1 year revi) ew prep - asking for a promotion and raise

Hi everyone! New Elpha member here excited to write my first post :)

Last September for my first full-time position after graduating from university, I joined a growing tech-logistics startup that started expanding internationally just over a year ago - they openned 4 new offices in 3 different countries in 2022 and have been operating in Paris for over 5 years now, with currently around 170 employees in total.

I joined the operations team in one of their new European offices as the first (and only, for a while) operations manager. After almost a year since I joined, I'm still the only operations employee in my office, even though operations is the heart of this business, and I'm having to deal with a constantly growing workload and few resources to navigate this with. That being said, I ramped up my knowledge on this industry and company immensly during the onboarding process and following months, and have successfully met all my objectives and maintained a high level of customer satisfaction and positive team feedback.

I'm now preparing for my annual review, where my manager has previously told me that my possible promotion would be confirmed. She shared some details on the additional responsibilities that this promotion would imply when she sent me my career path a couple of months ago, but did not mention anything specific about salary.

My company offers no equity or yearly/performance bonuses for my position, though we do receive a monthly meal & transport stipend as well as health care benefits. So I'm basing my negotiation solely on salary.

I should mention that this review is especially important because in the next one (which will be in January) they will confirm my international mobility to one of the US offices, something that they promised when they sent me my initial job offer. If this goes through, I would expect to see a significant pay raise given the difference in thr cost of living betweek Europe and the US. I would also eventually like to pursue a role with more leadership once I'm there.

Taking into account the context and my progress within the company during this past year, and the growth and international mobility opprtunities, what do you think would be a good raise % to negotiate for for this promotion, and how would you approach this conversation?

To get to a good raise % to target, I think you are right to look at all the factors you mentioned. I think you also need to look at what your skills are worth on the open market, that means research on the internet and job postings (maybe even interviews) at comparable positions and the rates they are hiring at. You want to price in how painful it would be for them to lose you at this point and the price of hiring someone new. THAT information will help you factor in to the rest of the situation as you described. As far as how to approach, you might want to save mentioning the first number in the negotiation if you can. That means opening with open-ended questions that puts the ball in their court like: “we talked about a raise, what did you have in mind?” Or “how am I doing with regards to the raise we talked about?” Then in the back of your mind you do have the number and also the information on the external job market that is the leverage to get what you want. You do want to be clear that you are loyal and committed to the role, and emphasize how you have demonstrated that with your performance. You also don’t want to be put in a position where you are getting taken advantage of. You want to be strong and firm. It sounds like your major issue is that you might be looking at a bump in title but not necessarily salary at the moment (even if that MAY be in the cards later with a move to the US). You need to decide BEFORE you go in there if the title alone and the US opportunity is worth no or minimal salary bump. You can understand if it’s worth it to you by looking at your options on the open market and the pain they would have of replacing you if you were to walk away. That being said, there’s no harm in straight up asking either before or during your conversation “what kind of salary is associated with the title we talked about?” Or even go to HR or internal information. Some companies have ladders of pay scale that correspond to different titles. Also since you mentioned your growing workload it might also be worth having a conversation about expanding your role to include people management. Sounds like there is more than enough work to go around and if you can position the financial return on the fantastic operations work you’re doing effectively, leading a team is a good way of being perceived as more responsibility and higher salary long-term regardless of where your career takes you. Hope that helps!