5 Best Practices for Employee Promotion: The Benefits, Types, and Tips to Do

When it comes to motivating employees, one aspect that's sure to come up is employee promotion. It's natural for people to want to grow, and your employees are no exception. You may notice various signs in your employees that could make you contemplate offering them an internal promotion, such as: 

• They're highly committed to their work.
• Their performance produces positive results in the workplace.
• They do more than what their job requires and help others.
• And so on
  

If these indicators are clear, should you just promote them right away? The answer is no, especially when promoting an employee to a management position. There're many considerations to be taken and many challenges to face.  

For example, employee promotions may invite negative company politics due to jealousy.

Or are you sure promoting from within is better than an outside replacement? Another popular case is that internally-promoted employees may need more time to be ready for more responsibility or struggle with managing people who used to be their peers.

With this in mind, let's discuss the various aspects of employee promotion in the workplace. We will talk about promoting employees from within, the benefits, types of promotions, best practices, and tips to do so!

Without further ado, let’s jump right in!

Employee promotion is when an employee moves up to a higher rank within the organization, resulting in increased salary, position, responsibilities, status, and benefits. It is a significant motivator for employees, as it is the ultimate reward for their dedication and loyalty to the organization. 

Promotion decisions are based on different factors, such as length of service, experience, seniority, and performance, and are guided by organizational policies. As a result, four different types of promotions can contribute to employee development, which we’ll discuss in more detail below.

Below are 6 main benefits of internal promotion within an organization. 

Did you know that within the US 36% of employees in the US anticipate receiving a promotion within the next 12 months? Employee promotion is critical in retaining your best staff. Doing so doesn't mean taking them to higher ranks but recognizing their efforts. They will be happier about their work and more loyal to the company. They may also stop looking for new employment opportunities because your company gives them a reason to stay. 

Remember: a study conducted by Employee Benefits News has shown that losing an employee can cost your company a significant amount, precisely 33% of their yearly salary. This means that when an employee resigns, you're losing their skills, time, and a considerable amount of funding. 

By embracing employee recognition initiatives, like internal promotion, you encourage your staff to keep up their good work - to pursue their career goals while contributing to the company. The reason is that when an individual tends to work harder and tries to validate their efforts, this will also boost other employees' passion and productivity. 

Job promotions generally include higher salaries and more benefits which can be considered as proper rewards for your best employees. Some even see promotional opportunities as sentimental gifts that make them feel and push themselves to work harder. 

Not all individuals who have been working hard can earn a promotion from within the company. That's why employee promotions may create and foster competition in the workplace. This will motivate them to work harder and deliver the best possible results in order to reach their goals - which can be higher salaries and/or better promotion opportunities.

This is the typical case of supervisors or managers being promoted from within the company. As mentioned earlier, promotion opportunities can't be given to everyone. Leadership potential is one of the most significant factors determining who should be promoted to manager. Hence, staff promotion allows employees to better develop their leadership skills for future success.

Before making a decision on announcing an employee promotion, you need to consider the following things: 

Skills and abilities

When promoting an employee, you have to make sure they’ve mastered their skills in the current role and possess essential skills for the future role. Otherwise, they can't assimilate perfectly into the new role. 

Commitment to work

Another sign to show that your employees are ready for a higher role is when they are highly committed to their duties, including the ability to meet deadlines, the willingness to take on new tasks, the time spent on each duty, etc.

Work performance

Some employees are just naturally committed and dedicated to what they do. However, they fail to deliver great work outcomes. Promoting an employee to the manager based on their work performance also exhibits fairness in the workplace and thus prevents a toxic work environment. 

Emotional intelligence 

A survey reported that 75% of hiring managers would promote a high EI worker over a high IQ candidate. Think of “jobs" as a whole ecosystem of people and systems, not just a series of tasks. 

To perform well and manage people effectively, your best employees will need the following traits that demonstrate the characteristics of an EI personality:

• Stay calm under pressure and conflicts 
• Be empathetic to others
• Make decisions thoughtfully
• Admit they're wrong and learn from their mistakes
• Be open to criticism
  

Team player qualities

The ability to work well within a team is likewise very important when considering promoting an employee. Collaboration is one of the fundamentals of success in the workforce, so the staff you promote should necessarily be an active team players. 

Seniority

It's debatable whether the length of service can determine a job promotion. Work experience matters, but of course, it needs to be evaluated with all the factors explained below. 

Another scenario is promoting an employee to the manager instead of looking for an outside replacement. There're several extra concerns that you need to think about, including:

Leadership potential

When an employee gets promoted, he/she will have more responsibilities to handle and more people to manage. So, make sure they have strong leadership skills, such as: 

• Communication skills
• Problem-solving skills
• Decisiveness
• Conflict resolution
• Task delegation
• Integrity
  

Willingness to take on more responsibility

Here comes a good indicator for internal promotion - your best employee is expressing a desire to learn more and take on a new challenge. Does he show any interest in a new working field? Is he happy to accept additional job tasks and duties? Or is he willing to handle more important, higher-stakes work? If so, you need to consider that employee for a promotion to a managerial role. 

Requiring little supervision

When individuals don’t need to be guided and reminded constantly of their tasks, they’re demonstrating the ability to work effectively with little or no supervision. That means they can manage themselves and take ownership of their tasks.

• Competitive model: 
  Generally, a competitive promotion occurs when employees compete with each other and prove their worth to employers in order to be promoted to a higher rank position. This model takes into account employee performance, skills, seniority, and other vital factors.  
  
• Non-competitive model: 
  In contrast, an employee promotion is defined as a non-competitive promotion when there is no pool of candidates to compare against the selection that was made.

• Horizontal promotion:
  When you give your employees a pay raise as a reward but no clear increase in responsibilities. Examples of a horizontal job promotion include shifting from a specialist to a senior specialist or a manager to a senior manager. 
• Vertical promotion:
  This type of employee promotion brings about changes in their work scope, salary, benefits, etc. - for instance, a copywriter to a content manager. This can also be moving from the functional head to the chief executive. 
• Dry promotion:
  When you promote employees without increasing their pay but assign them a higher-level job. An example of this job promotion is a University Professor made Head of the Department without a raise. 
• Open and closed promotion:
  While an open job promotion gives all of your employees an equal chance to advance their careers, only selected candidates are eligible for a close promotion.

💡 Determine the model and/or type of job promotion.

When considering who deserves a promotion, you also need to think about which model or type of job promotion that individual is suitable for. This is a big decision to make, and you have to make sure you do it right from the start. 

💡 Create the promotion criteria.

Based on your company culture, you will need to create a list of different criteria to decide employee eligibility for job promotion, such as:

• Length of service in the company
• Tenure in the job
• Work performance 
• Skills required for the new role
  

💡 Announce the promotion opportunity.

The next step is to notify all the staff of the opportunity so that they can apply for it. Normally, many companies choose to post positions internally on the intranet or send an email to every employee. 

Check out this site where the North Seattle College announces plenty of promotion opportunities. 

💡 Interview candidates.

For vertical promotions, the interview is generally held to select the best fit among your best employees to promote within the company. 

Here are some questions you can ask them during the job promotion interview:

• What is your biggest achievement in the [ABC] department?
• Can you share some knowledge of the position you are being considered for? What do you like best about this role?
• Why should we consider you for this job promotion?
• If you were promoted, What would you seek to accomplish in your first three months in the new role if you were promoted?
• If not, how would you react?

💡 Make your decision known.

Announcing an employee promotion is a great opportunity to highlight the accomplishments of newly-promoted employees while boosting your team’s morale. You can do this via either email or a public statement.

A promotional announcement should include:

• Congratulations to the individual 
• The key achievements that led to the job promotion
• The new role with specific duties and responsibilities
• The call for others to congratulate the team member

✨ Consider your employee’s goals and expectations.

Always keep in mind to choose the person who wants the job, not the title!

Employee promotions should be a joy to give. Hence, make sure they will be content in the new role. To do so, managers like you should consider their career goals and expectations - especially what they truly enjoy doing at work. 

✨ Share selection criteria in advance.

Since you already establish a list of criteria to decide employee eligibility for internal promotion,   sharing this ahead of time will allow potential candidates to better prepare for their interviews. Furthermore, this can help foster a fair process for promotion from within the company. The workforce will believe that managers don’t play favorites, and promotional opportunities are  fairly awarded in the workplace.

✨ Give constructive feedback to candidates who are not selected.

Besides announcing an employee promotion, you also need to provide some feedback to those who did not get promoted. They will thus understand why they weren't selected for the role this time, what skills they're lacking, or what they need to do be the best candidate next time. 

Here are the right ways to deliver constructive criticism after a job promotion: 

• Balance the positive and the negative.
• Be empathetic but direct and specific.
• Avoid comparing the candidates not selected against the criteria.
• Talk face-to-face. 
• Don't make it personal.

Conclusion

Employee promotion has a significant impact on employee satisfaction. It enhances engagement, morale, and productivity while reducing absenteeism. 

Moreover, promotion is an effective tool for retaining employees and reducing attrition. Many companies struggle with this issue, but by conducting proper performance appraisals and promoting deserving employees, it can be resolved. Therefore, it is essential for companies to promote employees at appropriate intervals. Progress is crucial for the success of any business, and promotion is a step toward achieving that.

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— Originally written by May Luong —