How to ask for appraisal and salary increment?

Question

I have recently moved to London, UK from my home country. Here, I have joined a startup and the work environment is good. My contract states that my salary will be reviewed every year but no one has approached me regarding this.

I can email to HR but it looks like they are not involved much in this as we closely work with our managers which also happen to be the cofounders of the company, so they handle everything.

I am really confused how should I proceed or discuss about salary hike, as I really feel I need salary increment.

Answer 1

If it says in your contract you will have Yearly Salary reviews - then I'd drop your boss an email along the lines of:

"Hey Boss, can you schedule a time for my Yearly Salary Review?"

And take it from there - if they brush you off or ignore it - then that will tell you far more than anything else about the chances of it happening and you getting a raise.

Answer 2

In my experience, bosses are busy and wouldn't even realise that a year has gone by. As far as I'm concerned you have to ask for it. Also instead of sending a few emails like above. Make a meeting for them and then just turn up for the meeting. Be open about it with a subject of "Yearly review".

If they still don't want to make the meeting then they can't really blame you for looking at another job. I've certainly also been in jobs that promised 'to look after you' but 3 years down the track nothing happens.

Answer 3

"Hey, Boss, what would you need to see from me to justify a promotion/raise?"

(Usually the answer will be that you need to be already effectively acting at the level the higher rank would reflect.)

But remember that both are competitive processes once you get past the juniormost rankings, so even if everyone agrees you deserve recognition it may go to someone they think deserves it more.

Also remember that being promoted means you are going to be evaluated against that higher set of standards, which may make earning performance incentive bonuses harder (if your company uses them). A great junior engineer, doing the exact same work, is probably a mediocre senior engineer.