What's the Best Day to Ask for a Raise?

New Mexico Business Journal, March, 2000

Don't be looking for more money from your boss on a Monday or Tuesday. Mondays are typically reserved for taking care of such negative duties as poor performance reviews and terminations while Tuesdays have become notorious as the day when mass job cuts are announced. That's according to John Challenger, the ceo of Challenger, Gray & Christmas, the outplacement firm, and he should know. He says forward-looking companies tend to get bad news out of the way early in the week because employers and employees are better able to make adjustments and improvements during the rest of the week. Well, it's a theory.

Challenger offers some guidelines as to what employees might expect each day of the week. Mondays are for firings, or should be, and not Fridays, which really ruins a weekend. Tuesdays, as mentioned, are for mass layoffs. Wednesdays are for company and departmental meetings; the week can be surveyed from its midpoint. Thursdays are for job offers. In today's tight labor market, companies should try to structure the hiring process so that the individual isn't given the weekend to have second thoughts. Fridays are for favorable performance reviews, which isn't the worst time to ask for that raise; any day is a good day to receive one.