(Not your promotion, this is about promoting people in your team.)
You’ve got an opportunity to advocate for promoting a few people in your team. How do you think about what promotions are appropriate? How do you persuade approvers to make them happen? What do you tell your team?
A few principles learned the hard way:
- Promotions only happen when you do your job as a manager.
- A promotion means a person will have a different job, not merely an extension of their current job. You must be absolutely clear about the expectations for a different job.
- Decision point: If it’s a different job, should it be posted as a new position? Maybe your current team member isn’t the best person available? If they are an excellent prospect, perhaps the work of posting and interviewing has low ROI. At a minimum, the exercise helps you define the role and performance expectations!
- Does their previous job need to be done? If so, who is going to do that work after you’ve promoted someone?
- It’s difficult to promote someone if the approvers don’t know the person or their contribution level or have some sense of their capacity to grow. Therefore, you need to know these things and consistently communicate this – beginning long before you recommend a promotion.
- All organizations need people performing at different job levels. No organization is 100% generals or presidents.
- Think first of promotions as a design element in your organization structuer in an abstract way, independent of the specifics about individuals.
- The primary constraints on how many promotions are available is usually budget. Therefore, you should forecast how the team salary and benefits costs will change with any promotion.
- Never promise someone a promotion. There are factors outside your ability to deliver that promise. You can only commit to advocating for them.
Additional recommendations:
- The opportunity to submit promotion requests often comes up quickly. A sharp manager sets aside an hour or two each year to pre-plan promotion candidates and think about how to exploit opportunities.
- All promotions are development opportunities. Be slow to promote someone unless you’re confident that they can do at least 50% of the new job now, and will be able to grow into the role in a year. Sometimes this is called the “150% rule.”
- When someone points out they’re now doing much more than they used to in the same job, remind them (gently) that it’s a normal expectation that job requirements evolve and professionals expand the significance of their roles. Bonuses, salary increases, and access to extra opportunities are your manager tools in these situations.
- When someone leaves a position, step back and consider whether the position should be refilled at the same level, or higher or lower. (Frankly – maybe not at all.)
- Resist the impulse to give someone a promotion if they threaten to leave without one. Promotions must make organizational sense first.
