As we start to approach the end of the year, many of us who are employed are about to go through performance reviews. These performance reviews can have a big impact on whether or not you get a raise, a year end bonus, and even if you get a promotion in the future.
You don’t need to get an economics degree in London to know that bonuses, raises, and promotions are good for your financial situation, so it’s important that your year end review goes well.
Here are a few actionable steps you can take to make sure your review is great.
Be a Great Worker
The first and most important thing is that you have to be a great worker. You aren’t going to be able to convince your boss that you had a great year if you didn’t. First thing’s first: be someone worthy of a bonus or a raise.
Unfortunately, that isn’t always enough. Once you’ve put in the work you may have to take a few more steps.
Give Your Boss a List of Your Accomplishments
Sometimes as an employee you can feel like your boss should know everything you’ve done off the top of his or her head. The reality is that your boss probably does a lot more than just manage you all year. My boss has about 10 different employees, and I know he’s too busy to keep all of my accomplishments at the front of his mind.
As you prepare to have your year end performance review, make a list of everything you’ve done. It doesn’t matter how small it is; put it on the list. When your boss sees all the extra stuff you’ve done and sees a full list of everything you’ve accomplished, he or she will probably be pretty impressed.
Make sure you have a session where you can review this list with your boss in person or over the phone.
The reality is your boss probably forgot half the stuff you and the rest of your peers did. If you remind him and your co-workers don’t, your boss will start to think you did more than anyone else. Even if that’s not true, it’s good for you if your boss thinks it’s true.
Always Be Closing
Now that you’ve told your boss how great you are, you might want to ask for a bonus or a raise. This will depend on your relationship with your boss, how strong you’ve actually performed in the last year, and your company policy towards bonuses and raises.
If you feel like you’re not being paid for the hard work you do, it’s important to ask for the sale. In this case, that means asking for a bonus or a raise. You’ve already proven that you’ve earned it with your list of accomplishments, but asking for a bonus or raise is important.
If you truly deserve a raise, hopefully your boss will make it happen. If he doesn’t, then it might be time to look for a new job.
Readers: How do you ensure you get a great performance review?
Kevin McKee is an entrepreneur, IT guru, and personal finance leader. In addition to his writing, Kevin is the head of IT at Buildingstars, Co-Founder of Padmission, and organizer of Laravel STL. He is also the creator of www.contributetoopensource.com. When he’s not working, Kevin enjoys podcasting about movies and spending time with his wife and four children.
“As you prepare to have your year end performance review, make a list of everything you’ve done.”
You should be keeping track of this throughout the year. Just keep a notepad / online document that you edit once in a while when you have a big win.
Working Late Trick.
If i work late, i normally like to send a ‘status’ email for whatever it is that I worked on. Even if one isn’t needed.
A few pointers:
– I make sure that I don’t send it until I am just about to leave for the day. (You want the latest time stamp on the email as possible).
– There is no need to mention the fact you worked late. Don’t mention it at all. The boss will pick up that you’ve been sending emails at 9-11 pm.
– I’ve found it’s best to follow it up with turning up a little early (hopefully before them) the next day. As I said, be circumspect and say nothing about it (they don’t know about your late night work at this point) but make sure you grab their attention. A simple ‘hi’ as they come in or at the coffee machine in the morning is sufficient – so they notice you are there when they arrive in the morning.
They will put two and two together when they read their mail and realize you worked late and then still turned up as normal the next day.
Do that just a few times a year, and suddenly everyone thinks you are a super worker.
You aren’t tricking them. You DID the work at that time. You are just presenting it in a better light.
thanks for the tips, but being a white male in today’s affirmative action/diversity workplace is brutal !!!!
One thing I was wisely advised to do early on is keep an ‘I’m awesome’ folder at work. Whenever you accomplish something worth remembering make a copy of it (if possible) or write a short note about it and move it to your ‘I’m awesome’ folder. When it’s time for a review, pull out the folder and look through it. Remind yourself why you’re good at your job and employers love specific and quantifiable ways that you’re valuable.
What a great idea. Everyone ought to have an “I Am Awesome” folder, not only at work but in the kitchen, the garage, the garden, the yard, the store! I want every child to have one inside their desk, locker, lunchbox and/or backpack. Loving yourself and giving yourself credit where credit is due can make an insane world a lot easier to take! I’m going to put a folder on my desktop right now, just in case I do something awesome in the next few minutes. And, YOU are awesome for putting this out there.
Combined with FrugalSAge’s advice above, people could actually get raises this way. Nothing like being proactive!