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Whether it is because your company does not have a process of performance review set into place or because maybe you think you should get promoted without waiting for that, the idea is simple: You need to prove why you deserve a raise/promotion. What have you done in the past 6–12 months that had a positive impact on your colleagues, your project, and the wider business?

Let me tell you that there is a very simple and smart way to go about this. START EARLY!

If you want to get promoted in 6 months, start defining the KPIs you are tracking. Cause it all comes down to what you can prove. Unfortunately, few are the companies that will give you promotions when not solicited. But here is the good news: Asking for it is not a bad thing. It shows that you think you are doing an outstanding job. And it creates your window to shine. This is why you should prepare for it.

Here is the framework to follow:

Step 1: Define 3 KPIs that added value to the business. these could be activities that impacted sales and revenue but also boosted employees morale or upskilled specific individuals. Here are a few examples:

• Revenue generating activity (pitches for new projects, landing new clients, etc)
• Kickstarting internal initiatives (whether it is a Monday meditation meeting or a Client knowledge sharing, everything could positively impact your business)
• Upskilling yourself
• Tutoring a co-worker
• Introducing a new framework
• Introducing a new tool to the business which improves productivity/outputs/creativity/etc
• Other

The key thing is that those activities need to be trackable and need to generate an outcome. Meaning, do not say that you attended lots of meetings related to business innovation. Leverage internal tools like timesheets to instead say something like this:

I havededicated X amount of hours per week to research new tools and frameworks. As a follow-up I created a presentation on the benefits to switch from Framework/Tool Y to Framework/Tool Z. Three months following this change, I’ve conducted an anonimous survey within the team and as shown by the results, peers stated that they felt an increase in their productivity and an improvement on their mental health.

Now, the above is just an example, but you get the point. Se trackable KPIs. work towards them. Track results and share them in your business case. And BTW if results are negative, is still a good finding. You just need to frame your business around the fact that you went the extra mile to help your team. Results were not as expected, but the fact that you took effort into researching that, allowed the business to make an informed decision instead of blindly committing to something.

Step 2: Define at least one change in responsibilities. This is especially useful if you are requesting a title promotion (i.e. changed from Junior to Mid, from Mid to Senior, from Senior to Director, etc).

This will help you frame your business case around the context of extra responsibilities. Unfortunately, career progression is not linear. And responsibilities do not necessarily run in parallel with your title. Here is a quick chart I made that tries to explain that:

In the above chart, the full line is your career progression, always going up. The dashed line is instead a representation of your responsibilities. Even those, are always going up, but not in a very linear way like your career. This means that you will face periods of time where your handling responsibilities are above what your title requires (orange area). But it also means that you will likely get a title or salary promotion (i.e. annual performance review, company-side salary alignment, inflation salary increase. etc) without having to take on additional responsibilities.

Essentially, you need to make sure that if you want to ask for a promotion within the next 6–12 months, you currently fall inside the orange areas. And if you aren’t, you need to find a way to experience additional responsibilities that will push you towards those. That way your business case is going to be much stronger and your chances of success much higher.