Is Your Salary Bigger Than Your Value?

This is part of a series of posts about how employees can grow and become more valuable to their employer until their value becomes greater than what they are paid. Make sure you don’t miss anyone of them. I will make a free offer along the way as I celebrate my birthday this month.

A couple of years ago, I went for an entry aptitude test at Procter and Gamble. Something happened that made me wonder what people really look for in a job. I overheard some of the candidates discussing how much will be paid for the position. It seemed to me that all they were interested in was what they could get from the company and not what they will give.

My first job after graduating from the University in 2000 taught me a lesson about value. That was in 2000. With a degree in Electrical Electronics Engineering and a Diploma in Information Management Technology, I was paid N500 (that is less than $1 in today’s valuation). There was someone who was also employed but had no degree but who gets the job done (he was the rainmaker of the business). He was paid 14 times what I was paid.

I reasoned that if he was paid 14 times more than me, then he must be 14 times more useful and valuable to the organization than I was. From then on, I decided to focus on who I am becoming and how useful I am to people and organizations. Those who focus on what they will be paid hardly focus on who they become and how valuable they are becoming.

I discovered that the salary an employee earns is not a true reflection of her value. The salary is the employer’s valuation of the position the employee occupies. The job description is a set of tasks the employee need to perform to warrant the salary he will be paid. It is all determined by the employer. In most cases, the salary is bigger than the real value of the employee.

It may be the starting point but that doesn’t mean the employer should allow the employee to remain there. It's important for the organization that people continually increase their usefulness and value to become greater than their salary. There are two benefits to that:

1. They give more value to the position

2. They become people of value

When you are leaving a company, you leave the salary behind but leave with who you have become. That is why who you are becoming is much more important than what you are being paid. You should be very humble when what you are receiving is greater than what you are giving. You are being set for failure.

“Wages and income are about what the job is worth, not the individual.” Ron Rule

It’s the responsibility of your employer to create the environment that will enable you to grow your value. However, it is your responsibility to ensure that you grow and increase your value to your employer. If you focus on what you will be paid, you will never grow in value. But if you focus on your growth, your value will always increase.

Pity an employee who is being paid more than the value he brings to the table. He is a value taker. And by being a taker, he is robbing the company. One day the organization will realize that and he will be asked to leave. That is because with him on the ship, the future of the business continually gets smaller and smaller. Job descriptions are not the best way to evaluate the usefulness and value of employees to an organization. Value creation should be. No one should remain in a business with their salary greater than the value they bring.

The job description is the expectation of the employer. It’s a way of the employer controlling what an employee does to produce an outcome. That may be the starting point for most employees. The end should be to bypass the job description and create value. You should not get your value from the position but rather the position should get its value from the value you bring to it.

An organization that wants to continually make its future bigger and better should have more employees who bring more value than what they are being paid. They are constantly on a growth trajectory that makes them more valuable than the expectations of their employer. They are always making their contributions bigger than their compensation. That is a sign of growth.

When I coach employees to be Value Givers, that is always the mutual goal: to make them 10x more valuable to their employer and collaborate with others to create 100x more value. Always make the value you bring to the position you occupy greater than the salary you are receiving. That is the sign that you are growing. How do you know a tree that is growing? It produces more fruit.

1. Negotiate Your Value, Not Seek Salary Increase: You should not try to seek an increase in salary without first increasing your value. You should negotiate an increase with your value to the company. That way if your employer refused to, you can take your value somewhere else. If your value hasn’t increased, you are at the mercy of your employer. However, with an increasing value, your employer will be the one to lose.

2. Bring Your Skills Not Needs: Don’t bring your needs to your employer even if she treats you like family. Always bring your skills. If you have a need, learn a skill. Go out of your way to meet the needs of your employer by developing new skills. When you have a need, focus on your employer’s needs. Your employer’s needs require skills, while your needs will be met when you are compensated for helping meet your employer’s needs.

3. Supply Value Not Demand: When employees want a raise, most times they demand it. That only creates strife and disrupts the free flow of business which hurts your employer and you more. Always focus on what you can supply. No one ever gets money by demand except thieves and armed robbers. Always focus on supplying what your employer needs. Demand means you are focusing on yourself while supply means you are focusing on your employer. When you are going through challenging times, focus on your employer and not yourself. That way you will transform it.

4. Grow Your Value Not Seek Promotion: To grow your value, you have to grow yourself. Focus on growing yourself and you will become overqualified for the position. When you bring more value to the position, everyone will notice it. Until you become overqualified for that position, you need not be promoted. Promotions should not be based on the number of years spent but on the quality of value brought to the position.

Your real value to your employer is not the position you occupy and you meeting expectations but the value you bring to the organization that exceeds your employer’s expectations. When you bring more value to the organization, eventually you will be paid for that value.

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