Measuring personal performance

[ashrobbo]

Hi All,

Its that time of year where payrises and bonuses are being considered..

how do you go about getting them and what kind of stats/information do you go armed with?

I work in IT support in a SME and there is no real 'goals' I just do what I need to.

I'm aiming to get more responsibility but dont really know how to go about it,

Cheers,

Ash

 

[ashrobbo]

You must know what systems you are running?

Get some books and learn more about them, ask to be involved more, use your initiative.

Yes I do know the systems we are running, I put half of them together.
Were a 2 man team so some systems we have inherited, but I still know how they all function to be able to support people, but that isn't my issue, im asking how do I get across my worth to the business?

Setting goals
I dont subscribe to any of this and management hate me for it , but most organisations set Key Performance Indicators, which are basically Goals which can be Measured.

The aim is to get goals which are defined clearly and understandable to both the employee and the manager and are achievable.

Look around at what you do, what you would like to do and what you could do but dont currently have the time/resources/power to do.

What are the aspects of yours and other peoples jobs which really take the most time, or are really inefficient.

Review time
Measure yourself against your objectives. Add any unmeasured tasks/projects you have been involved in. Especially if they raised productivity, reduced costs or make other people more effective.

Focus on your successes. Dont bring up failures unless they do, and then don't get defensive, just be realistic.

Bring up any training you need to do your job - or the next job.

Do not go into it with the mindset of 'inflation, everyday costs etc. are all up therefore I deserve a payrise', in the current climate everyone is being squeezed.

Very Useful Thanks, I am currently studying towards my MCSE and eventually MCITP, thats my own initiative thought and not something the business is putting me through.

Good advice about inflation etc, I'd never go asking because my personal situation changed but ive seen far too many people make that mistake such as 'i've got a kid on the way give me more money' in no way is that the businesses issue.

We do a have a IT support sharepoint list with all of our jobs on, so i can figure out how many I have completed in the past 12 months, might be a good start.

 

[ashrobbo]

Specifically for you...

- If you don't have set goals then you're unlikely to get a bonus unless you can demonstrate you've done your job particularly well. Can you say you improved uptime by X% year on year. Or that response/fix time for faults is down by Y minutes on last years figures.

Bonuses *should* be paid for achieving targets, if you can't point to targets or at least quantifiable improvements you've not much hope. (with the caveat that few businesses really run they're compensation so well and it usually comes down to the corporate bonus pool being x% and your manager deciding based on their unscientific, personal view of your performance that you can have y% of that.

- Payrises should be at least in line with inflation except in a very few circumstances. Your pay should stay the same in real terms purchasing power year on year even if you're not getting anything above that.

For a pay rise above that, generally you need to have taken on additional responsibilities, have done an exceptional job or similar in the last year. You don't get a pay rise for doing your job and achieving your targets.

Your best bet is to go talk to your boss about that and say exactly that, that you want to progress, would appreciate earning a bit more but you're unclear how best to do so as you don't have explicit targets.

You should be aware though, SMB IT is unrewarded in this area for a reason, most SMBs want their IT to work and enable the rest of the business to do thing. It's not a growth area for them, it's a service which enables them to do things, like their finance team is, they want it done well but don't want the costs to escalate because it hits the bottom line and doesn't have a directly linked business benefit.

Thanks bigredshark, Your posts are really very helpful and informative, im going to approach my manager and discuss maybe targets I can achieve next year and what I can do more.

I hear you with the SMB IT 'Role' and didnt really give it much thought. DOes anybody know roughly how to find inflation % information?