You will be able to plan and hold a raise or promotion conversation with your manager.
Joanne runs customer operations for an e-commerce company in Tai Seng. Over the past year her team has grown from four people to seven, she's taken over the returns process, and the complaints backlog that used to sit at two weeks now clears in three days. In March her manager tells her, warmly, that she's had a great year. Her increment is the same small percentage as everyone else's.
When she asks about it, her manager says, "I wish you'd mentioned this in November. The numbers were all decided by December." Joanne had a strong case. She made it four months too late.
This lesson is about asking for a raise or promotion at the right time, with a case that rests on evidence. All figures are examples.
Most companies decide pay and promotions on a cycle. Budgets are set, managers put forward names and numbers, a committee or a senior leader approves them, and only then are the results announced. By the time you hear your increment, the decisions are months old and the money is allocated.
So the time to ask is before decisions are made, while your manager can still put your name forward. Find out how your company's cycle works: when budgets are set, when managers submit recommendations, and when results are announced. Your manager or HR can usually tell you if you ask plainly. Then plan to raise the topic early in that cycle, ideally a month or two before recommendations are due.
Asking outside the cycle isn't hopeless, especially if your role has changed a lot or you've received an outside offer. But inside the cycle, you're asking your manager to do something they're already doing, and that's much easier to say yes to.
A raise request that rests on your needs, such as rent going up or a new baby, is understandable, and it's a weak case. Your manager may sympathise, but they have to justify any increase to someone else, and "she needs it" isn't a justification they can use.
What they can use is results. Write down what you've delivered this year, with numbers where you have them, and how your role has grown. Joanne's version:
"My team grew from four to seven people, and I hired and trained the three new staff. I took over the returns process in June. The complaints backlog went from about two weeks to three days."
Each line is something her manager can repeat in a meeting without checking. That matters, because your manager is the one who'll make the case to the people who decide. Make it easy for them to argue on your behalf. If you've been keeping your manager updated throughout the year, as Communicate at work suggests in lesson 3.3, Agree how and when you update your manager, much of this evidence is already in your sent folder.
Results show you're doing more. Market data shows what that's worth elsewhere. Use the same sources as lesson 7.1, Find your market rate from real sources: MOM's wage tables, recruiter salary guides and current listings for roles like the one you're now doing, which may be bigger than the one you were hired for.
Joanne finds that listings for operations managers with teams of her size advertise ranges that start above her current pay. That gives her request a second leg. It isn't just that she's done well. It's that the company would have to pay more than her current salary to replace her.
Her ask is specific: an increase from S$5,000 to S$5,400 a month, which is 8%. With a 13th month, that's S$5,200 a year more. She'll also mention that the scope of her role now matches an operations manager title, in case a promotion is the easier route.
Sometimes the answer will be that there's simply no money this year. That might be true, especially when a company is cutting costs. Don't argue with it. Turn it into a plan instead.
Ask what would need to be true for a raise or promotion to happen: "What would you need to see from me, and by when, for this to be possible?" Then agree a specific date to revisit it, and write it down in a follow-up email. Lesson 5.4, Close the deal and write it down, applies here too. A vague "let's talk about it later" tends to drift. A date in both calendars doesn't.
You can also ask about items that cost less than base pay, the same trading currency from lesson 7.2: a title change, a one-off bonus, a training budget, or an earlier review. These are easier for a manager to approve when the salary budget is tight.
Joanne's first step is the one she missed last year: finding out when her company actually sets pay. The activity asks you to find that out for your own company and pick the date by which you'll raise it.
Find out when your company sets pay and promotions, and write the date by which you will raise the topic with your manager.
Junxiong-WFG Organisation is an authorised representative of AIA Financial Advisers Private Limited (Reg. No. 201715016G).