Talking to my employer about pay raise

Question

I am a Indian female, residing in India. My job is in the IT industry. I have been working as a contractor for the last 2 years, i.e., I am employed by a company X but work for company Y. This is a usual employment way here.

My appraisal phase is from Jan-Dec. Last Dec, I had sent an email for pay rise to my manager @ company X. After a lot of discussions with my managers at both company X and company Y, I was given a single digit hike which is less than 7%. And the hike was not given from the immediate Jan month but from March onwards. I had raised my concern that the arrears are not paid but I have not received any such payment till date.

Hike phase for this year is about to begin. I have already sent an email to my manager @ company X regarding the same. It's been 15-20 days but I have not received any intimation about the hike or the three months' arrears.

Also, there is one major point to be noted. There are two contractor positions in company Y. I have filled up one and been here for the last 2 years. The other one was filled by ~8-9 different people at various points of time. As you can see, none of them stayed for more than four months. The current one has also resigned. And there are interviews scheduled to fill in this position.

I have already mentioned to my managers that I want to stay in the company for a while; my performance has been good and hence I am expecting a good hike.

My arrears are not paid. I do not have intimation about my next hike either. My manager @ company X has not responded to my email, yet, though it's been ~15-20 days.

How else should I proceed?

How should I properly approach my boss if I'm feeling underpaid?

The suggested question covers a lot of things which are helpful while asking for a raise. This is something which I have already done. My main question is that my manager isn't responding to my pay hike request emails and how else should I approach him?

P.S. I have sent a follow up email as well. There is no response, yet. Similar thing happened last year as well. My request email and follow up emails were not replied to. In fact, my calls also were not returned. It took a lot of pushing from my manager at company Y. It was only then that the manager at company X had responded. The same sequence of events are recurring this year as well and I am apprehensive that manager at company Y might not even respond this time as he is in a different project now.

Answer 1

Simply requesting a pay raise without any rationale is generally not productive. You should, especially as a part of your annual review process, have a well documented list of your accomplishments over the last year with a special focus on how your work helped the company achieve its objectives. For example:

"I was instrumental in 'project x' where we completed it on schedule and 10% under budget. That project saved the company 'Y' so far and is projected to save another 'Z' by the end of next year."

Don't be afraid to "blow your own horn" as nobody knows what you did better than you did and you are your own #1 fan!

Also, check various salary surveys and job postings for someone with your skills and experience and find out what the market says you are worth.

Now you have hard data that says you're underpaid compared to your value to the company and to other companies.

Now you have made a business case that you should be a raise. If you don't get what you think you are worth, start shopping around!