My Annual Review is coming up

My annual performance review is coming up and one of my financial goals for this year is to obtain a promotion.

I'm a little worried that my goal of a promotion might not happen this year, not because of a lack of performance on my part but because my role in the company has changed. The new role which is on a difference career ladder I've only been performing for about 6 weeks now, definitly not enough to prove myself in to obtain a promotion but I definitly deserved in my old role.

I feel like a promotion was coming if I had been able to stay in my old role or go back to preconstruction, especially since on Monday my old boss, who's doing my review, called to make sure I was going to fill out a skills assessment that he was going to email me. I said I'd never heard of it before and he said it was a tool that he liked to use to prove to the brass that someone was ready for a promotion.

I've filled that form out and have all of my other ducks in a row to prove I'm ready for a promotion so we'll see how it all goes - unfortunately I won't find out anything until late August.

So we'll see how it all turns out - wish me luck.

Mid-Year Performance Review Update

Well no real news to report on the Mid Year Review front. I met with the Boss man, according to him my work is doing awesome and that I'm already performing at the next level so there's no tasks or project I need to master before I can get promoted. Okay I'm thinking if that's they case why am I not promoted yet? So I polity try to ask this question but just get blown off. So now what do I do???? On top of this come April I'm getting transfered to a different department with different job descriptions but the one good thing is my soon to be new boss man, "Mr. VP", recognizes me as a high achiever. RRRRGGGG that was no help - so it looks like I'm going to bide my time for now.

My Mid-Year Performance Review is Tuesday

One of my financial goals for 2008 is to obtain a promotion. To me a promotion equates to this equation promotion = more money = more savings = closer to financial freedom

My career goal was two years after my college graduation to obtain a promotion and by the end of this year it will have been two years. (And I will have worked for the company for over 6 years! – wow saying that makes me feel old even thought I’m not). To date I’ve only received one promotion and the event that prompted this promotion was graduating college since I had been verbally given a promotion a year before then contingent upon graduating college. Because of the company bureaucracy, I understood that I could not be “officially” promoted due to a lack of degree even thought I was very deserving of promotion based upon my contributions to the company. (I think there could have been a way around this but I was willing to follow the rules for the time being, since bucking the system would have meant possibility not having as much flexibility in my job like telecommuting two days a week so I could attend some classes only offered at specific times.)

In my company, promotions are typically given out in September following our end of fiscal year evaluations. Our mid-year evaluations are now in full swing, mine happens to be schedule for this coming Tuesday. The company norm for length between promotions for those of us lower on the corporate ladder occur between 2-3 years for each position, of course dependent upon an individual’s performance. People mid-ladder pole 4-5 years, and then upper ladder it really depends some are 1-2 years, while others peak out and it takes 10 years to move up. I’m still currently on the lower end so a promotion by the end of the year would be with in the norm.

Okay, enough background of my status and the company, I think I’ve sufficiently proven that a promotion is realistic with in the parameters of the corporate bureaucracy and I won’t get into all the money and client contacts above the norm I’ve made on deals for the company or the outstanding job I’ve been doing because I’ll save all that for my review on Tuesday (plus this post is already getting really long). The real meat/intent of my post is that I’ve long sense done my homework for researching how to achieve a promotion since my last one I didn’t have to strategize to obtain (and maybe this one I don’t really need to either but I’d rather be proactive). I stumbled across an article about the key steps to achieving a promotion - I wish for the life of me I knew where I got it as I’d like to give them credit and also revisit this article for my use (if you know the article I’m referring to please let me know where its from). The only remnants I have of this article are my notes on a post-it stuck to my bulletin board above my computer.

Here’s what my notes say:

1. Determine Expectations --- research HR for specific tasks/abilities, talk to Debbie about this
2. Perform a Gap Analysis between current duties and next level --- per HR’s def – ask G if there’s specific form already created, also ask about at Mid-year and request to come up with a list together to achieve the difference
3. Schedule meeting with list of skills and responsibilities, goal is next level, find project etc that will help achieve promotion --- also do together at Mid-year PPM
4. Prioritize and document assignments --- also success and stats from completed projects especially the pharmacy and $$$ made
5. Cash in chips – show documentation that achieved --- start list today of accomplishments with stats

I’ve done a real good job of following this advice over the last couple of months. I have figured out the expectations according to the corporate info established and will find out my boss’s expectations on Tuesday, I preformed my gap analysis and have already put the bug in my boss’s ear about wanting to do this as well as create a list of skills and responsibilities during the review, and I’ve clearly documented success of projects and tasks completed. So I’m hoping all goes well.

My question is what else should I do to a) prep for my mid-year, in past years I’ve already been ready with a jot list of success and my goals, but I’ve never been actively seeking promotions and b) beyond what I’m doing what should I do to position myself to be promoted in September?

Alright you seasoned professionals with several promotions under your belt…any other good tips for me?

Sticky Situations at Work

One of my big goals for 2008 is obtaining a promotion. But some times its hard to do that when you're caught in sticky situations with a boss or co-worker.

One of my biggest problems at work and is with a co-worker who's a major slacker. This man is not my boss but he is in a position of higher rank and authority than I am. We both report back to the same boss.

I've tried to figure out a way around this situation and talk to my boss in generalities about this issue when I first got put on the same team with "slacker" more than a year ago. I did not feel I was stepping outside of my bounds since my boss asked for my feed back since several other team members were giving unfavorable reviews of "slacker" and he wanted to know if they were true. Plus until this situation arouse I've always had a really good relationship with this boss and have worked on several other projects for him. When I tired to address this issue before I could really express my concerns I was informed that one of my job responsibilities was to make both my boss and "slacker" look good to the brass in our company, which I agree with to an extent. Talk about having to suck a sour egg! But I've come to accept this situation that I'm in and realized it was only for a short time (if you call just a hair over a year a short time) and that by doing both my job and "slacker's" I would be gaining valuable experience. However, every couple of months I get mad, real mad, about the situation and it starts to eat me up inside. I start thinking about the tons of extra hours I put in each week to do both of our jobs, I think about the social activities at work I'm missing because I'm trying to keep up with everything and keep the project afloat and I start resenting the situation. Don't get me wrong I like to work hard and I get enormous satisfaction from a job well done, but everyone needs to pull their own weight, especially on a team. I keep reminding myself that its only for a short duration and it will get better but sometimes its hard, and I know my usually cheery work personality suffers because of my frustration with this problem.

It's wildly accepted and the standard that a person in my boss's place wouldn't do any of the grunt work, he's job is to manage people like "slacker" and me, maintain the relationship with the clients, and relay information from top management to "slacker" and me, but "slacker" on the other hand is fully in a position that he's supposed to be in the trenches and know the project and contribute to the project, in fact its expected and really his only responsibility. Instead "slacker" wants to pretend he's about two levels higher and I'm responsible for all of the work and he just needs to sign off and/or distribute my work, so instead of contributing "slacker" spends all day working on his high school alumni website. (As a side note "slacker", myself and the rest of the team are located in a different office and city from the boss and the boss only comes and visits about once a month to check up on us).

(Additional side notes "Slacker" is only one position above where I am on the career ladder. The side story about how "slacker" came to work for our company about a year ago is that "slacker" was "laid off" without a severance package from his previous two employees -- I don't know about you but to me that sounds like the man was fired, not contributing enough to his other companies since he was always first to be laid off, or he keeps choosing the wrong companies. Personally I'm going with option 1 or 2, either way they don't bode well for "slacker".)

Well anyway, I think you get the problem with "slacker" and can probably read between the lines to see my frustration, especially today -- it was one of those mad days that it really gets to me.

Well I stumbled across this article called Eight Sticky Boss Situations at CNN.com and one of the eight was "While your boss kicks back in her office making personal calls, you're doing both your job and hers. When the time comes to present projects to senior management, your boss takes credit for your hard work." And thought this might apply to my problem with "slacker", except I really believe that the boss knows this is the situation and accepts it because the work is getting done and done correctly (thanks to me) and he doesn't want to rock the boat. This is very typical of his personality, it took one other slacker loosing almost 2million for the company for him to take action and go through the chain of command to reprimand and ultimately fire the other slacker.

So while this might not completely resolve my problem I only have 3 more months of this and at least it gives me hope and a strategy try to deal with the problem. Do you all have problems like this? How did you handle it?

Progress on 2008 Goals --- Progress on obtaining Promotion

I just got back from the airport after being out of town for work since Tuesday and wanted to take a quick second to let you all know about an interesting conversation I had while out of town before I crash in bed since I've hardly slept in the last 4 days.

In my company the culture when you're traveling with a group of people is that you're expected to go to dinner and the hotel bar with everyone each evening (not sure how productive the next day meetings are since every one's usually pretty hung-over). I always end up staying up too late and my schedule gets all messed up, but at the same time I don't think I'd have it any other way because once you've socialized and "boozed it up" with the bosses you always get to know the inside scoop of what's going on in the company. You can find out who's performing and who's not, what's the next cooperate strategy that's going to roll out, etc etc etc -- its really invaluable knowledge you receive.

Thursday night one of the Vice Presidents and my old boss (soon to be my current boss once I move back to Atlanta) was talking about the problems that he's having in his department with some of the new hires and how he's is really looking forward to having me back to set an example as well as bring positive energy and enthusiasm for the job. We'll call him "Mr. VP" goes on and on about how I'm such a valuable asset. I'm taking this all in and listening to him and he continues on, so I'm thinking this is good that he recognizes I'm a valuable asset but I also realize the man's had about ten vodka tonics and he likes to talk. But "Mr. VP" goes on and says he wants to see me succeed and that when I come back in April we should sit down and talk about my career path. Again I'm happy but he's still drunk so he might be just talking but the next day at breakfast as "Mr. VP" is hesitantly drinking his coffee and shading his eye he asks me if I remember our talk last night, I say yes thinking he wants to let me know I should keep that info to myself since my career path wasn't all he talked about, but rather he says he wants to make sure that when I do come back in April that we talk about my career path because I'm a "super star" according to him and he wants to keep me challenged and happy. Inside as I eat my bagel I'm silently jumping for joy! Exactly what I need, some one in a high place that wants to help me get ahead and recognized that I'm good at my job.

Well thanks for listening to my exciting news, in April I'll have to let you all know how our talk goes, but for now I'm crawling to bed and won't resurface until late on Saturday.