I'll reply with advice to your questions here as well (I've helped hundreds of SEs already, but want to do more research), thanks for taking the time to help me out!
What I want is to work less. I currently work slightly less than 40 hours a week, and have a few weeks of vacation. Ideally I would like to work 4 or fewer days per week and have 5+ weeks of vacation time per year. I have attempted to negotiate this with my current employer as well as potential ones. I have never been successful. Everyone wants me to waste my life away sitting at a desk in their office.
TL;DR: How do I successfully negotiate more time off instead of more money?
Why do they show up as being deducted from your salary in your statements then?
You could try to disconnect your employer's association with your butt in a chair in the office with the value the get from paying you. One way to do that is to negotiate a remote work arrangement, Tim Ferris or Remote by 37 Signals have some great advice about how to do that.
As far as actually setting an expectation that you will work 4 days a week when everyone else works five, unless you've established yourself as a particurally irreplaceable piece of their puzzle.. you're probably going to need to find an employer that embodies that culture, I know there are various companies that do 4 day work weeks. It becomes really difficult for employers to justify why one person isn't around when everyone else is, they're afraid of the dominos... wether justified or not. Again... remote work makes this much easier.
Once I'm at the job, I just take a normal raise when it comes along. That means I can then work less hours from that point forward for the same pay, giving me the same end result as what you're looking for without having to negotiate for something unusual every year.
I think the reason employers might be uncomfortable with letting you work four days is that it'll create the illusion of unfairness to your co-workers. They can't see how much you're getting paid, but you having a day off a week is very visible.
Don't really have any advice; I started as a regular full time employee, and after 9 months or so went to my manager, said "how about I only work 30 hours?" and he said "sure". No issues at all. So just have to find the right company I guess.
Another big one is the "We are locked by HR on base comp, but we'll be sure to make you whole at year end!". When year end comes you dont get paid anyway (if they know you won't leave).
Would love to find a stress free counter to these :)
EDIT: Ultimately, IMO, you must be ready to walk out when negotiating a raise. Otherwise you won't get anything material.
This. Otherwise they can say any sad story or excuse and make you stay forever without a raise...
It wasn't until it sunk into my head that, generally speaking, there's an inherent conflict of interest between employer and employee. The employer wants to get the best bang for their buck; have talented people work for them at the lowest reasonable price. On the opposite end, the employee obviously wants to get paid the most they can get. It's because of this that (most of the time) an employer won't proactively seek out reasons to pay you more. Once I truly realized this, I became a stronger advocate for myself (because nobody else will be). This is usually the advice I give to younger developers who are working their way up the latter.. aside from saying that you should actually build your case for why a raise/promotion is appropriate. Do the work - do more than is expected of you - and be your own advocate.
Turnover is very expensive, somewhere between 6 months and 2 years of salary per employee that turns over. So an employer should proactively offer raises to keep their employees' salaries near market rate and help avoid turnover costs.
It's short-sighted to keep salaries low. That's not to say companies don't do short-sighted things though...
Open with: I built the good thing that saves us $5k/mo. My design is clean and easy for a new guy to maintain. My work-product is obviously valuable and from that I deserve financial recognition.
When I used to negotiate my own salary I used that approach. one time (in 2001) it worked to take my salary up by $3k/mo - I had only been there 3 months.
Be prepared to walk. Remember that recruiters can get you a new gig in weeks. Hold that for 6mo while finding the right one
Money is usually not a topic people are comfortable talking about.
Also when you're taking a broader market into consideration, be sure to consider quality of life. Yes I may get more money somewhere, but it might be a miserable product/team/culture which reduces the value of that position. Or I might have a shorter commute, fewer hours or more vacation, which would add to the value of the other position.
I got a job about 4 years ago as a software engineer which required my wife and I to move to a new state (away from family). I actually wanted to move out of state which is why I applied for the job in the first place. We had no commitments. We lived in a small modest apartment. The first two years I received a raise and a bonus without me having to negotiate at all.
Within the past two years however, we bought our first house and had our first child. I have not received a raise or bonus these past two years. Now is the time I actually need it.
I fell into the trap. They were willing to pay to keep me here but now that I'm stuck here, they don't need to offer me an incentive to stay. I've lost my leverage when I bought a house and had a kid.
Also you're not stuck there. People with houses and kids move. It's not as easy, but you aren't exactly treading new ground.
What makes you feel like you've lost your leverage b/c of your family obligations? It seems unlikely that you have... but a deep examination of what makes you feel that way is important.
There are people out there who will hire you remote. In our job it's perfectly feasible to work remote. And don't discount the possibility of other companies in the state as well.
Many people assume that not being local to the company is a non-starter. My experience has been that companies will make a lot of things happen for the right fit. Network, talk to people and see if you can fill the need that company has.
It is also good to interview occasionally to simply know your current market rate. If you're already got offers though, it sounds like you know it as is.
could be something random where you dropped the ball on something in the past year, and you almost forgot about it, but it would be brought in the review process.
It didn't really get better till I learned that if necessary I could always get a raise by switching companies.
If I could sum it up I would say the biggest pain point was knowing my own worth in the market.
He only makes recommendations and more often than not those recommendations are not listened to by central HQ. Should I ask to talk with the section director? What is a viable strategy in this case? I am preparing a viable BATNA at the moment.
In any case I'm very interested in those recommendations!!
EDIT: I want to be certain what I think and claim is market rate is in fact market rate.
there is a risk/reward benefit that one enters by asking for a raise, where if all things were to stay the same, I could walk away relatively unscathed.
this could change depending on whether or not you were asking for a raise because you feel you deserve it, financial necessity, or both.
http://www.mgadams.com/2015/06/30/the-software-engineers-gui...
that's so true...