Getting blindsided by an employee asking for more money can lead to awkward, tricky conversations for managers.
“No manager should go into any review winging it, not just for raise purposes,” Karan Dillon, former editor of the Harvard Business Review, told The Muse.
To better prepare for getting asked about a raise, managers should tell employees before performance reviews whether or not the budget allows for a raise, and put the work in to evaluate whether employee performance exceeds expectations.