Everybody is worried about their career and is always pursuing to grow in their roles and take up more responsibilities. In this pursuit, there comes a time where your boss would expect some level of proactivity. More often than not, a boss will expect an employee to take the initiative to take up more responsibility. In that situation, it becomes the responsibility of the employee to be proactive and take up that work to impress the boss and have good prospects of growth in their career. How to Ask for More Responsibility at Work?
If you want to take up more responsibility at work, one of the most essential things would be to be clear and precise about what work you would like to take on. Any superior would appreciate clarity when you are communicating your interest to take up more work. Another essential aspect would be to state precisely what work you would like to take up. Leaving room for ambiguity can further burden you and work against your favor. This article will give you a precise understanding of how to take up more responsibility at work.
It can be tricky to ask your boss for more responsibility. You may be doing it for a salary hike, a promotion, a title change, or you want to develop your skills. For all these reasons, you still need to have a proper structure while taking up more responsibility. Preparation for the next step of your career is critical but meeting the expectation at your workplace is equally important. Taking up extra work and being unable to manage it can be disastrous for your work life and mental health.
From this, we can understand that striking the right balance between the management of your existing workload and additional responsibility is vital. It would be advisable to have a fixed plan in your mind and a set routine to meet all the expectations and responsibilities you take up. A balanced outcome is what you would ideally be looking for.
How to Ask for More Responsibility at Work?
Clarity on the Responsibilities You Wish to Take on
Clarity begins with your mind. You must understand what you wish to take up and how you wish to balance it with your pre-existing work and personal life. You must also be clear on your goals in life and the skills and experience you want to develop. If your goal is to get a promotion, look to improve your responsibilities so that it meets the level of expertise required for the job you aspire to get promoted to. A simple way to know what is necessary for that promotion is to observe your co-workers already in that role. You should get to know their qualifications, level of experience, and workload to get clarity on what would be expected of you if you were to get that promotion. This will be a stepping stone for you to understand what you need to focus your extra time on if you want to move up in your career.
If the goal you have set is for a salary increment, you must identify skills you are required to develop to justify a salary increment. Improving your efficiency, being punctual, and being an asset of profitability are ways to justify asking for a salary increment.
Example: if you are a clerk at a law firm and wish to become a practicing lawyer at the firm, start by noting down all the requirements to get into law school and pass the bar exam. Then observe the role and work the lawyers have at the firm and make sure you are up to the task. Once you have met all the pre-requisites to become a lawyer, you can approach your superiors at the firm and declare your interest to practice at their firm.
Focus on Impacting Opportunities
Simply taking up extra responsibility does not always equate to value addition. You must demonstrate how the additional responsibility is impactful to the company and yourself. Value addition is significant to the company, so making sure that the opportunities you take up are adding value to the company is crucial. So once you have listed for yourself the responsibilities you intend to take up, you should carefully evaluate how each added responsibility can benefit the company or business. It would help if you looked out for those responsibilities that produce the most tangible impact on the company. This is what will help you make your case to your manager to justify a salary increment or a promotion, or any added responsibility.
For example: if you have taken up a project, remember to set a reasonable timeline with deadlines, objectives, and a good budget proposal if funding is required. It would be best if you displayed how your plan for the completion of the project is beneficial to the company. You can make a case for how your idea can save the company definite amounts of time, effort, and money, as these are vital aspects for any company.
Upgrade Your Skills
The question may come up as to how you must upgrade your skills by taking up more responsibilities. Although it may seem like a chicken and an egg situation, there is a middle ground that you strive to achieve in this situation. Additional responsibility can mean venturing into alien territory, but your pre-existing experience and your smartness can guide you to learn quickly and upskill yourself. As you adjust to a new role or responsibility, you get to learn a lot and so being proactive and vigilant will help in excelling at handling this responsibility.
Besides this, it never hurts to develop your skills individually. Reading books, attending seminars, taking extra coaching, online courses, training modules, etc., are all examples of how you can take efforts to upskill before even shifting into a new role or responsibility. Grasping these development opportunities only helps you make your case in your workspace to ask for more responsibilities and work. Making your superiors aware of your newly acquired skills is also crucial, and the timing of letting them know is essential too. It all eventually boils down to whether you make the right decisions at the right time.
For example: if you are a software engineer working and you wish to expand your reach and work on a project that requires advanced coding knowledge, then take up an additional course in your free time and familiarize yourself with coding at an advanced level. Once you have mastered the skill, you can impress your boss and excel at the project.
A Solid Plan Assisted with Options
For most people who report to superiors, their superiors would have bosses to whom they are accountable. The output the team as a whole has affected is what the leader is accountable for. So if you approach your boss for a new role or added responsibilities, be prepared to be asked multiple questions and clarifications as your boss is also doing their job at the end of the day. Your superiors would appreciate a detailed plan covering frequently asked questions. You can go into detail about how you will delegate some of your work to free up your time to take up the responsibility. Ultimately, you should be able to reassure your superiors that you will be able to strike the ideal balance and meet all the required expectations.
Try your best not to be close-minded about your plan as you might be wrong. Your manager may voice valid concerns, which you must give a listening ear to. About assimilating the feedback, you can come back to the manager with your updated plan in which you have accommodated your manager’s concerns. Sometimes it may take multiple follow-up meetings to convince your manager to allow you to take up the added responsibility.
Wordings and Timings
The timing and wording of your request are highly crucial. Approaching your boss when they are very busy or stressed would not be ideal for you. Identifying when your manager is in an ideal mood to hear your request out is critical. The timing has a huge role in deciding the success you will have in the request. Companies generally have mid-year reviews or year-end reviews; timings like these would be better to make such requests. Times of the year which are less hectic and stressful for the company, in general, would also be preferred timings to approach your boss.
The wording and tone of your request also play a vital role in the potential acceptance of the request. You can try making it more of a discussion to show that you are open to any ideas that the manager might have. Using words and terminology that make it seem that you are looking out for the benefit of the company is very important. You can also convince the manager that you can take some work off your manager’s shoulders. Try focusing more on the benefit it has on your team rather than the personal gain you achieve from the request.
For example: if you are approaching your boss for a salary increment, your tone should be as humble as possible. You must try to prove to your boss why you deserve the salary increment but also be humble about it. Crediting your boss for growing in your career can also be a good idea while approaching your boss for the increment. Overall, a humble, but firm tone can take you a long way.
Identification of Required help
Your boss would likely be swamped with work themselves. It may be vague to them as to where additional work is required for the business and who is capable of doing it. This is where identifying the company’s needs and requirements comes into play. You can make yourself aware of the opportunities that have opened up in other teams or departments and grasp them. Such an act of branching out from your primary area of expertise can be a fantastic opportunity for you to build your network. It can also open doors in other areas of the business and provide new opportunities to you. However, do not neglect to keep your boss in the loop about your intentions and endeavors, as that has scope to create bad blood between yourself and your boss.
For example: if you work at a newspaper company and you wish to write more content as you are involved only in the magazine section of the newspaper, start by identifying opportunities in other sectors you may be interested in such as the editorial, sports section, global news section, etc. Once you have identified that, find out about any openings in those sections. If you have found an opening, get into an open dialogue with your boss and clarify your intention to multitask, and give the assurance that you will be able to dedicate the required time for both segments of the newspaper.
A Dialogue, Not a Monologue
Do not be discouraged by an unfavorable outcome from this particular pitch you have made. Rejection is only natural, but it is also a stepping stone to starting and continuing the conversation about new opportunities with your manager. Making such pitches and requests shows your superiors your willingness to take initiative and responsibility, and that can’t be a bad thing.
The next time your superiors come across a new opportunity or a role, they will already be aware that you might be interested, and that is how the rejected pitch or request will end up helping you. They may also be interested in working with you to find the best possible alternative. As mentioned earlier, the collective benefit of the team is always prioritized, so teamwork is paramount.
For example: if you have made a PowerPoint Presentation pitch for an extended role in the company, try to list down clearly in the PPT what exactly you wish to take up. Instead of reserving questions for the end, try to stop at the end of every slide or set of slides and ask if your boss has any questions or queries. End the PPT on a positive note and be open to conversing more with your boss about this request.
Plan B and a Plan C
It would be best if you had multiple plans to try and convince your manager to grant you the added responsibility. You might have made a solid plan A, but that may not seem like the most appealing plan to your manager. Thus, having a plan B or even a plan C will give the manager more options to choose from. It also widens the perspective of the manager and shows that you have prepared well for the perceivable objections. Your plan B can be similar to your plan A. The difference between the two plans should be that there is a reduced element of risk in your plan B. Your plan C can focus on the main thing that you wish to achieve, which has the least amount of risk. If you wish to walk the extra mile, then preparing a plan D can also help to keep the ball rolling and the conversation between you and your boss going.
Keep in mind that controlled persistence can be beneficial for your end goals, and that is what you should be working towards. Do not lose your calm if you receive a “yes”. Make sure that you and your manager are on the same page about everything. This will avoid any future confusion. In some situations, it may also help if you take it from your manager in writing that they are assigning you that new role or providing you that increment. You must set clear expectations and goals once the proposal has been accepted. An important factor to sustainability is meeting the required deadlines and delivering all the things you promised in your plan. It is only natural for hiccups to arise in between, but you must be aware of how to deal with them and balance all your work to make sure that your manager remains convinced that you are capable of handling this new level of responsibility. Once you fix your routine and meet your deadlines regularly, you establish trust between yourself and your boss, which allows you to request more things in the future.
For example: if you wish to ask for a promotion from sales representative to sales head, you must have multiple plans to approach your batch and achieve what you want. After pitching your Plan A, your Plan B can be an assurance of working longer hours at your current post for a few more months and then getting a promotion. Your Plan C can be working extra hours but without the prospect of promotion but maybe just a pay hike.
Never Backstab Your Colleagues
Even though the corporate world is often a race, it is very unethical to go behind your colleague’s back to get a promotion or take more responsibility. Clarity of communication should exist even here. It would be best to make it amply clear that you genuinely want the added responsibility for your benefit and the company’s benefit. It should not look like you have double-crossed your colleagues, as it would create an unhealthy environment in your workspace in the long run. This will directly affect your productivity as well as the companies.
Conclusion
It can be understood from this article that to grow in your career, there are certain risks that you have to take to achieve success. Being proactive and taking additional responsibility is a great way to do this. You should, however, always keep in mind the various methods to ask for more responsibility, the timing to ask for it, and the preparation you require to request your superiors. If you have given this article a good reading, you should be well prepared to begin your efforts to take up more responsibility in your workplace.
Frequently Asked Questions
- What are the additional responsibilities a person can take up in their workplace?
The additional responsibilities could include a request for a job promotion, a new job title, a salary increment, or just more responsibilities to build your skill and experience.
- What is the best time to approach your boss to ask for additional responsibilities?
There is no hard and fast “ideal time” to as your boss. However, it would be advisable to approach your boss when they have less work and are not stressed. It can also play a crucial role if you approach your superiors in the middle of the year or at the end of the year, as those are logical times when change is expected.
