When an Employee Asked for a Raise: Three Essential Questions to Ask

Once upon a time, I learned a painful lesson when an employee asked for a raise. It’s a story I often think about, reflecting on what I should have done differently. Here’s that tale, along with the three crucial questions that slipped my mind at the moment.

The Background

Running a mortgage business is no small task, especially when the market takes a dive like it did for us. During this time, my marketing manager, quite adept at his role, knocked on my door seeking a raise. In an attempt to keep things running smoothly and maybe a bit too quickly to keep him happy, I agreed, but under a new arrangement that would offload some of my tasks onto him.

The Mistake

This is where I should have paused. Transitioning him from his expertise to tasks he was less prepared for required asking:

1. How will this improve our business?
2. Will this get us more customers?
3. Will this make us more money?

Unfortunately, these questions didn’t come up. Instead, I equipped him with responsibilities he wasn’t ready to handle—yes, including that dreaded mortgage calculator he barely knew how to operate. How did I let someone who couldn’t use a mortgage calculator get so involved in the mortgage side of the business? I assumed that after being in the industry for over a decade, figuring out mortgage payments wouldn’t be an issue. This was on me for not asking the right questions—I’m really yelling at my younger self here.

Ignoring the Signs

To make matters trickier, I turned a deaf ear to the rumblings from our real estate agents, business partners, and even our clients. When I finally confronted him with these issues, his defense was robust, albeit misplaced. He argued that traditional prospecting was redundant for our once thriving business, not recognizing that we were bleeding clients because, frankly, we had the wrong man juggling tasks he wasn’t cut out for.

The Consequences

His learning curve and focus on new tasks meant our marketing—the job he was originally smashing out of the park—suffered. Client relationships weren't maintained, and the database became outdated. All this came to light only after he had moved on, leaving us to pick up the pieces.

The Oversight

During this upheaval, we had a couple of temps who quickly picked up the mortgage aspect within a month—individuals who would have been much better suited to fill this role. Their quicker adaptation to the work proves a missed opportunity to keep our marketing efforts from falling off.

The Lesson

Looking back, clear-headed and question-armed, I would have steered the conversation towards maximizing his strengths rather than patching up my schedule. Rewarding him for enhancing our business through his proven skills in marketing would have been the right move.

The Real Impact

This shift hurt us both. He missed out on growing right where he was planted, which could have led to even greater earnings and responsibilities once the market bounced back. Instead, he chose immediate gratification, which came with its own set of long-term drawbacks—for both of us.

The Takeaway

Here’s what I learned and what I hope you can take away too:

• How will this improve our business?
• Will this get us more customers?
• Will this make us more money?

Questions that seem so simple now were overlooked then, to my detriment. Being a boss means making decisions that not only respond to immediate needs but foster long-term stability and growth. I missed that mark here, and it’s a misstep I own completely.

Remember, every decision should propel your business forward, not just plug a gap. This was a lesson learned the hard way, through a decision that perhaps was too accommodating to an employee who, in the end, was looking out for number one. Let’s just say, next time, I’ll keep my questions ready and my eyes wide open.