Noch einmal Gehalt — Salary, Again

Asking for more money in Germany, and the thing nobody tells you

Salary conversations here are more procedural and less theatrical than in many places, and the procedure is worth knowing because most of the leverage is in it rather than in your delivery. Where your pay comes from depends on whether a collective agreement applies. Under a Tarifvertrag, negotiated between a union and an employers' association, your pay is set by your grade and your years of service, and there is genuinely very little to negotiate — what you can argue about is which grade you are in, which is a factual question about your duties. Outside the Tarif system, or where you are paid übertariflich, above the collective rate, there is an individual conversation and this dialogue is what it looks like. Asking which regime you are in is a sensible early question, and lesson 58's contract will say. The timing is usually fixed rather than opportunistic. Most employers hold an annual Gehaltsgespräch, often tied to a Mitarbeitergespräch or Zielvereinbarung, and raises are decided in a budget round for everyone at once. This is why Frau Weber's Spielraum is three per cent rather than a matter of will: she is distributing a pot. The practical consequence is that the useful conversation happens before the budget is set, not after, and that asking mid-year usually gets you a supplement rather than a raise. Now the thing nobody tells you. Germans famously do not discuss their salaries with colleagues, and many believe they are forbidden to. They are not. Clauses in an employment contract purporting to ban employees from discussing their own pay are generally unenforceable, because comparing pay is how unequal pay is discovered and the right to do it is protected. Beyond that, the Entgelttransparenzgesetz gives employees in larger companies a right to ask, in writing, what the median pay is for comparable colleagues of the other sex — a real, usable entitlement that goes almost unused. If you want a benchmark, you are not limited to job ads and salary websites. Three more pieces of the package to have in mind, because they are negotiable when base pay is not. das Weihnachtsgeld or the dreizehnte Monatsgehalt, a thirteenth month's pay, which is contractual where it exists rather than a gift. Zulagen and Zuschäge for specific duties or hours, which is the route Frau Weber offers and which has the disadvantage of being removable when the duty ends. And the things that are not money at all: Urlaubstage above the contractual minimum, a Fortbildungsbudget, a Jobticket, Homeoffice days as at lesson 86, or a shorter week. In a year when the budget has not grown, those are where the actual movement is, and asking for one of them in place of the percentage is a normal and well-understood move rather than a climbdown.