6 secrets to raises, bonuses, and promotions

1. 06 SECRETS TO RAISES PROMOTIONS & BONUSES 9 things you can do to get better financial compensation and quicker promotions!

2. Most organizations have a process to deal with end-of-year performance evaluation

3. Where a group of managers determine who gets the best bonus, the best raise, and who gets promoted

4. Learning how to help your manager sell you in this process, is critical

5. And is a process that often starts 12 or more months before evaluation season!

6. Here are 6 ways you can do just that and 9 specific activities you can do to improve your chances!

7. 01 DECIDE WHAT YOU WANT Most performance management systems work on some form of a curve. For example, 20% of the team will be high performing, 70% will achieve, and 10% will be under-achieving. Compensation and promotions will reflect the curve Being in the top bracket is generally your route to the best financial compensation and promotions, but it also means lots of effort! Remember that while consistent delivery over time is going to be a factor in the decision-making process, being an overachiever year after year is not usually required, and often bad for your health and personal relationships. ACTIVITY 1: decide is if this is the year you want to put the pedal to the metal. It is perfectly fine to do well, but not outstanding in some years, especially if you are newly joined or recently promoted (most firms like you to be in-role for 2-3 years to demonstrate consistent delivery) or are in the midst of big life events like a new baby! If this is not the year, do a great job, but save your strength.

8. 02 CODIFY YOUR PROFESSIONAL BRAND It is important to understand what makes you shine - what makes you stand-out as top talent among all the other great people you work with. To help do this, write a one-sentence personal brand statement so that you can be laser focussed around your personal marketing messages. ACTIVITY 2: How would you like to be described by others if they had to describe you in a single tweet? Cort is completely customer-outcomes focussed Marcus is an out of the box thinker with the ability to execute on ideas Barnaby is a machine! He can be trusted to deliver the largest and most complex projects

9. 03 KNOW HOW YOU DELIVER FOR THE BIZ ACTIVITY 3: Be extremely clear with your manager about your objectives, and demand that they are SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, & time-bound). For example, consider the following objectives. I think you will tell which one is better: OBJECTIVE 1: Selena will cut carrots in the prep kitchen. OBJECTIVE 2: To ensure that we can serve 540 customers, Selena will slice 1000 carrots in slices of no more than 2cm by end of Q1. PRO TIP: It is always useful to have objectives that are slightly above your current pay and grade (or at least deliver slightly above). It is great when your manager is trying to promote you from Band 8 to 9 and she can say, “The promotion is a slam dunk. Selena is already delivering at a Band 9 level compared against other junior associates at Band 9 . This promotion is just recognizing what is already true. Selena is working at a Band 9 level today!”

10. 03 KNOW HOW YOU DELIVER FOR THE BIZ As you write the metrics, remember that when it comes to performance review, (which might be 12 months later) your manager will need to have tangible, detailed, quantitative proof of achievement. ACTIVITY 4: Put in place a mechanism to collect proof points regularly and often that can be recalled as part of the end-of-year justification – if written right, weekly/monthly status reports are your best friend at the end of the year. Skipping status reporting, or writing them poorly or thoughtlessly, only hurts you! PROTIP: When your manager is in the roundtable trying to defend your rating, she will be empowered if you give heroutcomes not activities. For example, here are two ways to describe the same thing. I think you’ll see which yields a better bonus.. OPTION 1: Selena cut 1500 carrots in Q1 OPTION 2: Selena cut 1500 carrots in Q1, with an accuracy rate of 99.6%, exceeded her goal by 50%. As a result, we were able to serve an additional 250 customers, supporting a revenue boost of $2680.

11. 03 KNOW HOW YOU DELIVER FOR THE BIZ In the modern enterprise, we can rarely do anything solo. Achieving personal objectives often requires teamwork and support. ACTIVITY 5: Identify what support you’ll need in order to achieve/exceed objectives, and from whom – have a discussion with your manager (and third-party dependencies) about a support plan? Make sure everyone agrees about what you need from them, when you’ll need it, and that they will actually give you the help you need!

12. 03 KNOW HOW YOU DELIVER FOR THE BIZ Finally, since you will be being compared against others during evaluation through a calibration process (remember, it is some form of curve), while respecting privacy and HR rules, make sure your objectives are equally important and difficult relative to others who you’ll be compared against. ACTIVITY 6: Have a chat with your manager about calibration. Make sure that your objectives are in-line (in terms of complexity, difficulty and value to the business) vis-à-vis other folks in similar jobs/levels. Here is what I mean by calibration. You don’t want your manager to go into the roundtable bragging, “my junior associate, Selena, exceeded her objective and chopped 1500 carrots!!!” And then a peer manager says, “yeah, but my junior associate met her objective of curing cancer.” If you were the boss of these two managers, which junior associate gets more bonus? Your successes will need to feel equivalent to others being compared against you!

13. 04 KNOW HOW YOU DELIVER FOR THE ORG These days, it’s quite a competitive world and it is usually not sufficient to just do your job, and do it well. You must also be a transformational leader, driving Innovation and changing your organization for the better. In all firms, there are special projects or workgroups that you can join, lead, or even create in order to gain organizational visibility and demonstrate transformational leadership! Similarly, there are people leadership roles you can find. Can you take a formal People/Team/Project Leadership role? Can you take a formal Coaching or Mentorship role? ACTIVITY 7:Work with your manager to find a good special project through which you can demonstrate your leadership. Choose something that you have time for, that you can deliver well, and that aligns to, and supports, the strategic objectives of your boss’ boss. The more senior you are, the more impact your leadership should be (transform your work area, your team, your country, or globally)

14. 05 BUILD ORGANIZATIONAL INFLUENCE Imagine your manager is in a roundtable trying to argue for your promotion. She says, “Darren is the best thing since sliced bread.” Her boss looks around and asks, “Does anyone else have data points supporting Darren?” And all the other managers shake their heads and say, “we don’t know Darren” You can see that your manager will be in trouble. ACTIVITY 8: Sit down with your manager and figure out who will be in your corner. There are two key groups of supporters to identify as part of that activity….

15. 05 BUILD ORGANIZATIONAL INFLUENCE First, as part of Activity 8, identify who will be your internal references. References could be colleagues, partners, or customers. Note: The further the reference is from you, the better (your work team is good, a partner work team is better, an external customer is best), as it shows that you have broad impact! Now, you don’t want fake, totally manufactured, support, but do make sure that each referer understands the larger story that your manager is trying to push around your awesomeness (remember your professional branding statement) and make sure that you do the work throughout the year so that they have the data points that they can recall in their feedback. A few great quotes from referrers demonstrating impact and outcomes goes a long way in the marketing campaign of you!

16. 05 BUILD ORGANIZATIONAL INFLUENCE The second group of supporters are your manager’s peers. The ones who will be sitting at the same roundtable making decisions about comp and promotions. As part of Activity 8, identify who from that group could be a supporter and how you and your manager can create a mechanism to give you a chance to develop a meaningful relationship with each of those supporters so that over the course of the year, they can have their own data points that will support you! There are lots of creative ways to do that. Get on a work team sponsored by that other manager so you can show what you can do. Have the other manager be your mentor, so you develop a personal relationship. Work closely with that manager’s second in command so you can at least have a 2nd degree connection. Do a secondment project with the other manager. You get the idea.Just do a great job.

17. 06 HAVE A DEVELOPMENT PLAN Finally, write and execute your Personal Development Plan around core job skills, corporate culture, and future job skills ACTIVITY 9: Read the following deck and do your PDP! http://www.slideshare.net/selenasol/building-a-professional-learning-plan-career-development-through-skills-development

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