We always talk about expense cutting and methods to increase savings as the way to go for wealth accumulation. However, it's a fact that savings will always remain a subset of income. Hence many of us who attempt to save more and cut out unnecessary expenses may eventually find our backs against the wall because there's a limit to how much we can cut without feeling miserable. Recently I've met up with a friend who is pretty focused on increasing his income. Through that conversation, I've come up with 3 ways to increase our income in our day to day job which I believe goes a long way to complement whatever saving approach we may have.

Become a Specialist

The crux to getting more pay from your company is to justify why retaining you is better than getting a new cheaper hire. One way is to find an area of expertise to specialise in. Most specialist roles require specific knowledge. In other words, there's a limited pool of talent to hire from. If you have relevant experience in the firm, it might be costlier to replace you with another specialist. In the first place, because the pool of talent are limited, it will not be as easy to find a replacement hence the higher remuneration. Some examples include like auditors moving into specialised roles like transfer pricing, tax and IT engineers becoming system architects.

Upgrade knowledge or productivity

When my friend started out, he worked really long hours. His rational was that he was a more efficient producer of work than his peers so he could take on more tasks. The company paying him was getting more value compared to some of his colleagues because more work was done for the same wages. Even when a colleague quit, the damage wasn't serious as one of him could be two of them so the company rather just raise his pay than to hire a new headcount. As he progressed with his career, he sought to gain more knowledge to do work more efficiently and also the experience to handle more complicated tasks. He is always questioning if he justified his increased wages. Would an employer be better off increasing his pay or risk losing him in exchange to use the same budget to hire two junior staff or foreigners?

Increase your qualifications

This sounds like a no brainer. In fact, we sometimes like to convince ourselves that once we have entered the workforce, paper qualifications compared to work experience is less important. There's a great degree of truth to this. I'm a believer that sometimes the most paper qualified person may not be the most competent. Having said that, when you reached the peak of your salary limit for certain corporate ranks, how do you justify demanding a raise? I think that good qualifications really carry value when it's in the relevant industry you are working in coupled with relevant experience. Essentially today if I wanted a masters degree, I could easily go to a private school pay some money and 'buy' a degree after a year. The barrier of entry is relatively low hence I doubt it will serve as very strong justification for higher pay. However, if through the work experience, you succeed in getting better qualifications like a Masters in an established university or CFA for those in investment finance sectors, then it carries value as the barriers of entry is higher. Even if your company can't afford to pay you, someone in the industry will.

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Disclaimer: The content created are based on my personal opinions and may not be representative to everyone or any organisation. If you have any doubts or queries pertaining to insurance or investment, please seek professional advice from a trusted adviser in an official setting. You may also reach out to me if you do not have a present adviser using the message box under 'Let's Talk'.