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Couple of days ago, I visited my cousin’s son who was admitted to a specialist hospital for brain haemorrhage. As a very active 3 ½ years old boy, he fell from a flimsy chair and hit his head on a tiled floor last week. He was okay after the fall, being active as normal but after couple of days, he started to complain pain in his head. My cousin brought him to the hospital for a check up and was recommended a CT scan. The CT scan showed a mild blood clot between the skull and the brain. Yesterday, the doctor decided to proceed with the operation to remove the blood clot because of the persistence pain. Thank God (Alhamdulilah) the operation was a success and he is recovering well now.

You might be wondering why I’m sharing this incident with all of you. Well, while I was at the hospital, I understand from my cousin that the company he is working with do not provide medical insurance to his son. What a shock to me. He just joined that company as a specialist engineer with a relatively good pay and not getting a commonly given benefit is really shocking news to me. Luckily he has enrolled on a personal medical coverage for his son. Imagine if he has not taken the insurance coverage, that will be very ugly

Starting from that day, I started to think on how to assess our needs vs. the benefit given by the company before accepting a job offer. That is why I’m writing this article today to share some tips which may be helpful for all of us.

#1

Salary vs. needs

Money is never enough. No doubt it is a fact but practically there is a limit to it. Any easy way to gauge how much you are worth is by doing a salary comparison. Jobstreet provides FREE salary report on common job positions where you can gauge your salary level.

Another good way to gauge your salary level is by understanding the cost of the job and by crunching the numbers; you will have an estimated range for your salary level. Typically the costs are contributed by fixed monthly expenses such as the mode of transportation, clothing, communication needs, food, accommodation and other commitments such as education, family obligations and etc. Once you have the numbers, tabulate them into a spreadsheet and get the total expenses. This will be your fixed monthly expenses that you will need to spend to have or maintained a comfortable lifestyle. Hence your salary must be higher than your fixed expenses, typically 40%-50% more but depends on the market level & your capability.

# 2

MUST have benefits

Each individual have their own list of MUST have benefits. It may vary from a person to another, but typically companies are provided the following general benefits:

·        Life insurance

·        Medical insurance

·        Dependent medical insurance

·        Medical/Dental expenses

·        Dependent medical expenses

If you are not getting any of these general benefits, then you can either reject the job offer or negotiate to get them.

# 3

Good to have benefits

The list of good to have benefits can be anything under the sun. It is up to you and your employer to decide what additional benefits you should get. The bottom line, regardless what the benefits are, most importantly is both, you and your employer are in a win-win situation. Negotiate wisely so that you can get what you should deserve.

Good luck

Till then,

Take care.

Regards

Yusoff