CHICAGO — Being empowered to advocate for yourself in the workplace can help young professionals to really take control of their own career development and paths and helps increase job satisfaction and productivity.
There are plenty of reasons why you’d be looking to self-advocate, including negotiating fair compensation, looking for more challenging opportunities, striving for a better work-life balance or demonstrating accountability in your career and workplace. Whatever the reason, there are helpful tips and tricks to position yourself for effective self-advocacy to help you get where you want to go in your career.
Trade Show Executive set out to review the research and master tips for advocacy in the workplace and compiled a resource of the top advice for the Young Professionals Corner.
Major Reoccurring Themes
The best thing you can do in a situation where you’re standing up for yourself at work is to be clear and transparent in your communication, and assertive in your tone. By being direct in what you’re communicating, you remove ambiguity, thus leaving no room for assumptions.
Another important part to being able to effectively advocate for yourself is tracking your own progress and accomplishments. To be able to have tangible proof you’re an effective part of the team and deserve what you’re asking for, keep track of your completed tasks and the outcomes to tie back to the overall mission or goals of the company. This helps to position you as a results-driven change maker.
Do’s
- Identify personal strengths
- Reflect on long-term goals
- Seek external feedback for a well-rounded view of yourself
- Establish necessary boundaries while maintaining high-quality output
- Understand your market value for negotiations
- Document your completed tasks and achievements; update your professional portfolio regularly
- Anticipate questions about your requests and meet them with a conversational tone
- Set a deadline for the outcome; don’t allow room for procrastination
Don’ts
- React angrily and feed into unproductive conversations if you don’t get the feedback or support you’re looking for
- Engage in office gossip to make allies
- Go into conversations unprepared; it can undermine your advocacy efforts
- Only think about yourself; advocating for your colleagues and team members is just as important to build support and trust
- Approach conversations as confrontations
- Lose motivation or a sense of self-value if you are turned down at first
Related. Expert Tips to Mitigate Burnout
Preparing for a Meeting
It’s possible that when you’re advocating for yourself, you’ll be meeting with a supervisor to go over what you’re looking to gain or do. According to the First Generation Professionals of Milwaukee, here are five steps to be successful in your advocacy efforts.
- Be Clear: Know what you want prior to speaking up, and be creative and varied in your requests (raise, more challenging work, more facetime with executive leaders, etc.)
- Know Your Value: Use positive feedback on your work, tie your contributions to the company’s goals, and recognize the role others played in your success
- Find Allies: Network across your organization to find others who can support you and advocate on your behalf
- Conduct Yourself with Composure: Remain professional while communicating to your colleague or supervisor (this is easier when you come prepared to the meeting)
- Actively Listen to Feedback: Be ready to receive positive feedback and address not-so-positive feedback calmly, and understand that all actionable feedback is valuable to learning and growing in the workplace
More Expert Advice
According to Expert Panel from Forbes, some other top tips for advocating for yourself in the workplace include:
- Approaching your career development with full ownership and seeking out additional resources to get you to your career goals
- Link your individual contributions to the results that are important to leadership
- Future-proof your career by moving sideways early on to get a well-rounded skill set
- Face the politics of your workplace head-on by understanding the “unwritten rules and key stakeholders who should know about you”
Find additional helpful tips and more from the Forbes Human Resourses Council here.
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