How to Get a Promotion at Work: 11 Tips to Help You Move Up
“Financial rewards follow accomplishment; they don’t precede it.”
~ Harry F. Banks
If you’re like Lance, you can’t just hope that you’ll get the reward down the road for all your hard work. Instead, you must take control of your career and stop hiding out.
Here are some tips to get you started if you’re not sure how to go about getting a promotion at work:
1. Make a list of all the things you accomplished in the last year.
For each accomplishment, try to assign a dollar amount on how it benefited the company. That way you’ll be able to prove your worth during your next performance evaluation or salary review.
2. Proclaim your achieved results.
If you get good results and your clients like your work, it’s important to spend time proclaiming the achieved results. Even if it takes longer to document the results so the key people in management see what it took to get the results (effort, steps, process, details, etc.), they will appreciate who you are and what you have accomplished. The key is to not wish for more recognition, but to start being an incredible advocate for yourself.
3. Make your results more perceivable.
Your results will become evident when they are communicated in an easily understood way. The more the break down the result into its many parts, the perceived value will be seen as higher.
4. Know how you are being perceived.
Every time you communicate, think about how are you will be perceived – in meetings I attend, emails I create, conference calls, interact with client or upper management.
5. Be seen as a valuable resource and get others to appreciate what you do.
Your company needs to know all the things you do and how each accomplishment provides something that benefits the company. If they don’t see the value in what you are doing when you communicate it, it isn’t relevant. The more they know, the more they appreciate the work you do.
6. Stop perpetuating the perception management has of you.
Make a list of how you are currently being perceived by top management and your peers. For each negative perception, write down how you would like to be viewed. Then, carefully monitor your behavior at work to make sure you are reinforcing the positive traits, while deemphasizing the negative ones.
7. Educate your management about what you do and what your position is in the company.
Often management just sees your position as a commodity that is replaceable. They take what you do for granted. Educate management about how valuable your position is and all the things you do in making your job work as well as it does. As you educate them, they will begin to alter how they view the entire position (e.g. marketing, sales, programmer, and project manager) of what you do.
8. Become a communication expert.
Communication skills are one of the most important skills considered when determining who will be hired or promoted. Joining Toastmasters is a good way to improve your communication skills and get used to addressing groups of people with confidence.
9. Constantly think about how management will value what you just did.
How will management value this? How will management hear this so they will recognize it contributes to the bottom line?
10. Stretch yourself to be different so you stand out.
Management is used to you being who you are. Stretch yourself in ways that can impact perception. If you are used to being quiet at meetings, speak up. If you speak up at meetings, hold back and only speak when you have something really important to say.
11. Get clients to share how great you are.
When you do something positive for a client, ask them to speak up on your behalf by writing what they appreciate and then sharing this with your management. You can explain how management isn’t fully aware of the work you are doing so it would be good for them to know what you did. If you can do this 4-6 times a year, it will start to influence how management views you.
