Analyze Offer, Identify Your Priorities, Study Industry Standards
By Jennifer Anne Hohman
AAPA’s Salary Report is your key to unlocking a competitive and personally and professionally beneficial benefits package. This article covers ways of using the in-depth benefits data uniquely offered by AAPA to make the most of your contract negotiation. The benefits section of an employment contract is a rich area for negotiation because it contains many different elements to be negotiated. I work with PA clients daily to help them to maximize the value of their employment agreements through negotiation. Here are the strategies that have resulted in improved offers.
First: Analyze the Offer
It’s exciting to move from successful interview to live job offer, no doubt about it! After savoring that accomplishment, prepare to scrutinize what’s been put in writing with a clinical objectivity. For starters, do a systematic assessment of whether the offer described to you during the interview has made it into print. It’s quite common for there to be discrepancies and omissions particularly in the benefits section of a contract, and correcting them is a good place to start. Essential benefits commonly afforded to PAs include: health insurance for self and family members, liability coverage, paid time off for vacation, CME and sick leave, maternity/paternity leave, professional society memberships (state PA associations, AAPA) CME/professional education funding, loan repayment, and relocation stipends.
Second: Identify Your Benefit Priorities
Fringe benefits are essential to one’s quality of personal and professional life, and so they are a key aspect of contract negotiation and to creating a PA position you’ll want to stay happily at over time. When is the best time to negotiate to get the most out of your benefits package? During the honeymoon period just after an offer has been presented. When an employer wants to hire, strike while the iron is hot and use this time to contribute your perspective and priorities to your fringe benefits package. Don’t overlook annual evaluations as another opportunity to negotiate, especially when your contributions and solid performance have been recognized.
Everyone has different needs and priorities when it comes to benefits (and those change over time). What are yours now? Knowing what benefits are most important to you allows you to calibrate your discussions with an employer accordingly, and engage in the give-and-take that is the hallmark of successful negotiation. Perhaps loan repayment a priority for you, or maybe a generous vacation budget with which to recharge and refresh.
Third: Study Current Industry Standards
Put the AAPA’s Salary Report to work for you by delving into its uniquely rich trove of PA compensation data. As a starting point, compare the median and 75th percentiles in key benefit areas to your contract. In addition, check to see that benefit elements important to you appear in the contract; many employers do not include a full spectrum of benefits but can be persuaded to add benefit categories as part of the negotiation process. Sharing AAPA’s data is an effective way of educating employers about what their peers are offering—and what you should be receiving.
Fourth: Create Your Negotiation Strategy
Negotiation is the art of reconciling the expectations, needs and priorities of two parties into a realistic compromise. Team practice flourishes when grounded in clear agreements and a fully negotiated contract. Getting to that point—or trying–can be tense, but the rewards of negotiation rather than accepting an offer “as is” are considerable. I observe this in my work with PA clients: only by asking for data-supported improvements to a contract (including its benefits provisions) do we get them.
As a preface to negotiation, it helps to set a positive tone by re-iterating your interest in the job and enthusiasm for joining the team. Share your appreciation for the offer and move the discussion forward assuming positive intent. Some useful ways to frame the negotiation discussion include: “I’m interested in creating a long-lasting and successful partnership and for that reason would like to discuss the offer in detail in order to clarify it and also negotiate some of its aspects with you.” Or, “How can we look for solutions to areas where we disagree?”
A cooperative approach encourages a constructive, win-win dialogue and sets a great tone for your future work together. At the same time, a certain clarity and strength in negotiations comes from having clearly delineated “walk away points”: failure to provide essential benefits may be one of them. I encourage clients to only accept offers that advance their careers in terms of practice and compensation. With awareness of the latest benefits data and your own benefits priorities, I hope readers will feel empowered to negotiate contracts that will truly benefit them.
Jennifer Anne Hohman is founder of PA Career Coach, a service dedicated to helping PAs create healthy and sustainable careers. Send your PA questions and concerns [email protected].