Tips on promotion decisions
Microsoft bCentral has this practical column:“Promoting employees: how to get it right,” by Jeff Wuorio.
Seven guidelines for promoting an employee:
1. Get to know all the wrong reasons for doing it.
2. Recognize that competence doesn’t necessarily mean a promotion.
3. Spell out why you’d promote an employee.
4. Let your people know what you’re looking for.
5. Look at weaknesses as well as strengths.
6. Know the importance of detachment. You’ve seen it in dozens of movies — a guy from the loading dock moves up to a supervisor’s job, only he can’t stop acting as though he’s still one of the boys.
7. Take a lesson if someone says “no thanks.”
To which I’d add, from a defensive employment lawyer perspective:
8. Have set procedures for posting and filling vacancies internally vs. advertising and hiring from outside.
9. Avoid croneyism and nepotism — make decisionmakers justify decisions to others who are more objective.
10. Document reasons for promotion decisions — positives of employee promoted and negatives of those considered but not promoted.
