3 Things You Should Think About Before Asking For A Promotion

Planning on asking for a promotion? Here's what you should know before making your case.

Firstly, let's understand the rationale behind promotions from an employer's POV.

Individual Ability & Performance

Employers promote employees who display both strong technical and leadership skills. Promotions generally requires employees to have displayed consistent well performance previously, and they naturally come with a pay raise. Oftentimes, promotions come with a big increase in responsibilities - overtime, additional meetings to attends, more stakeholders and team members to mentor. Therefore, not all promotions are desirable, and sometimes the increase in compensation might not be proportionate to the increase in responsibilities.

Tip: If you feel that you require more time to hone your skills and to be mentored, rather than mentoring others and filling up bigger shoes, you may wish to reconsider your promotion ask.

Company Performance

Companies are more likely to promote members when they are doing well financially, when they are looking to expand or launch new products or when they create new departments or job positions.

Tip: Evaluate your company's recent activities and get a sense of your company's performance over the past year. This should help you adjust your expectations as to whether your company is in a good financial position to grant your request.

Headcount & Manpower Allocation

In larger organisations, departments are usually limited to a set headcount, which may result in deserving candidates being passed on for promotion. Backfilling your position - at times, you might be the perfect candidate for the role but management does not have anyone in mind to fill your current spot. And losing the work that you produce in your current position would be too big of a risk. Hence, this is what brings management to hire externally to fill a senior role instead of promoting internally.

Tip: Keep an eye out for your own company's hiring activities and get an understanding of your company's organisation structure, as well as evaluating your own work in the company.

In conclusion, there are many factors that influence or affect your chances of promotion within a company. However, through understanding these 3 reasons, these can give you a better gauge to when would be an appropriate time to put in a promotion request!