How To Position Yourself For A Better Salary At Work

Practice Nurse Debbie is back with another helpful video. In this one, she covers the do’s and don’ts of securing promotions and salary increases.

Hello, my name is Debbie and I'm a Practice Nurse in London. Today I'm going to be talking about the dos and don'ts of trying to get a promotion or a salary increase.

Don’t Shy Away From Opportunities

Number one: don't shy away from opportunities. If you know that you're looking for a promotion or salary, you need to start doing things that you never thought you could do or challenging yourself to do a lot more.

I remember, for example, a time when my lead nurse was going on holiday for one month and I was so worried. At the time, I was still finding my feet in practice nursing, as I was saying, and I almost saw it as an opportunity to show that without the lead nurse, because there's only two of us, that I'm able to lead, I'm able to take care of the practice, the staff, et cetera.

So that really helped me and showed that I have good leadership skills and I'm able to function even without the lead nurse.

Ask If You Can Sit In Important Meetings

Number two is request to sit in important meetings, especially when you know that there's going to be a meeting coming up. So, in my case, I don't prescribe, but recently I sat in a meeting concerning prescribing and where the practice stands with how much we're prescribing, et cetera.

This is not something that I particularly do or that I have a say in per se, because I don't prescribe, like I said, however sitting in such meetings increases my knowledge of the practice where I work and just helps me to be able to have a stronger stance in my role.

Make Your Opinions & Suggestions Known

Number three, make your opinions and suggestions known. Sometimes we have suggestions on how to make things better in the practice, or in our role in general, and we just keep it to ourselves.

Being able to speak up in your work environment really shows that you care about where you work and that you are comfortable enough to have a say in what's important.

And this will give you a good stance for when it comes to things like promotion or salary increase. It's like, "Do you know what? You made this change in the practice and it's been very helpful to us." And it's little things like that. Sometimes we think of just the big things, but sometimes just the small contributions you make to your practice, or to your job in general will help you in the long run.

If they know that patients appreciate you…then it shows that you are doing well in your job and puts you in a good stance for a promotion or a salary increase.

Build Rapport With Patients & Staff

Number four is building a good rapport with your patients and staff members. The blessing of practice nursing is the fact that I get to see patients and families on a regular basis.

Some people weekly, some people once a month, some people even once a year. But to know that I'm in a place whereby the patient can come and see me over and over again, like at Christmastime they bring me gifts and things like that, and the practice takes log of all these things, the gifts that you are given, et cetera, and this shows that the patients appreciate you.

And if they know that patients appreciate you, which is the crux of everything and patient care, then it shows that you are doing well in your job and puts you in a good stance for a promotion or a salary increase.

Ask For Feedback

Number five, ask for feedback; ask management, ask your colleagues, ask the people that you mentor, ask them for feedback.

"What is it that I'm doing well?" "What can I be doing better?" "What is expected of me?" "What is next?"

Because when you do that, you are able to take all of this onboard and do it so that when the time does come for you to get a salary increase or promotion, whatever the case is, you would've been able to tick all the boxes of your job description or whatever's required of you to do.

Train Other People

Number six, and this is probably my favorite, is train other people. So in the GP practice, we have the opportunity to have the healthcare assistants and I also have the opportunity to have Student Nurses come and sit in with me.

The reason why I really like this is because as much as I'm helping them, they're also helping me because as I'm training, I'm able to show that I can train people, I've got good leadership skills.

Things that this really helps to solidify your knowledge because when you are training someone else, you are reinforcing that knowledge in yourself as well. It's very helpful to put yourself forward to train other people in whatever aspect it is. Let them sit in with the clinic with you or wherever the case is.

But it's really helpful because then it shows that you can do roles much bigger than what you are doing at present.

Know Your Competition

And number seven, and this one's a little bit more outside of your job role, but know your competition, know what is out there. In order for you to get a promotion or a salary increase, you need to know what other places are offering.

Can your practice match that? Can your job match that? So be able to just really hone into what's around there.

I've done that before. I've looked around and said, "You know what?" to my practice, "This is what's being offered elsewhere. Are you able to match that?" And luckily enough for me, they have been.

So being able to know your competition really helps to either get yourself a promotion or a salary increase.

I hope this helps.

Thank you for watching/ reading