Helping Yourself Succeed

Do you wonder how to be your own best advocate?

Are you actively responsible for your career growth?

OK, so you have a decent job with too much work to do and a busy life outside it to deal with. And you want to succeed but who has time for all that career planning advice with its lists of exercises and daily goals and boss management that take more effort than they yield.

Here are some simple steps that anyone can do but few employees actually do!

A. Training and Development

What are your developmental goals? How do you plan to achieve them?

Do you know what your organization offers in terms of training and development? Most have something available or are willing to work with you if you have specific goals relevant to the mission.

Start by doing your planning:

• what skills or abilities do you want to learn, improve, or develop?
• how do these skills relate to your current work or other needs of your organization?
• what methods are available to achieve these goals?

Remember that there are usually a number of ways to learn something or to develop your abilities. These can include:

• formal training,
• informal learning, alone or with others,
• self study via books, videos, CDs, online services,
• e-learning
• observing/shadowing another person,
• asking someone to assist you,
• finding a mentor for a particular skill,
• working on a special project or team.

Then do your homework:

• does your organization have a training library with books, software or videos?
• do they offer web‑based courses? Internal training classes?
• is there a tuition reimbursement program?What exactly does it cover?
• do they pay for seminars or professional association meetings or events?
• do they have formal mentoring or internship or job rotation programs?

Once you know what is available, you can make a simple plan for getting what you need. And, if you need your organization's support, you know how to obtain it directly or what to sell your boss on.

Other common ways to obtain new skills or develop your abilities include:

• doing any of the above on your own time and money
• volunteer work that offer development opportunities you need
• exchange of your services for tutoring/mentoring in a new skill

It is not your organization's responsibility for getting the training and development activities you need.

Where available, it is often smart to use the organization's resources to assist you. You get assistance and support to meet your developmental goals. They see that you are willing to work to grow your skills and increase their investment in you. An obvious exception is if you dislike the organization and are seeking to leave and their training results in added service obligations.

B. Increasing your pay

Most of us work in organizations that have formal rules about salary raises. You get an annual pay review. There is a pay freeze on. There is a range of pay raise percentages or a pay raise pool that each manager must stay within. Your performance review rating determines your pay raise. Bonuses are eliminated. And so on.

So you just wait and hope for recognition of the good work you do. And you are uncomfortable asking your boss directly for more money or pushing for a bigger raise.

Here are some small actions that will help ensure you get better pay and raises without extensive direct negotiations on this difficult subject. And they will help you succeed more easily.

First easy but good step

At least a month before your performance review or the annual merit pay review or your anniversary date (pick the one that works for your organization):

• make up a list of your significant achievements for the past year.Wherever possible, tie these directly to your work unit goals or the organization mission. Some should be quantitative but all do not have to be.
• give the list to your boss and ask for a short meeting to discuss them
• tell your boss briefly that you have made this list to help in your review and that you are ready to answer any questions about your work. It is fine to calmly say that you are looking for a good review and pay raise.

Second easy but even better step

Start quarterly meetings with your boss now to review work goals and achievements. This is a 20-30 minute meeting once every 3 months to cover

• what are the upcoming critical needs and goals for the work unit and for you?
• what feedback does your boss have on your performance and strengths?
• what questions or issues concern you that you want advice on?

You go into this meeting with a list of your achievements (or send those to your boss in advance...you know her work style) and of your issues.

This gives you the chance to be sure you are working the most critical issues, to understand how to prioritize better, to make your case for any improvements or changes, to offer to work on special needs, etc. You can also discuss your training and development needs in one of these meetings. And you get feedback on any issues before they become a major problem.

You now have all the documentation ready for annual performance or pay reviews, as in the first step above.

Third, easy to do but hard to get used to step

Write your boss a monthly report. Email is fine. Keep it short and simple. Put in some production or productivity measures as well as other achievements. Indicate if there are any issues you need support or assistance on and what you need.

None of these steps is difficult. All mark you as someone who is interested in performing well and meeting the organization's goals. Employees who understand their work unit and organization goals, who work to achieve these goals, and who record their achievements are employees that everyone wants.

Note that none of these substitute for immediately raising significant issues or problems to your boss when such occur. Nor do they mean you do not need regular informal conversations or feedback on current priorities and issues.

Most bosses know that they should do more to help their employees but many, other than the really smart ones, find it hard to make the time. An employee who starts and maintains the process above, thus, helps themself and the boss succeed directly and indirectly.

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