How to tell if you got a quiet promotion
Quiet promotion is a term coined by Money With Mark (me) on a viral tik tok video. Quiet promotion is when your boss or company puts more roles & responsibilities onto you – without a title change, pay raise, or compensation of any kind.
Don’t get caught people pleasing! Follow these 5 steps to avoid falling trap to the quiet promotion.
The Quiet Promotion Traps:
What is quiet promotion?
Quiet promotion is when your boss or company puts more responsibilities and work on your plate, without giving you a raise, title change, or compensation in any way.
Why do people get quiet promoted?
Most of us want to be people pleasers. Especially when in a power dynamic like the workplace, we want to do good work, more work and get rewarded on meritocracy not on politics or brown nosing. That creates a situation where your manager can ask more of you – beyond your current employment scope and you will naturally want to say yes to!
How can you benefit from getting a quiet promotion?
The best way to benefit off an increase in your roles, or work scope is by asking questions! Good questions are such as; “I’m very excited to take on more work, is there an increase in my compensation for this?”. If there is no mention or thought of giving you a pay bump, the easiest things to negotiate are a title change, or an increase in vacation time!
Turn your quiet promotion into a real promotion!
How To Benefit From Quiet Promotions
Having difficult conversations is one of the best skills for you to practice. When your manager is putting more work and responsibilities on you – that’s a perfect opportunity. While we all want to be people pleasers, there is no reason that you should not be benefiting from taking on more work. Asking for a raise can sometimes be intimidating, but that’s okay! There are other unique ways you can get compensation that dramatically increase your happiness.
Compensation Ideas:
Pay raise (obviously)
More vacation time 🏝️
Title change (good for padding the LinkedIn resume!)
More benefits! Ask for a health spending budget from your company
Why money is not always the answer
Compensation That Makes You Happier 😁
Getting a pay raise or extra bonus is great, but studies have shown that after a certain level of income more money does not equal more happiness. There are many ways to actually improve your happiness, and you can use your increase in work scope as leverage to get more of what actually makes you happier.
Ways to live a more fulfilling life:
Spend more time with family and good friends. Not the type of friends that is a chore to hang out with – just the ones that feel effortless.
Get more self care spend more time doing your hobbies – mountain bike on new trails, or learn to make pizza from a top Italian chef.
Invest more into your partner your significant other has the highest correlation (0.71) to your wellbeing. So by doing nice things for or experiences with your partner you can dramatically improve your relationship, and hence your own life!
Steal these lines when negotiating with your manager
Use These Negotiation Lines:
“I’m so happy to take on this new work, just out of curiosity is there any raise that comes with this added responsibility?”
“That’s ok that there’s no pay raise involved, could I change my title to better reflect my new responsibilities?”
“That’s ok that there is no pay raise involved, could I get an extra 3 days of vacation time as compensation for my new role?”
“Thank you for this opportunity, I’m very happy to take this new project on. Would it be possible for me to also leave the office early on Wednesdays to get to my child’s soccer games?”
Final Thoughts On Quiet Promotion
Use quiet promotions as an opportunity to improve your resume or get more vacation time! Don’t let this become an ongoing issue without respectfully getting something in return for your increased work load.
