In Denmark's flat hierarchies, many people change companies to get promoted. Use your annual review to request training and signal ambition, and know that salary talks happen separately, backed by union benchmarks. A denied training request is a warning sign your employer isn't investing in you.
Chapters
Chapter 22: Will I ever be promoted? Plus, how to leverage your annual employee review. Is the company you want to work for open to promoting you? Have other internationals who work for this company moved into management positions? These are questions worth asking at a job interview. If the answer is no, it doesn't mean you shouldn't take the job. Just that you'll probably need to move to another company in order to advance. Many Danes do this too. It can be tough to suddenly become the boss of people who used to be your peers. It's often easier to start with an entirely new team. It's important to keep in mind that you are responsible for your own advancement. In some countries with traditional corporate hierarchies, X number of years of experience may correlate with an almost guaranteed promotion. But this is not the case in Denmark. The flat hierarchy in many Danish companies means there are simply fewer layers of management to move into. If you want a bigger role, you need to say so. A good time to do this is your annual employee review, which is required at most medium- to large-sized Danish companies. At the annual review, each employee sits down with his or her manager to discuss their progress over the past year and plans for the next. They also deliver feedback on the boss's performance. Preparing for the annual review often means filling out a lot of forms before the review meeting, evaluating yourself as well as your boss. I used to hate this part of the process when I worked at large corporations. Rating myself in an environment of gentile was always difficult. Am I a four or a five out of five when it comes to quality of work? Can I allow myself to put five? And the forms always seemed to be due at a time when I was busy with other stuff. Had I been more ambitious to get into management, I would have been wasting an opportunity. The annual review is a great place to find out what plans the company has for you. If it has any plans for you at all. Ask the company to pay for courses and training, whether it's a couple of day-long conferences or a full MBA. Look up the courses you want in advance and present them to your boss during the meeting, along with an explanation of how they will benefit your work. Danes love continuing education, so if your company doesn't want to invest in training for you, It's a red flag that they don't see much of a future for you there. At one of my annual reviews, I asked for a specific course and was turned down— too expensive— only to find out that a colleague had been approved for the exact same course. I was out of that company within 6 months. The good thing about courses is that the education you receive there and the contacts you make are easily transferable to your next job. A recent course makes you look fresh to a potential employer, especially if it's the first educational certificate you've picked up in Denmark, as opposed to your home country. Now, what about salary review? Many companies have now removed any discussion of salary from the annual review and created a separate salary review meeting. Prepare for this meeting thoroughly with statistics from your union showing how much people with your skills and experience are earning, and be ready to show how you've gone beyond the basic requirements of the job by creating new products or processes, saving the company money, or bringing in new customers. In Denmark, you generally don't get a raise just for time served unless one has been negotiated by your union for all its members. You'll need to convince your boss, and she'll need to convince her boss, that you're worth the extra dough. If you don't see a path to promotion at your current company, but you aren't ready to leave yet, consider starting your own side business, or B-job, as the Danes call it. Check, of course, to make sure that your visa allows for this, and that the HR department at your corporate A-job approves. you will probably have to choose a B-job that has nothing to do with your main job and can be completed outside working hours. Working for yourself is common in Denmark. Tens of thousands of Danes do it. You can set up a one-person company online in less than 24 hours, and the tax ramifications are not as complicated as they are in many other countries. You'll also be able to write off business-related purchases like computers and phones, against your company profits. Should you end up leaving your corporate job for any reason, your B-job may suddenly become your main source of income.
