How to ask for a raise when your manager knows all the good work you have done but does not want to talk about it? [duplicate]

Question

I joined my current employer one year ago. I like my team and my manager. My team is a part of big group at my current employer. During my interview (to this position last year), I asked the manager about bonuses and salary increases in the current team/group. She told me that based on the performance, everyone in the group gets some bonus and raise every year. However, nothing is in written form.

The performance review is done once in a year (officially). This year, it looks like except for my team in the group, performance reviews were done for all the other teams -- we are getting e-mails about promotions etc., of other team members. It has been one month, I never heard anything from my manager about my performance review or bonus/raise.

I believe that I did pretty good work for the last 12 months. I am a bit disappointed. When I shared my anxiety about this to one of the senior team members of my team, he told me that in this team performance reviews are not officially done. He further told me that it is not guaranteed that everyone gets a bonus or a raise in the team. He advised me not to ask our manager about raise/bonus. I asked him why, he responded that it is good for me not to bring this topic to my manager. He didn't give any reason for this.

However, I am planning to talk with my manager in the next weeks one-on-one, but I am not sure what is an appropriate way to start with a discussion on this due to my conversation with my senior colleague. I think that my manager knows the cool projects I have done during the last 12 months. Shall I start by telling my good work during the last year? However, I am bit shy of self-praising. Please help me to handle this situation.

Answer 1

I would simply start with bringing up that you've noticed reviews going out in the company and are wondering when your teams is going to be presented with theirs - just that and nothing more, from there you need to gauge the managers response and if they say 'soon' and it doesn't happen soon then you need to worry.

Simply put your manager may not have gotten to you yet, and they don't discuss bonuses or raises with other employees and keep all that on the 'hush hush' but you have every right to ask about your review and when you can expect it - just be professional about it and don't sound desperate. It's possible some of your team got bonuses raises and aren't allowed to discuss it with you, this is normal.

Once you get your review go ahead and bring up all the great stuff you've been doing over the year, not before. You should hear extremely quickly back about raise/bonus, they may not mention a bonus ever but from this point it's OK to ask about your raise - if he dodges the bonus or doesn't bring it up after giving you your raise you can pretty much assume you're not getting one, if it's your first year there definitely do not push them for a bonus or when you'll receive one or that you deserve one unless you have it in writing in a contract somewhere.