We’ve heard rumblings that 2024 is ‘The Great Stay’ year for employees. After the ‘Great Resignation’ and the ‘Great Reshuffle’, more folks may be prioritizing staying put in their current companies over looking to switch employers. Whether that turns out to be the case or not, it’s always a great idea to give yourself options for growth and advancement in your current job.

If you’d really like a raise, promotion, or change of work responsibilities over the next 6 to 12 months, it’s important to create a roadmap and strategy that will maximize your chances of success. You can think of achieving your advancement goals just like you’d think about planting a garden and harvesting the fruits of your labor as things bloom. 

Where do you start?

First define what success looks like for you. 

If you’d like a raise, is there a number or range of salary that you’re looking for? What number would feel like a huge win? What number would make you feel good and valued? And what number is the minimum you’re willing to accept - and if you don’t get it, you’d likely look for a new position? 

If you’d like a promotion, is there a title you have in mind? Does that promotion come with additional responsibilities or tasks that you’re excited about adding to your portfolio? 

Or are there parts of your work right now that you’d like to take off your plate? For some people, eliminating certain work projects or tasks could be what success looks like! 

Once you know what success looks like, you can create a roadmap to achieve your goals. Your roadmap might be a couple of weeks or many months depending on your company’s timeline for raises/promotions. 

Your roadmap loosely looks like this:

Let’s break down the different conversations and milestones in this roadmap:

Plant the Seed

Whether you’ve had conversations about career growth in your company, or you’ve never talked about your development with your manager, start here. This is where you kick off a series of conversations that help you see if your boss is receptive, what might be needed to achieve your goals, and get feedback. 

You might start the conversation with one of these phrases:

As I think about 2024 being a successful year for me career-wise, I wanted to share what I have in mind and get your feedback. Is this a good time to do that, or would you like to set up a separate time to discuss?

OR

In X months, I’d like to be able to talk to you about a raise and/or promotion. Can we plan to have a conversation about what that might look like? 

Water the Seed

Once you’ve told your manager you want to discuss what would be involved in achieving your goals, you’ll need to get more feedback and insight. How much water and what kind is this plant going to need to thrive?

This is where you get insight to create your detailed road map. For longer processes, it will be where you understand what you need to demonstrate/accomplish to get there.

You might ask for feedback and insights with one of these phrases:

If I was going after X title / moving into X type of position, what would you want to see to feel confident that I’m ready for and a good fit for that work/position?

OR

If you were going to approve a raise of X%/#, what would you want to see more/less of? What would you need to make that approval easy?

Fertilize your Blooms

These conversations are where you consistently manage up, keep your goals in view and get feedback to ensure you’re on track to achieve your goals. 

If you’re looking for a combination of a raise, promotion or a tweak in work responsibilities, you’re probably going to have many ‘fertilizing’ conversations. They might be weekly, monthly or quarterly depending on the timeline for your goals, the milestones your company has that involve performance conversations, career development conversations, and other developmental milestones. 

The goal of these conversations is to share your progress, get feedback, and build your case so that you’re making it really easy for your boss (and other stakeholders) to say yes to your goals. 

Opening questions for these conversations might sound like: 

How am I doing towards the goals and the progress we talked about previously? Here’s what I think is going well… what do you think?

Do you have any concerns on how this is going?

It may not need to be said, but… you actually have to DO the work and implement the feedback you receive. 

Get Ready to Harvest

This conversation happens when you’re feeling the time is closely approaching to make the ask and close the deal. This conversation prepares them and it’s all about managing up. This is also your last chance to hear if there are any roadblocks that could get in the way of being successful. 

You might start the conversation with one of these phrases:

I’m feeling confident that I/we have achieved the goals we talked about. If I were to officially ask for the raise/promotion in a few weeks, how would that land?

Is there anything that would get in the way of this next conversation having a positive outcome?

What can I do to help you make this conversation and/or process easy and productive?

Harvest

If you’ve done your work in the previous conversations successfully, your boss knows this is coming! There should be zero surprise. This is what you’ve already managed and teed up for them.

You can open the conversation with something like this:

We’ve been talking about this for weeks/months! I’m so excited we’re finally here. I’d like to formally ask for… 

Now —- There are a few other things you want to consider to maximize the chance of achieving your career advancement goals.

1. Influence key stakeholders. Think about all the stakeholders involved in signing off on your goal. Who are the additional folks within your team or organization that will need to weigh in on raises, promotion or other changes in your work? What’s the right strategy to connect with them, hear their feedback and get their buy in? If you just initiate one conversation with another stakeholder, who would it be?

2. Show up in person. If you’re looking for a promotion, data shows that putting in some in-person face time makes it more likely you’ll get the promotion.* If you work remotely most of the time, is there a part of your strategy that involves being in the office and connecting with some of the key stakeholders you need to influence?

3. Tie it to company goals. Consider how your raise/promotion/change of responsibilities might contribute to your ability to achieve even more in the next few months and years? How might your goals align with the goals of the organization? Would your goals actually contribute to the bottom line of your company? Make it about the work and mutual goals more than just about your own desires when possible. 

4. Do your research. If you’re talking about salary,know what the market rate is for your level and industry that you’re targeting. Think about how that number compares to your goal. 

5. Tailor your approach. You’re likely going to have a lot of conversations with your boss over the next few months if you’re looking to advance into a higher level role with a higher salary. How do you get the best of your boss usually? Is there specific timing that works well for them? Are they a morning person or do they hate meetings on Fridays? Tailor your approach to what’s going to work best for them. Not sure? Ask them! “When might be the best times of the day/week/month for us to have these conversations to check in on my progress?” They’ll appreciate that you’re trying to make it easy for them. That’s managing up in a nutshell! 

There you have it. A framework with milestones to move through from planting the seed, to achieving your goals (hopefully!) plus some key factors to consider that impact the likelihood of your success. 

Good luck!

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*Fully remote workers were promoted 31% less frequently than their in-person peers last year, according to Live Data Technologies. In the data company’s analysis of 2 million white-collar workers, 5.6% of employees who were going into the office on at least a hybrid basis received a promotion last year, compared to 3.9% of fully remote individuals, the Wall Street Journal reports. About 90% of 400 CEOs surveyed last year by KPMG said they’d be more likely to give in-person employees raises, promotions, or better assignments.

-https://www.wsj.com/lifestyle/careers/remote-workers-are-losing-out-on-promotions-8219ec63
-https://www.bizjournals.com/phoenix/bizwomen/news/latest-news/2023/10/kpmg-ceo-outlook-survey-hybrid-remote-work.html?page=all