If you’re trying to negotiate a higher salary and a title bump, you might be tempted to quote one of the many wage surveys out there. However, that alone might not sway your manager. Whether you’re trying to score a raise, negotiate a higher job offer or present the case for promotion, the best way to convince your higher-ups is to highlight the value you have provided in the past and can deliver in the future.
The question is, how do you do that? How do you determine and communicate the added value you offer to a manager and organization?
Essentially, value comes from solving problems, not from pushing code to production, noted Kathy Keating, a fractional CTO. The more problems you are able to identify and solve for the business, the more valuable you become.
With that as a backdrop, let’s look at several methods for calculating and communicating the value you offer to a current or potential employer.
Calculating Your Added Value
While hard work is commendable, it’s the end game that matters most.
To put it another way, you create value for an organization and yourself when you utilize your skills and abilities in ways that help your teammates (and the business) achieve their mission. “Showing up doesn’t add value,” Keating noted. It’s like the Olympics: it’s not enough to be in the race—you have to win a medal.
Tech pros who are truly valuable to an organization have a track record of taking responsibility for solving problems and exceeding expectations. They find a way to drive positive change through their roles and are considered to be catalysts for the business.
Focus on three key areas when making a basic assessment of your value:
- Your history of delivering high quality, defect free work.
- Your reliability in completing tasks or projects within the specified deadline.
- Your consistency in supporting a team in achieving critical outcomes for the business.
However, don’t stop there. Go beyond simply stating the facts by explaining how your contributions made a tangible difference in a project, team or organization. Always ask questions that reveal the broader context, underlying goals and potential impact when accepting assignments or projects.
It’s not necessary to precisely quantify your individual contribution or impact because the success of the team as a whole is more important. But you do need to understand and articulate the alignment between your work and the attainment of strategic business objectives, such as raising margins, automating repetitive and low-value tasks, lowering operating costs and so forth.
To position yourself as a highly valuable employee, highlight achievements that demonstrate mastery at a higher level than your current role or the ability to influence outcomes beyond just completing routine tasks, advised Annie Murray, founder and head of negotiation coaching for Valued.
When you demonstrate, through concrete evidence and standard performance measures such as DORA, that the work you have completed exceeds expectations and significantly contributed to positive outcomes or solved problems, you essentially prove that what you’re asking for is justified.
Communicating Your Value
Once you’ve defined the value you’ve created in the past, you need to convey that message effectively and show how you plan to apply your skills and experience to create value for an organization in the future.
To connect the dots, Murray recommends presenting a brief review of the value you’ve created in the past six months and a 30-60-90 day plan outlining what you plan to accomplish in a new role or project.
For example, you might say something like: “Based on my prior experience, I know that I can help the team implement an inventory management tool that will reduce costs, improve customer satisfaction and optimize inventory levels within three months. By the way, I’ve also learned how to avoid mistakes when integrating inventory management software and enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, which will save time and eliminate rework.”
The review shows that you have a history of creating value and contributing to positive outcomes by delivering on commitments and going above and beyond. It shows that you are aware of how you add value to a process or role, and that you are able to connect your everyday actions to the bigger picture.
Outlining the goals and problems you want to tackle and solve in your initial months shows that you’re capable of replicating your success in a new position and applying your experience and lessons learned, making you worth more to the company. It shows that you understand the expectations and helps the manager picture you in the position.
But what if you don’t have a firm handle on the manager’s goals or what’s expected of you in the role?
Ideally, you’d like to gain an understanding of the hiring manager’s most pressing needs and objectives through research and by asking questions during interviews. But if you’re not sure about the priorities, there’s nothing wrong with making assumptions, Murray said.
Presenting a set of objectives invites feedback and makes the salary negotiation process or the request for promotion more collaborative, she explained. Use the back-and-forth to create clarity and to highlight your approach to solving a specific problem through your expertise.
Value is in the eye of the beholder. If you can show that you have a plan to hit the ground running and take some things off your manager’s plate, you instantly become more valuable to them. And as the saying goes, the more valuable you become, the more you will earn.
