The holiday season is a time to reflect on the previous year’s efforts and start to craft new year’s resolutions.
A common resolution is to increase your salary at work – here are proven strategies to help make your performance reviews glow!
1) Learn an in-demand skill or trade
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics provides an in-depth and accurate report of the job market across the nation. This is an excellent source of information to guide your decision process in finding an in-demand skill or trade. Within the last 50 years, computer programming has become among the most in-demand skills. Companies such as Coursera and Udemy provide a strong programming foundation in a user-friendly format, backed by some of the best technical minds in the world. Thanks to the massive adoption of internet-enabled smartphones across the world, mobile application development is among the fastest growing industries.
Explore a course in mobile application development or project management to increase your marketability on the job market. If your company is discussing new technology adoption volunteering your expertise. It could turn into a job on a new team that specializes in implementing said technology.
Are your coworkers complaining about a lack of support from IT or another department that requires specialized knowledge? If so, learning that skillset. Implementing a solution will help the entire team, and give you a nice mark on your performance evaluation to boot.
2) Help with recruiting new teammates
The more people involved in recruiting new teammates, the better the organization will be for it. Recruiting is one of the most important aspects of any organization. NCAA college athletics departments to local sheriffs departments all focus extraordinary efforts on recruiting talented people to fill their positions. You can step up by posting information about openings on your social media account. It’s helpful to mention the company’s social media account as well to increase the visibility.
Thanks to an increase in cloud computing, many career fairs are now offered online – making it even easier for employers and prospective employees to attend. Ask your Human Resources department about any upcoming recruiting events. I’m sure they would greatly appreciate the help and prospective employees appreciate the perspective of their future coworkers. By helping to recruit, you are becoming a leader in your organization without ever changing positions. When it’s time for a promotion, executive management teams look for leaders to make new managers; not the other way around.
Combining this with your already valued contributions to your company will help to provide more data points in favor of increasing your salary during your performance review process or upcoming salary discussions.
3) Take detailed notes of your projects, in real-time
For complex projects, it can be difficult to recall all of the contributions you have made – especially if the project changed requirements or involved multiple stakeholders. As you are working on a critical task, keep a running document of your work highlights on a daily or weekly basis. This will make documenting all of your contributions far easier during your performance review cycle. Your manager will also appreciate the gentle reminder of all your hard work. Managers will also complete their own performance evaluation, making it difficult to remember all of the great work you’ve done too! This is an excellent time to be your own advocate. a great way to start is by proactively documenting key contributions.