If I go in with broad market data, the argument could be made that my specific circumstances make the general market data invalid.
If I go in with specific job offers, then I present myself as a risk to leaving, and the conversation may be more adversarial than I intend.
So could there be a service that sits in between? my-market-rate.example.com. Employees submit resumes, and we abstract the companies, roles, etc. Submit those resumes to companies to get an expected salary for that position and indicate interest to hire.
It is a difficult position to be in, but I think the solution is relatively obvious. If you think you are being underpaid and you don't have an open line of communication to your employer about your compensation that is the crux of the problem. If you can't comfortably discuss compensation at any time with your manager in a no judgment zone where the employer immediately assumes you are leaving then you and the employer lose. At that point you may feel the only option is a competing offer and the employer may counter, but they will be counting the days until you are gone.
A middle service could help keep things fair, but any employer you would feel comfortable using something like a `my-market-rate.example.com` service report with you probably already can just have an open discussion about compensation without any concern. I could see it being useful in some places where the organization / manager really does just lack information about fair compensation but... that strikes me as pretty uncommon. Managers tend to know far better than employees their value in the wider market and to the organization specifically.
Ultimately, you just have to do your research and if you know you are underpaid you should be able to find employment somewhere else. If you fear a comp discussion would trigger your employer firing you, time to look for another job. If you think it won't change much, time to look for another job. If you think you are close and have a good relationship with your manager, just talk about it. In my experience employees, especially in high tech, are very worried about discussing compensation and how that might be perceived by their manager. In reality many folks that generally like their place of employment and end up where they come in with a counter offer could go back in time 6 months and have a direct conversation with their manager and get a raise (or not, signalling it might be time to move on). If it takes that competitive offer to budge your employer it means they know you are worth more but they weren't willing to give it to you fairly.
Anyhow, that is my brain dump on how these things play out.
https://hbr.org/2016/09/why-people-quit-their-jobs
At the end, a research and analysis firm in this space says 50% leave within one year. I could not find the papers. I actually researched this a lot when put in a situation that we had to make a counter offer and there are some better papers and such out there, but I don't have it handy.
You have to go case by case and really understand what is motivating the individual. There is a very high chance the relationship is beyond salvaging. But there is also a good chance you can fix the problem. It is much better to never be in that situation to begin with (preventative maintenance). Regardless when you get to the point of making a counter offer anecdotal experience and research indicates it is about like flipping a coin. Maybe you can gain some insight via discussions and back story that make it better than flipping a coin, but the basic idea is you are in a relatively unpredictable situation at that point, no matter what.
Whereas, having constant and open communications with employees, discussing comp and making sure all issues stay little issues prevents these situations. Eventually someone may leave, but in my experience you can almost always remove the chance they come to you with a competitive offer. They will know where they stand with the business and be getting a fair wage or they will know it is time to move on. It is a much better relationship than an employee feeling they have no recourse but to drop a bomb on your organization.
That said, it is understandable how this happens with "line managers". e.g. middle managers. Individuals not empowered by corporate structure to do the right thing. But in orgs of less than 100 people this should never be happening.
There's no contradiction in that.
I was only pointing out that underpaying staff does not equate to not respecting them.
Most line employees don't have enough influence over the business plan to point out that, say, it only works if the company can live with a high turnover rate or with keeping salaries low.
None of this is personal. It's actually a big ask for someone to get paid under market rate or work on horrible legacy systems for years. Managers shouldn't take it personally if they ask for something big and don't get a yes.
That said, if your growing etc and just have a cash crunch then stock is generally an option.
I wouldn't dispute that seeking offers before a request for raise might not go over well (depending on the specific business), but I think calling it a "threat" is needlessly weaponizing salary negotiation in a market where everyone acknowledges salaries have been flat for a long time.
The number of people employed in IT services as a whole as increased which has likely helped keep wages more stable. It's still a good career as far as salaries go.
One thing I've found that makes digging deeper challenging is the preponderance of titles and roles. Title inflation could disguise wage growth to some degree.
Of course, said employee better be good at his job to get this treatment. If you are obnoxious or merely just barely good enough it will be an easier way to get rid of you than go through the hassle of big company firing procedure.
Though I have to admit I never was in this situation as a manager, I did give fair share raises out of the pocket money I got to distribute as raises between my employees.
Wouldn't care to work for you at all.
It could also be an opportunity to add valuable responsibilities to the employees role to justify the increase in wages, if thats applicable to the situation. Win-win for everyone.
That is not my experience at all. Saying that I am leaving brings salary pay raise offer immediately, asking for pay raise brings vague promise for pay raise if this or that, yadda yadda. I cant recall manager raising salary proactively to anyone, ever.
It is not that they would not value their teams, but they do see world in a business negotiation way and see it as their job to manage expenses too.
The threat of disloyalty being punished if there are cutbacks does not seem like all that much threat to me. There are so many factors in the decision, including who likes who and who drinks with who, that this is just a tiny drop in the bucket. Nevertheless, when there are cutbacks, having recent experience with job search and idea about how much money you can get elsewhere helps way more then theoretical sympathy - it reduces stress even if you are one of those who stay.
This has got to be some of the worst career advice I've ever heard. I made this mistake once, at my first software job. My employer's response was to say "NO" and then proceed to make my life hell in an attempt to make me quit. With a wife, kids, and a mortgage, that wasn't an option for me. I was eventually fired (for poor performance, a mere 2 months after receiving an 'outstanding' yearly appraisal) and spent 2 months unemployed before landing my next job. On the plus side, the offer I received was higher than the raise I had requested from my former employer.
So, my advice: Trusting your manager to be a reasonable human being is not worth the risk. You are absolutely satisfied with all aspects of your job, including your salary... right up until the moment you hand your boss a letter of resignation.
Now if you have a large amount of savings (say 6 months - 1 year of living expenses), feel free to take stupid risks. Otherwise, have another job lined up when you ask for a raise... you don't have to actually tell your boss about it, after all.
Would you give this advice in reverse too? Ignoring lawsuits for a minute, as a manager - should you always tell your employees that they are doing fine, even if they aren't, right up until the moment you fire them for poor performance?
Agreed. I've already gotten my team the best raise/promotion that I could. If they can find better at a different company, I wish them well.
And that's not sarcastic. I genuinely wish them well. It hurts to let a good employee go, and finding/training a replacement sucks, but we're all kind of stuck in this shitty US corporate culture together, and we have to look out for ourselves.
Then again, this employee has just presented you with evidence that maybe your compensation isn't competitive, which is something you can bring to the higher ups to increase your budget. If you're not competitive, you'll have retention problems and business will ultimately suffer.
So you got the best rate you could at the time with the information available, but competing offers could change that equation.
if your company has to make cutbacks [...] you're name's
likely to get further up the redundancy list than you'd
probably like.
I'm going to need a new job anyway, just in the latter case I've put in a few extra months where there was no money to give me a raise no matter how well I performed.
An employee ready to jump ship quicker than his peers means that his value is reduced to the organization, precisely because the long term value of the "internal knowledge fee" is reduced!
I agree with the OP's tactical move, but strategically I'm not so sure the mindset is the correct one. Maybe I was lucky, but I always had managers that stuck their necks for me. Full-time employment is not a consulting job that is fire & forget.
There could be a selection bias: does it show how many people switched to a job that turned out to be worse (pay/benefits/quality of work), or people that got fired because they had a much lower tenure than other employees, etc, or the cost of retraining personally for a different position.
1) It's not a matter of being happy or unhappy. Just about everyone wants to earn as much as possible, the goal being to get as quickly as possible to the point where one no longer requires employment.
2) It's not possible to know how much the market values you without seeking other offers and seeing how much they'll offer you.
3) If one of your employees comes to you and says "I would like a raise" with no additional context, I can't imagine you're likely to offer them much. If they say "I need a raise or else I'm going to start looking at other jobs", I doubt you'll treat that much different from coming to you with an offer already in hand.
As an employee with a manager like you, it seems like my best best is to get an offer first, and then come to you saying "I'm really happy here, but you're not paying me market rate, and I think I would also be happy at this other company that will pay me more."
Most people don't have this goal. I personally have it (FI/RE), but most don't, even most software engineers. This is pretty evident by the cars that they drive and the other money that they can be seen "wasting".
Some happy medium is really what people want.
Playing the devil's advocate, here's employee response which makes sense from his/her perspective:
But I have job offer paying 30% more. I could actually get multiple offers like that from several companies. So I am not afraid of your threat of "getting further up the redundancy list".
It seems to me that you, scarylam, would be a good line manager to work for.
But the reality is that most would not fight for you. Especially not when the two options being weighed are spending more money or having a somewhat dissatisfied employee, and maybe losing them later.
If the employee has some form of recourse the decision is very different. Spending more money or losing a part of your team now.
make you do your job as a manager?
> having a talk with your manager about your salary before going off and actively looking for other offers is going to go down a lot better
because then the employee doesn't know the market rate and the manager can get away with giving a garbage raise. Of course that's going to go down better, it's less work for the manager to dig it out of the budget or their boss
Edit: Made it a little less personal, my grudges are not with you.
A serious question for scaryclam (or anyone who agrees with him): Why is this? Excluding a few people with dream jobs, I didn't get hired at Company X because I love what they do or I feel they add to the world in a meaningful way: you guys needed code written or systems maintained or whatever it might be, I needed money. That is the extent of our relationship. Even if we've worked together for a long while and developed a bit of a friendship, it seems like the whole stigma surrounding bringing job offers into a workplace is based on a few things that when said aloud sound insane:
1) That I would be willing to subvert my own potential success for the good of Company X, which seems at best like a weird trade-off and at worst like some sort of cult;
2) That Company X doesn't want other people in my department to see what they could be making elsewhere, in which case see #1 for each of them and add to it a line of disingenuity to it too;
3) That Company X already knows that there are better competing jobs in the area (or close enough to threaten them anyway) and are taking internal action to prevent those threats from costing them employees in mass by trying to prevent employees from knowing about them, instead of raising pay/benefits to be more competitive
In any situation where a company is attempting to hide information of any kind, you can usually find a solid financial motive for doing so. I'm not saying that a company should always be paying everyone as much as they possibly can; obviously, each side of this table has their side to fight for. But if one of the sides is being dishonest about the facts then that side has already lost points going to that table; you say you'd fire me if I came to you with a job offer? Odds are that's known and I'm already on my way out, and whether you want to call it good or bad, that means you've lost me, and you're probably winding up to lose a few more.
But you don't make PEOPLE redundant, only POSITIONS.
If you are using redundancies as cover to target individuals that have annoyed you, then you will be shortly staring at the business end of a tribunal.
If a company has 10 developers and needs to cut down to 7, then the folks who have actively been interviewing in the near past are going to be considered more of a risk, especially by HR, who are likely to be making the list.
Hiring is an expensive endeavor, so if HR sees someone as a risk and they need to cut positions, you can bet that they're going to see it as a better thing to let employees who have a risk factor to them go than others who don't (on paper that is, no-one can know what's going to happen tomorrow).
They definitely don't want to cut the staff down and then have to go into a hiring stage soon after, because someone who was getting itchy feet decided to walk with another offer anyway.
This isn't about targeting people just because they want more money/fairer pay/more holiday/bonuses. It's just about how companies behave.
Sounds like it's still good advice if you won't fight for your employees to stay. The alternative to being upfront with your manager is just leaving when you think you can do better - many managers would prefer not to have the surprise.
> you're name's likely to get further up the redundancy list
Not my experience. In some cases, the employees able to leave easily are the better, or underpaid ones.
[1] https://medium.com/@alain94040/how-to-negotiate-a-raise-9166...
Relationships are important, sure, but you have to understand: management is not typically the friend of the worker, nor is HR.
Business is business. If they find someone to replace you at a fraction of your salary they will do it at a drop of a hat. Your manager pbly gets a bonus for reducing spending...
Wouldn't that be a good thing if you actually can get a job at the drop of a hat? If the company is doing badly then staying is probably bad for your career, plus you often get a redundancy payout.
If anything, it's probably worse to be at the bottom of the list - that often means that you're viewed as a bargain - i.e. you're being grossly underpaid.
Demonstrating that you're undervalued is not a threat, it's feedback on how the market values your employees. You give feedback on how well your employees are serving the business right? Why shouldn't it work the other way around?
Your work is not your family, this isn't personal judgment or criticism, this is just business.
Some of the tools for a quid pro quo relationship that extends beyond mere money include being able to tell people about big moves so that their lives aren't caught off guard. Coworkers help each other out in this regard. But should management?
People make their plans around timing, geography, and revenue from employment, and when management doesn't reveal big layoffs, big real estate changes, or other big restructurings, people have to up-end their lives. Management knows this, but values some things more, such as the company health. In doing so they set the tone of the relationship.
Management isn't in the position to establish a rich and sincere relationship with employees. There's always an element of insincerity because management isn't telling you things that your coworker friend would, the coworker friend who calls you from another company after the layoffs, recommending you to hop ship to their company. Would management ever tell you to hop ship to Apple?
One might argue that management ought never be in a position to establish such rich and sincere relations. One gossiping manager and you might trigger an early exodus. Or a wave of salary conversation. So managers ought not even know the very information which would help their employees stabilize their life against the uncertainty.
Also, if leadership doesn't want a union, and plenty of world-class places don't like unions, what is management's position to play then? Obviously squash the union talk.
Well, glad that people know that, so that they can wish the company good luck in getting second rate talent.
Most good line managers will recognise their employees contributions to the company and suggest a raise/additional compensation without needing to be prompted.
But if I have uncovered a huge pay discrepancy, you have already failed me. Both you and your HR department in fact. Sadly, I suspect that across many individuals, this is a winning strategy because most people don't actively manage their careers (to their detriment).
If the company has cutbacks, everyone's head is on the guillotine and it's time to jump ship anyway before the signal hits the employment market.
A fool and his employees are soon parted.
Sure but at the same time, that's only going to be one of the many elements that influence your position on the list. Actually, as far as redundancies go, being treated as an individual instead of being handled in bulk with specific project/team means that you are already rather higher up or a key employee for some reason meaning either your are a political animal or with a very good negotiation position.
And TBH, if the company is making cutbacks, all of the competent people will be scurrying away first; you might as well be one of them.
> I imagine this is good advice in some places, but as a line manager, if you
> pull this on me I'm more than likely to shake your hand and wish you luck in
> your new job.
If you make such concession for one employee, the next day you'll have 5 others with similar demands.
EDIT: One more thing: the reason why it is often easier to get a raise by changing jobs instead of negotiating it in your current workplace is information asymmetry.
Your current employer knows you all too well, so it is hard to convince them to pay you more. Potential new employer does not know that much about you, plus they are in need of new employee so they are more likely to give you more money.
Management knows the market rate for a given role. Let's say a good-not-great senior developer (as in give them a code base and a quiet room and you've got substantive code on day 1 or 2) commands $100k cash comp to make the math easy. You take the job for 10% below market for whatever those reasons happen to be. Maybe your last job was only $95k but this one has a much better vacation/retirement package.
If you go to your boss after 6-12 months of being a good senior dev and a good employee (meaning all the admin nonsense that comes along with being an employee - meetings, timely communication, generally not being an asshole, etc) and say that market rate is $100k, you're getting paid $90k, and you'd like $100-105k, they know that's a fair ask. Whether they are willing and/or able to actually pay you that ask is another thing.
My point being that there's nothing "terroristic" about asking for what you're worth. You can do it without a competing offer, but often times a competing offer is the easiest way to get something close to a market rate number.
Illusory superiority[1] is a real issue - about 70% of people think they are above average, so they keep demanding above-market salaries.
Plus, as I mentioned in my previous post, other employers have harder time evaluating person's skills through interviews than a company that currently employs them. So they offer above-average salary to your average employees and by the time they realize that they overpaid for their skills it usually is too late, so they keep them on payroll anyway - that's basically how IT salary bubble works, most of the time :) (at least that's how it works in Poland, I don't know a thing about US job market)
From my experience the reason why employees who have another offer even bother to mention it to their current boss, asking for counter, is because that other offer has some serious downside that prevents them from just accepting it right away.
Anyway, I can probably replace you with someone that will gladly take your current salary. And if I can't and end up paying your replacement the money you demanded (or more) at least I'll be paying that to the guy who is happy to work for me, not to someone who is already actively looking for other jobs.
If you're not offering similar compensation to other organisations, then anyone interviewing and getting offers from multiple places will likely not pick your organisation, unless you can compete on some other metric.
> the reason why it is often easier to get a raise by changing jobs instead of negotiating it in your current workplace is information asymmetry.
Yes, probably. Because without interviewing at other places you don't know what your skills might be worth, and your employer is probably not going to tell you how much your colleagues are getting paid and your 'boss' probably tells you "you're getting above industry average."
In a lot of places, having a talk with your manager about your salary before going off and actively looking for other offers is going to go down a lot better. Most line managers worth working for, value their teams and will fight for them if they are unhappy, without the threats.
And TBH, if your company has to make cutbacks in the future and you've shown you're willing to up and leave at the drop of a hat, you're name's likely to get further up the redundancy list than you'd probably like.