How to Ask for a Promotion or Pay Rise

Are you looking to increase your salary, progress up the career ladder, or find out how to to ask for a promotion? (and actually get one) YES – then this article and podcast episode is for you!

How to ask for a salary increase and/or promotion can feel uncomfortable for many reasons. Sometime people find that they don’t know how to justify or present it, they could be too nervous, or don’t want to seem ungrateful. Many women can stay in their comfort zone rather than be assertive in their career progression, which is one of the reasons the gender pay gap still exists as men can be quite the opposite in their demeanour.

Within this article and podcast episode, we unpack a strategy of how to increase your salary and achieve career progression with Anamika Yadav, Transformation Consultant at Salesforce and #IamRemarkable Facilitator, which is a Google initiative empowering women and other underrepresented groups to celebrate their achievements in the workplace and beyond . 

So What Does Anamika Know About Asking About a Promotion?

“I started out at at Salesforce three and a half years ago and since then, I’ve been very lucky and fortunate to have fantastic people around me who have supported me during the promotion process, where I’ve been able to get four promotions during that time.”

“My approach to asking for a promotion was influenced by the #IamRemarkable Google Initiative that i benefited from, which is about installing self belief in yourself. It really highlighted to me actually, that women and underrepresented groups shy away from talking about this. And it’s really at odds with cultural expectations, I think particularly being British, and having an Indian lens and also being female, you don’t talk about your accomplishments enough and remain humble. You don’t do these things. You know, eventually someone will have and someone will acknowledge you. Someone will see your efforts and it will pay off. But unfortunately that’s not the reality of the world we live in. And I remember speaking to a friend and she really openly just said to me…..

“If you don’t talk about your own successes, no one else will”

Demonstrate Your Performance and Believe in Yourself 

Anamika is now a IamRemarkable Facilitator and she believes this is an important message to share with other women. Below she shares her top tips for asking for a promotion:

You need to talk about your accomplishments. You need to share them, but in a style that’s authentic to you. So it’s not bragging if it’s based on facts and if it’s coming from a true, authentic voice and one where you can back it up by facts and evidence.

Start a brag journal or achievement book and start to add all of the feedback and positive comments you have had back from people. Screenshot it and add it to your journal. Whatever that accomplishment is, capture it. Keep it for two reasons. The first is it aids, those promotion conversations. You’ve got a really clear history on your successes and what’s been working well for you. And you’ve got it in one easy. The second. is it helps you when you’re having a bad day. Sometimes it’s hard to stay motivated when your dealing with challenges pr pushbacks and having that journal when you’re feeling really low reminds you that you’ve got this and it’s just a bump in the road, and I’m gonna continue to get great feedback in the future. 

Share your successes with your team and on social media. Share your lesson’s learnt and highlights from projects you’ve work on. Don’t be shy to share your stories and learning with others. 

How to Climb the Career Ladder 

Build a framework for yourself based on what’s possible by doing your research. 

Firstly make sure you understand your company’s promotion process. Are you asking for salary increase in your current role or moving to a new business role?  Is there actually a business need for people to be promoted? What are the career opportunities within the departments? Is there a business need for more senior roles? If so, then a promotion may not be possible. 

If there are roles available, network to learn more about these positions and ask to shadow people to explore the promotional opportunity to see if it’s right for you. 

Let your manager know that you want to get promoted and ask how you can work together to make that happen. Ask to see the job roles and metrics for the career opportunities that you aspire to progress into it and start to assess your strengths and weaknesses so you can put in framework in place. 

“You can realize actually the reality of the job is very, very different to what was advertised. So I think having that insight and having your network there to talk to other people and to see what a day in the life in that role looks like will just show you really whether that is something or isn’t something that you’d like to do.”

Plan Your Career Progression

Start to put together a framework to collate and put together things to show you are performing and hitting targets. 

Know your metrics for your current role and prospective role – this is really key is understand what will be measured on to get you to that next level? Demonstrate you are achieving all of the competencies of the current role and what you currently deliver that is part of the future job role.  Talk through how you are addressing your weaknesses, what support you need and what you’ve completed.

Working Towards a Promotion 

Check in your manager every couple of months to demonstrate your progress, specifically how you are performing against those weaknesses and improving and highlighting your successes. 

Put yourself on courses and learn and apply new skills to upskill in the areas you need to develop and demonstrate your competency in these areas. 

Asking For That Promotion 

You want to build your business case:

• These are my strengths
• Here are the KPIs I’m hitting
• This s the feedback that I’ve got from both customers, teammates, manager, and other team members
• Recommendations for future development 
• Extra curricular stuff 

Be aware of the communication style of your manager and present in a way that mirrors there style. If they are busy people and like information to be clear and concise to the point, then present it in that way. Prepare a proposal that has facts and figures and feedback so it’s tangible for them to read and take away. 

“You want to make your manager’s lives as easy as possible when they go to their boss and present that you should be promoted into the next grade or level.“

What Will Stop You Getting a Promotion

A blocker isn’t necessarily presentative of your skills, but it’s possibly related to business need, planned resource, budget or hierarchy of management which you might not be able to navigate around. Discuss your situation with your manager and at this point you have to decide whether you stay or go in the long term.

The other blocker could be the way you are approaching the conversation and not making it easy for the manager. To reflect back on the points above, asking for a promotion should be a considered and planned process working with your manager over the course of six months or a year. Make sure you are addressing all of the points we have talked about above in a clear and concise way. Practice in a role play first with a friend if that helps. 

“You are going to have road bumps along the way but you have to stay motivated – have your brag journal, talk to friends and build your network of champions, someone you can talk to about this journey! 

In conclusion Animika’s top three tips are:

1. Network. Get to know people in your organization who are doing different roles to you, speak to them, find out what they’re up to and see if you can tag along for a day in the life of what their role looks like.
2. Find a buddy to work with on this. It can feel like a lonely journey at times, but find that person who’s going to hit post on a message for you, or is going to remind you of what you’ve accomplished
3. Create an accomplishments journal. The importance of accomplishments journal is one of two things. The first being. It’s an easy way to collate all of that great feedback that you have for your manager. You want to make their lives as easy as possible during this promotion process to keep track of all of those great things you’ve been doing. And secondly, it really serves as a reminder of all of that you have accomplished because there’s plenty you’ve accomplished throughout the way. It’s always great to review. Have a check in with yourself and say, I’m doing well so far. 

If you want more tips like this then sign up for our Stronger Women Summit Event on the 5-8th July and learn more about our Supermums and our training programmes including Coaching can help you achieve your goals. We’ll also be sharing details of our new Ambitious Women Mastermind Programme which includes a IamRemarkable workshop hosted by Animika.

We hosted this event in 2020 and over 1000 women registered. Don’t miss this years Stronger Women Summit 22.

Series 5 – Mums on Cloud Nine Podcast (MOCN)

Series 5 is launched on Monday 20th June.

During this podcast series, we share tips and tricks around launching and furthering your career, and also how to manage that work-life balance, so you can create those career opportunities without compromise, burnout or stress. We’re also going to share coaching tools and techniques and insights from some incredible guests. 

Find Out More About Our New Ambitious Women Mastermind

Are you feeling stuck in a rut? Scared of progression? Feeling burnt out?

At Supermums we love to empower people to thrive as a Salesforce professional. We achieve this through empowering them with coaching. Our coaching programme is available to any Salesforce professional and includes an amazing line up of speakers and topics to help you achieve your life and career goals.

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