7 Ways to Negotiate a Demotion (With Your Boss)
Do you work too much?
Work environment expectations are changing. Exhaustingly long days are no longer tolerated and decent pay is demanded. The “Great Resignation” isn’t just about no one “wanting to work” — no one is selling their time below market rate anymore. Hours spent with family and on passion projects are valued higher than hours on a paycheck.
Amidst this nationwide cultural change, I too hit a predicament at what I thought was my dream job. I began the position a powerhouse, working 12 to 16 hours a day easily out of passion for the job. We were building a bar, and reopening a closed restaurant during COVID. I was exhausted and loving life.
But we completed both projects, and as we waited for the next, the outlook for another waned. I didn’t see signs of another incoming project. I began to think about restructuring my position. I was tired of working 60 hours a week to satisfy the implicit expectations that came with my decent salary. I needed a title change and a reduction in hours.
Here’s how I negotiated a demotion with my boss.
1. Empathize With Your Employer
When I found myself looking to reduce my hours, I was nervous about how my boss would perceive my request. Enter the financials. Based on our lack of potential clients in the consulting pipeline, I knew there was no new money coming through the pipeline.
I outlined the skills I brought to the business within and outside of my role and gave them a monetary value. I based the value on market rate and how much my services had grown the business.
I noted that my cocktail menu design and pricing structure had increased sales by 42%. Knowing this, I argued he pay me for specific work where he maximized his ROI. He wanted to save money while generating more; my creativity could increase his earnings and support the bottom line if he only paid me for work with measurable gains. I empathized with his financial situation.
I made it 100% clear that I was very grateful for:
- the original offer under which I accepted employment and:
- the skills I had gained outside of my role.
The more you show your employer you understand the hardships, sacrifice, and dynamic nature of the business, the more likely they are to see your value as an employee or contractor.
2. Be Gracious
Be grateful that they’re even willing to taking time to chat with you. Successful business owners are bombarded with requests and complaints all day; they don’t have to share their time with you.
They value you enough to show face, which means they’re open to your proposal. Make it worth their time to be there. This leads me to my next point. . .
3. Do Your Research
I dug through our historical sales data to get a full financial picture of my impact on the business. If there was a rock, I overturned it.
Be able to speak to not only your value, but what losing you would cost the business in the end. If you can, model the numbers to show visually (not just numerically) your quantitative effect on the business.
4. Give Your Employer Options
I exercise many capabilities that fall outside of my current role. I kept track of those skills I had acquired and used them to propose an hourly rate for hours worked doing just those things.
I wanted to point out that I charge an hourly rate for roles that I am required to show up and work at; this allows me to be paid for my presence rather than my creations, like menus and systems.
Throughout our conversation I made it overtly clear that I was flexible and open to negotiation over my pay for each role.
5. Don’t Underestimate the Power of Flat Fees
Flat fees are near nonexistent in the restaurant world. Part of my negotiation was a weekly hourly amount and a quarterly flat fee for menu creation.
Restaurant seasons are fickle for your books, so I knew that there would be a few months that he would profit heavily off of the menu and other months where he’d still make money (just not as much!)
The power of a flat fee is that it functions, in essence, like a salary: you pay one amount regardless of the hours worked. It also empowers you to put a numeric value on a piece of creative work — instead of your time spent creating the item.
It’s like a having a piece of work commissioned rather than being an employee. If you’re in a creative role, explore a flat fee system if your work will be reoccurring.
6. Be Prepared to Hear “No.”
I was fully prepared for my employer to disagree with me, but I argued my demotion to the point he would be silly to say no. I highlighted how much he would save by demoting me whilst retaining the most critical aspects of the job he had hired me for.
I made the entire proposal based off of what he could gain by allowing me to work less rather than about what I needed as a person. I certainly needed an hours reduction (I was sleep deprived and was struggling with short-term memory loss due to stress) but I couldn’t imagine my boss (or any boss, for that matter) making a business decision based on his empathy for me.
7. Make Them Think It’s Their Idea
He ended our conversation convinced he had been thinking the same thing. Maybe he had, but the visible agreement was gradual rather than stark; I could see him slowly understanding why this would work for him in a multitude of ways.
He could only see it one way at the end of our talk: my way. My conclusions were his too, so that’s how the deal closed.
