You worked hard, exceeded your goals, got stellar performance reviews and then... didn’t get promoted. So, what happened?
“Securing a promotion is one of the biggest barriers for women’s equity in the workplace,” says Kathryn Valentine, CEO of Worthmore Strategies, an Atlanta, Georgia-based leadership development firm. The latest Women in the Workplace report by McKinsey and Lean In found that for every 100 men promoted to manager in America, only 81 women achieve the same advancement. This phenomenon even has its own name: the broken rung.
Things aren’t much better in Canada. An October 2024 study by Statistics Canada found that only 23 per cent of executive positions were held by women who, on average, earned 40.6 per cent less than their male counterparts. And while McKinsey and Lean In estimate gender parity is nearly 50 years away, the World Economic Forum says it’s likely closer to 131 years.
“It’s a systemic problem,” says Valentine, who has spent nearly a decade coaching women on their career negotiations and now helps companies develop and retain female employees through research-based training programs and services. “The answer should be a systemic change. However, that’s not going to happen for women tomorrow, so what tools can we hand them that will allow them to be successful today?”
Valentine has a few tools in mind. Below, she shares five of her top tips to help you get promoted, sooner rather than later — because why wait 50 (or 131!) years to get to where you deserve to be?
1. Ask for the promotion you want
“A lot of people still enter the workforce thinking that if they put their heads down and work hard, they will be rewarded,” says Valentine. “We’ve seen from a research perspective — multiple times — that that is not the case.” If you want to progress in your career, you can’t be passive.
A 2024 study by Indeed found that more than 50 per cent of women surveyed around the world have never requested a raise. Among the 43 per cent who have asked, three out of four were successful in securing a pay increase.
However, negotiating for a better title or higher pay can be riskier for women than men because the process may involve behaviours that don’t align with traditional gender roles. While in many workplaces men may be expected to be assertive, self-promoting, or competitive when negotiating for a promotion, women may face pressure to be humble.
As a result, research suggests that women are more likely than men to experience backlash for acting “too assertively” when asking for a promotion. According to Valentine, this can manifest in various ways, including being quietly sidelined or excluded from key meetings and opportunities for visibility. The key to securing a promotion often lies in how you ask.
2. Pitch your promotion in a mutually beneficial way
Valentine came up with a formula, called the Worthmore Relational Ask Equation, which she says not only increases the likelihood that you’ll ask for a promotion, but improves your chances of getting one.
The formula, inspired by research from Hannah Bowles at Harvard Kennedy School (also a senior advisor for Worthmore) and Linda Babcocks at Carnegie Mellon, found that if women ask for a promotion in a way that is both legitimate (meaning justified or appropriate in the situation) and mutually beneficial, the chances of success skyrocket — and the risk of potential backlash is virtually eliminated.'
The equation essentially breaks a pitch down into four parts: your past performance plus future goals (that are beneficial for everyone), plus your ask. The fourth part is simply “stop talking.”
“In my third year of coaching, I added ‘stop talking’ to the equation because women, in an attempt to make their negotiation partners feel better, would actually start negotiating against themselves,” says Valentine. For example, she was once assisting a client who wanted to work from home five days a week. When the time came to meet with her supervisor, she quickly negotiated herself down to four days and then said, “Or I could probably make it work in three.” Her negotiation partner hadn’t even responded, and she’d already lowered her ask by 40 percent, Valentine says.
There are many ways to apply the “Relational Ask Equation,” she says. She cites the example of a woman who wanted to be promoted to a director level position at her organization. “Her language was something like, ‘As you know, last year, I exceeded my sales targets by five per cent. I think I could actually do it by 15 per cent this year, which would help the team hit their department level goals. In order to do that, though, I need the credibility that comes with a director title. What do you think?’"
3. Treat rejection as an opportunity
Valentine says every woman should hear the word “no” at some point in her career. “If you’re not hearing the word ‘no,’ then you know you’re not asking enough,” she says. When you’re turned down for that next promotion, use it as a stepping stone toward your end goal by asking what you need to do to qualify the next time around.
Based on your manager’s feedback, Valentine recommends creating a rubric with a clear list of things that you, the employee, need to demonstrate in order to get promoted. This allows the “IKEA effect” to come into play, she says. The IKEA effect describes how people tend to like something more if they made it (or in the case of the Swedish home furnishings giant, assembled it) themselves. “When somebody co-creates something, they assign a higher value to it, and so if your manager is part of creating what you need to go do, then they’re much more likely to give you that promotion once it’s done.”
Next, Valentine recommends writing a follow-up email to your manager, something like: “Thank you so much for spending time with me today, I really appreciated our conversation. What I heard you say is that I need to demonstrate that I can run a P&L and manage X, Y and Z, to qualify for this promotion in the next cycle. I’m really excited to get working on those things.” And every time you check one of those boxes, send a follow-up note to document your progress.
4. Time your ask strategically
In many companies, annual review budgets are locked in months before performance evaluations occur. If you wait to ask during your annual appraisal, your manager might not be able to give you the promotion, or raise, that you’ve been working towards.
Instead, Valentine recommends “front-running” your ask during your mid-year performance review, so when the time comes for the company to start allocating resources, you’ve already made your case. If your company doesn’t have a mid-year review, Valentine says the onus falls on you to ask for a one-on-one roughly six months prior to your ask. Just make sure your manager isn’t distracted or overwhelmed by projects when you do. “If it’s not a good time for them, if they’re fighting some fire with their biggest client, you’re not going to get the answer you want,” she says. Also, make sure you’re asking from a position of strength. “Research on negotiation would say that your highest leverage times are after you’ve completed a key deliverable,” she adds.
5. Negotiate for more than just title and salary
When you enter into negotiations, Valentine says you should ask yourself what you need in order to thrive in the role. Then, ask yourself what will help you deliver results at work with less stress or less lift. Making your work life easier can have a big impact on your overall job satisfaction.
“One woman I worked with was a VP who was spending an inordinate amount of time finding conference rooms for her team to meet in,” Valentine says. “So, she negotiated a dedicated conference room. Now, she doesn’t have to worry about it anymore.”
You can also negotiate for things that increase your long-term earning potential, especially if cashflow at the company is tight. Will they allow you to sit in the executive leadership meeting, for example, or sponsor you speaking at a conference? “These things can increase your market value and, because they’re not cash, companies that are financially strapped are usually more than happy to dole them out.”
In short: Don’t wait to ask for the promotion you deserve.
Valentine’s final message for women who want to take that next crucial step in their career is: don’t wait. “I would ask before you think you’re qualified because the simple act of asking puts you in line. And you’re not in line until you ask.”
Whether you’re trying to move from entry-level to first-time manager or from vice president to senior vice president, you’ll need to be a strategic advocate for your own growth and development. That’s how women can accelerate the pace of change they hope to see, Valentine says, both in their individual careers and in the system at large. “I would love to see each individual woman push the ball up the hill as fast, and as far, as she can.”
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