Best Times to Ask for a Raise for the Most Success

As an employee, you know how hard you work each day. Only you know the dedication and professionalism you bring to a job. In fact, you may even be thinking about asking your boss for a raise. If you are, then you should know that sometimes are better than others for asking for a raise. You want to increase the chances that your boss will give you the raise, so knowing when to ask is important. The following tips could help you land the raise you need and deserve.

Right After An Excellent Evaluation

The best time to ask for a raise is right after an excellent evaluation. Most bosses have to conduct one or two evaluations per year on each employee. When you go into a closed-door meeting with your boss to discuss your performance on the job, this could be the opportunity you need. Wait until your boss has finished going through the evaluation with you. If you had positive remarks and met your goals, then this is the time to use that information to your advantage. When your boss asks why you deserve a raise, you can list the same points that your boss just told you. Your boss can’t argue with himself.

When Your Boss Gets Praised By His Boss

Another great time to ask for a raise is when your boss looks good in front of his superiors. When your boss feels like he is doing a great job, he is more likely to be in a good mood and want to help you. This works even better if you had a hand in helping your boss look good for his superiors. Try to schedule a time to ask for your raise right after your boss has received congratulations for a job well done or has maybe even received a promotion or raise himself.

When You Take On Extra Work Load

If you have recently taken on more of a work load in your place of employment, then this is a good time to ask about a raise. For example, if another employee left and that person’s work load was shifted to you, then you can use that as a bargaining chip. Be prepared to explain how much more work you are having to do to justify the raise in pay.

After Earning A Degree Or Certification

Have you recently earned a degree, certification, or licensure? If so, this is the time to show off what you have accomplished and ask for a raise. You deserve professional credit for earning a higher degree or earning a certificate or license. You can show your boss how committed you are to the company and to learning to do the best job possible. Your educational endeavors might just land you the raise you want.

When You Get A Positive Commendation

Be ready to ask for a raise as soon as you get a positive commendation from your employer. Maybe one of your customers called to praise your work, or maybe you reached a major sales goal in your department. Perhaps you found a way to save your company money each quarter. When you can show your boss tangible evidence as to why you deserve a raise, this is the best time to ask.

If you have hopes of getting the raise you ask for, watch for the little clues that show the boss is pleased with you. The best time to ask for a raise is when your boss is happy.

Nicole Rodgers has been blogging in the business, finance, and technology industries for three years. When Nicole was running her small business she made sure to provide her employees with good employee benefits in order to keep morale up.  She always makes sure her employees are happy with where they work. She made it priority to provide good health insurance to keep her employees healthy.

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5 tips on how to get promoted

Author Byline: Adam C is a London, UK based copywriter and has given sound workplace advice in this article.

Getting promoted is a goal that most of us have, but it can be hard to know exactly how to go about it. After all, there can be a fine line between chasing opportunities and being annoyingly pushy, so it does take some care. It also takes planning – before you get promoted, you have to prove why you deserve to progress, so make sure you budget for the time this will take.

1. Become fantastic at what you do

Firstly, being good at what you currently do is a reliable sign that you’re ready for more. If your boss knows that you’re amazing at your job and that you can do it consistently well, it will reflect well on you. You’re unlikely to be able to move onwards and upwards if you’re still mastering part of your current role, so get your head down and learn it inside out.

2. Take on extra work to make you shine

Being willing to take on extra work is also a good way to get noticed by management – but make sure it’s worthwhile work that will stretch you and be valuable to the company, not just extra admin to fill the time. Ideally, you want to show that your talents go beyond what you do already.

3. Be a team player

Playing nicely with others is another key component of getting promoted, as all the best leaders are great with people. Prove that you can work well with your colleagues and promote the interests of the team – not just yourself. Outstanding individual contributions are likely to be noticed, but they’ll be worth much more if you achieve them while also doing well in team situations.

4. Prove your commitment to the company

If you want to be promoted, the company you work for needs to know that you’re committed to them or else as far as they’re concerned, any money they spend on you could be a waste. Find a way to signal your intent to stay with the business, such as by developing long term growth strategies or taking ownership of projects with several years still to run on them.

5. Be up front about your intent

Finally, being clear about what you want can help you land that promotion. If your boss doesn’t know it’s what you want, they won’t know to consider you when opportunities come up. For instance, you could let them know in a review meeting that you’d be interested in a chance for progression. That way, even if there’s nothing currently available, they’ll be more likely to keep you in mind for next time.

 

This post is contributed by Total Jobs a leading job site that currently offers a variety of job vacancies from environment jobs to construction jobs.

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Fired for Naming the Boss’s Girlfriend

Patricia C works for LatPro.com, DiversityJobs.com and JustJobs.com and is one of their content specialists. She has a degree in International Relations and enjoys learning from other cultures and traveling.

This is a true career story as told to CareerConfessions.com, a site where readers can hear real workplace confessions like this one from a daycare teacher, and many others.

 

I have many stories in which I was unbelievably stupid, but for the sake of you, dear readers, I will narrow my embarrassing tales of confessional woe down to just one. My hope is that it saves someone else from committing professional suicide, as I so often do.

I wish I could say that I was one of those cool-as-a-cucumber emergency dispatchers who saved desperate people from hurting themselves. Alas, no; I was but a simple HVAC (heating, venting and cooling) and small appliance dispatcher, so I am under no grand illusion that I made any sort of difference in the cog of humanity; however, most of the time I was fairly efficient at my job. Sometimes I even managed to get my technician to the customer’s home within the scheduled window of time with a minimum amount of fuss.

My job as a customer service dispatcher consisted of telling 32 egocentric, albeit, overworked technicians who suffer from a God-like complex where to go all day (literally, not figuratively). Although, for those people who were unfortunate enough to have their air conditioner go out on them on a sweltering hot triple degree Texas day, my techs probably did fit neatly in that description. However, I digress.

One fine day, the shop’s owner (we’ll just call him Romeo; you’ll see why later) announced that the business would be now be run ‘round the clock. Much grumbling ensued as our fearless leader/slave master assigned emergency calls. My vertically-challenged boss then set his beady eyes on me. I looked around. One by one, all the other customer service reps averted their passive-aggressive, betraying little faces.

Nothing gets by me; something was definitely in the works.

He sweetly requested (ordered) me into his office and told me that I would be holding the phones at night, and wasn’t I the lucky one? Didn’t I need extra money for that new baby I would soon be expelling? Yes. He said that word. What an absolute peach!

Things rocked along smoothly enough. I would get the call at 2:00 AM, phone the “on call” technician, and wake him from his slumber in the dead of night. They were always ecstatic to hear from me.

You may be wondering where Romeo fits into all of this, as well as why I have named him thus. Let’s just say this: what he lacked in height, he made up for in coins. There was no “shortage” of women, as I found out rather abruptly one night. I was only aware of Joanne-the little ducky who dropped in quite frequently to borrow his Porsche. He never mentioned to us worker bees that he had more than the one ducky.

Here is the illuminating dialogue that occurred on that fateful night as I awoke to answer my gently tinkling cell phone in my usual chipper, well-modulated, professional speaking voice (hey, it could happen!).

Ring ring!

Sultry-sounding female voice: “Hello, where is Romeo?”
Me: “I’m sorry; who is this please?”
Her: “This is his girlfriend. Who might you be?”
Me: “Oh, hello Joanne, how are you? It’s Cynthia from the office. We transfer the office phones to me at night now. Did you try his cell phone?”

(In the space of two nanoseconds, the sultry-sounding voice turned into a screeching banshee-like can of evil incarnate.)

Her: “Who is Joanne?”

Houston, we have a problem. Utter panic. You know how a crawfish can only move backwards? That was how my end of the conversation went thereafter.

She must’ve finally reached Romeo, because he then called and told me to call her back and do damage control.

Ring ring!

Me: “This is all a mistake. Of course you are not Joanne. Who is Joanne, anyway? I was dreaming when I answered the phone!”

She didn’t buy it.

He sent me packing the following morning. A little more information could’ve gone a very long way in this instance.

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Think Before Posting Online About Your Employer

Let’s face it. Most of us dive into our Facebook or other Social Media accounts as soon as lunch hour starts at work and sometimes in between too. While at home, we might be inclined to communicate to friends on such forums about a game or movie or other normal stuff. But at work, if you have just been given a gentle dressing down by your boss, the temptation to post expletives about him/her online becomes too great. If you succumb to it, trouble may be brewing for your job longevity. I am sure you might have seen or heard plenty of stories by now about somebody getting fired or at least disciplined because of such impulsive actions.

Christopher Nelson of the Tribune Media Services has examined the emerging gamut of consequences and fall outs from such misadventure on an employee’s part in his thought provoking article “Should online comments about work, boss be grounds for dismissal?” in the Los Angeles Times. He cites the examples of two employees in separate incidents who got the marching orders because they vented their feelings about their boss online. While, according to the article, one mentioned his boss as a “jerk” the other had posted something similar about her boss and her job.

A very pertinent question raised by Nelson here, however is, whether in the light of Social Media revolution, and the still emerging norms relating to it, employees should be seen as human beings subject to anger and frustrations, and likely to vent their feelings while sharing with friends online and should the employers give a reasonable leeway to them? Or, it is suggested in the article, should a clear cut guideline should be made available to employees as to how far they are allowed to go without fear of being disciplined? In one such case mentioned by him, the company agreed to make clear cut rules with the help of National Labor Relations Board.

In the end however, I would go with Nelson’s advice that “common sense should keep employees from posting scathing comments about their boss on their friend’s wall”.

To read this informative article in full please visit:

“Should online comments about work, boss be grounds for dismissal?” by Christopher Nelson of the Tribune Media Services – Los Angeles Times.

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