How to get promoted & keep your job: What employers seek from their employees to get them promoted.

 

 After going through a rigorous job application process and passing your first few weeks of work training, what is your next move? As a recruitment specialist, I have been asked this question many times by applicants I’ve worked with during their on-boarding for their new job role. My answer is usually based from my experience in keeping my job and from getting promoted every after 6 months. I guess that’s because I make sure that I learn something new every six months and ask my boss to recommend me for a promotion or new skills training. If you are a new employee, your first 3 to 6 months at work is the most crucial part of building your career in the company. Your next move after getting hired is to show off to your boss that you are worth keeping in the business and that you can really contribute to its success on your first few months in your job role. This in turn will help you keep your job for a long time. The list below are based from the opinions of business owners and hiring managers I have worked with on what most bosses look for in an employee to get them promoted. If you want to get promoted and keep your job longer than expected (and I mean keep it for more than 6 months in the same financial year), read on and follow the suggestions provided.

(1) Smile. If you work in a customer-focused business, this is the first thing that a customer will expect from you after they get in to the building and while you attend to their needs. Customers will also expect from you that no matter how demanding or needy they will become, you will continue to assist them, empathize with them and still be attentive to their needs with a smile on your face. Even on a tiresome day, a smile can break any wearisome moment in a busy work place. Your boss will also expect to see you smile even if you are working on a close dead line and when you got a heavy work load to finish.

Suggestion:
When you are facing a difficult situation at work, take a deep breathe, put a smile on your face, and show your boss you appreciate the opportunity to get the job finished on time. This will give a good impression to your boss that you can professionally handle pressures at work. It will also help you get positive feed backs from customers. Do this everyday and you will start to build a consistency of appreciation with your job.


 (2) Make your boss your mentor for areas of improvement. A survey showed that 4 out of 5 people who get promoted have mentors. They are mostly their immediate bosses or supervisors whom they seek guidance from. I know, why would you want to ask your boss to be your "role model" when all he or she does everyday is give you orders and tell you what to do? I get it. Remind yourselves that these people are the ones who will "assess your performance for the first 3 months" and they are the same people who will "recommend for your promotion to be regularized, to be moved to a different department, or worst to be sacked for not meeting company standards". If your boss tells you a mistake he or she noticed, you should readily accept it as an "AFI" or an area to improve on. Acknowledge that you have made the mistake, tell your boss what you will do to correct it and improve yourself from it. Make sure you follow through by repeating everyday what positive change you planned to accomplish. An employee who readily accepts his mistakes and take charge on it makes a good impression that you are "open for growth" and "open for change."

Suggestion:
 Do not get offended if you are given constructive criticisms about your performance at work. Instead, become curious to learn what you can do to go way ahead the rest of your team mates. Any area you can see to improve on is a big advantage for you as it will help you address whatever you need to learn or unlearn to better perform your duties at work.


(3) Build a network of people you can work with within your department. Be ready and open to work with people in a fast-changing work environment. Being friendly and helpful with your co-workers have a lot of advantages. Your co-worker can put word for you on how good you do with your work or your responsibilities. Being able to work openly with other people from different departments will also help as you can easily learn new skills and knowledge from them that you can use for your current job role. Should you need any help from them to hasten your work, you can easily ask a favor from them. This will also help your boss decide if you are good in working or handling the people around you in a team environment.

Suggestion:
 During breaks, smooze with your co-workers. “Smoozing” is an act of talking casually and cordially with people. You can easily do this after meeting them on your first week at work. Try to engage in small talks, find out how they work with other people, ask best practices they can share to you, and what they usually do to get ‘acclimatized” to your work place.

(4) Act professionally at all times. Your first 3 months at work is a good time to earn a reputation for being dependable, professional, and cooperative at all times. If you find it hard to get adjusted to your work, do not be hesitate to ask nor be shy to let your immediate supervisor know what you need to help best accomplish your tasks. They are there to guide you and teach you the run around of the business. Recognizing your boss’ authority and accepting his or her suggestion is important as you will be working with the same who will rate your performance later. Make yourself stand out from the rest. Don't whine or complain or blame others when things go wrong. It’s alright to make mistakes some times especially when you are new. But remember, a few mistakes is OK. To make it an every day occurrence will only show that you are not incorporating what you have learned from your past mistakes. When you are asked to do an extra work that is not part of your job role, take a minute to think if you can do it or not. Be honest to let your boss know if you are unable to do so. Don't just say "yes" to show off that you can when you really can't. That can cause unnecessary loss in time and resources to correct a work that does not meet your boss' expectations. It also does not leave a good impression that you can be trusted to do something. Check the photo below to see how you can achieve being a true professional in your work place at all times.

Suggestion:
Know your limits, what you can and cannot do. Work professionally without having to cause any trouble to yourself, to your peers, or your company.

(5) Ask for more responsibilities. Even if you were hired as a POS cashier or a service crew in a restaurant, ask your immediate supervisor if there is anything else you can do to cover your time while you're not attending to any customer. You can ask your supervisor or trainer to help you clarify a process you found challenging. You can help pile up some unused boxes in the corner, train a new employee with the same task as yourself, or even bring paper bags for bagging to another counter next to you. This is called initiative in the work place. Employers like to see an employee taking an initiative to do something without being asked.

Suggestion:
As a new employee, most of your time will be focused on areas in your job role you will be trained for. At these times, take note of things you think may become a challenge later, ask for any clarifications, and if needed, spend at least half an hour or so to regroup with your supervisor or trainer to teach you again the tools and processes you will be using to effectively do your tasks. By actually doing so will you gain expertise. Make sure that you do this during your break or when you do not have customers to attend to.

(6) Don't make too much drama in the work place. If you find something unpleasant within your work place (i.e a very demanding customer, an unhelpful co-worker, a bossy team mate, an unfair work practice), the first thing you have to do is to raise any of these to your immediate supervisor or your HR management. Employers seek and will always retain employees who know how to handle difficult situations in a less-than-ideal work places. Do not head straight to your social media profile to post your emotional opinion about any office or work issues without reporting it first and discussing the matter to the proper authorities at work. One business owner I interviewed said that he was forced to fire a good employee one time for gossiping about her other co-workers to another cashier next to her in public while bagging a customer’s groceries. That did not make a good impression and it prompted the customer to send an email to the management of what happened. After getting fired, the employee immediately took to Facebook and called her boss and the company she worked for more than 4 years ill names. She was then reported to the police for public defamation. It also caused tensions to other workers and it eventually forced the management to act on it by not allowing their employees to talk non-work related matter while on duty. Your workplace during business hours is not a place to explore your dramas and baseless opinions. These can be done during break times and outside the work place.

Suggestion:
Stray away from work gossips. Before you decide to post anything in your Facebook about how poor your work conditions are at work, ask your boss to sit with you and discuss the matter at hand. Your friends in your social media profile will provide you all sorts of opinions and legal information that do not and will not correlate to any solution the company or your boss can provide to address the issue. No one in your Facebook profile can resolve it. You can also get fired from putting your company in the wrong light publicly without any factual basis. Any future employer who will see your profile online can make your past posts as a basis not to hire you. Not all emotional outbursts at work or online can result positively in your favor. Before you do anything, think twice what the future consequences will be. The best thing to do is to stay away from them.

 (7) To really get that promotion, you actually need to really deserve it. Confidence in your work place is one thing, arrogance is another. The last will usually get you nowhere. If in your first 3 to 6 months at work you keep telling everyone how much you deserved the position because of your past achievements in school or from your previous employment, eventually people will get tired from listening from it and will demand to see you actually do it. The talk must do its won walk. If you want your boss to see your achievements in your role at work, ask for a short meeting to discuss it and ask for any areas to improve on. That way, you get a direct feed back and can direct yourself to improving any areas you need to improve on. Employers like an employee who respects their feedback and role in developing you into a motivated, interactive mover of the company.

Suggestion:
The best time to sit down with your boss to ask feedback about your work performance is every end of the month of your first 3 months at work. Do not wait until your third month to be assessed on your work performance. Some companies have key work indicators that you need to meet every month. Base your discussion from there and make an action plan for your next month’s goals. A boss appreciates an employee who plans ahead how to manage his time and how to bring new ideas or improvements to his work.

(8) Know your job and do it well. During your first 3 months in your role, you are expected to learn, adjust to your new work responsibilities, and be an expert on them. This is also the period where you can create your own method to use the new tools and processes you were trained at. It is the best time to incorporate all that you have learned to manage your own system and be able to effectively perform your duties. Once you have learned your way through the processes and tools, you can prioritize which key responsibilities should come first. Your tasks will always be your responsibility and no one else. Every week, try to make an action plan you can work on to address, prioritize, and execute your goals. Once you start doing this, it will become an ordinary routine you can follow and you can focus in providing excellent customer service experience to your customers.

 Suggestion:
As a new employee, assess yourself every end of the week what you have accomplished and what areas you need to improve on. If you need help to explain things for you, do not hesitate to ask help from your trainer or your immediate supervisor for guidance.


Aristotle once said that "we are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore is not an act but a habit."  If we remind ourselves everyday to appreciate and to love our job, the first 3 months of your job will come as a breeze for you.