How to Get Promoted

You’ve been working hard at your job for what seems like eons. 

You’re getting great feedback from your bosses and colleagues.

You feel like you’re in the zone, really delivering quality work each and every day of the week.

You consistently go above and beyond what is required for your role. 

Yet, you’ve been in the same role for a while now and, you have no idea why you’ haven’t been promoted!

Can’t they see everything you’re doing for the company? 

The reality today for many companies and managers is that they’re putting out fires most days. 

Everyone is so busy fixing things and solving problems that they forget to spend an equal amount of time and focus to proactively manage the work and the people. 

They focus on “problem employees” while completely forgetting that it’s just as important to ensure they keep great employees motivated, engaged and rewarded in order to retain them! 

What’s a high achieving, high performing, ambitious professional to do? 

You need to proactively set yourself up for that promotion and deliberately ask for it!

Here’s how: 

1- Make sure you EARN the promotion:

While performing excellent work and achieving your on-the-job targets and objectives is key, you also need to look at your work through the eyes of your employer. 

With that lens, ask yourself these questions:

1. What would make me and my role even more valuable? 
2. How can I deliver even more results? 
3. How can I specifically increase the ROI (return on investment) of my work? 
4. What can I do to help the company earn more money, be more efficient, save money? 

These are all great questions that can lead you to clues as to how you can make yourself even more valuable to your employer. 

If you don’t have any answers to these questions, consider speaking with your manager. you’d be surprised how questions like these can be refreshing for a manager to hear and instantly elevate your profile!

2- ASK for the promotion: 

For many, asking for a promotion feels challenging. 

We seem to think promotions should just be handed over as our reward for our good work. 

Unfortunately, that’s not how things play out most of the time. 

Busy managers often can’t see the benefits of proactively creating career paths for high performers. 

It becomes your job to help motivate and encourage them to do so!

Here are some steps to help you get the dialogue going in asking for a promotion: 

1. Find an appropriate time to set up a meeting with your manager.
2. Have an open and honest, positive conversation with them that’s focused on the value that you’ve brought to the company. Have some specific examples of your top, most recent accomplishments. 
3. Specifically say that you’re looking for your next step in your career aka a promotion. 
4. Be clear about what that is – a new role, more responsibilities, higher pay etc… 
5. Be open to your manager’s feedback. They may need to see you exhibit different skills or behaviours or even complete some additional training. 
6. Work out a plan with your manager, with a specific timeline.