Tips for Handling Promotion Requests

This time of year, we give managers a range of communication tools to help with pay and performance management discussions. An often overlooked topic is how to talk with an employee who is requesting a promotion.

There's a lot at stake when employees ask about promotions. The experience makes employees feel vulnerable since they are asking to be judged. Because it takes a lot for them to work up the courage to ask, they can be emotional during the discussion. Plus, many younger employees -- who are sure they are doing an outstanding job -- are expecting the company to "just" take care of them, so all they have to do is point out that they've been overlooked. Most don't understand that a promotion often comes after a process of planned development and self-promotion.

Recognize that it's not uncommon for employees to start looking outside the company if they don't like the way the conversation goes. Yet managers are often at a loss about what to say to employees who ask. Feeling like their backs are against the wall, managers can make real mistakes. The common mistake is when a manager indicates that if the employee completes "X" things, a promotion is sure to follow. Of course, no such promise can be made. When the manager is unable to follow through, the employee may resign and move on.

If you want to coach your managers about talking with employees about promotions, provide them with a discussion guide that includes some of the following advice to pass along to employees.

No one can promise a promotion. It is an achievement that needs to be nurtured through self improvement and career development, including a fair degree of manager feedback.

Earning a promotion typically comes as the result of a series of coaching and development discussions that are focused on the employee's career goals.

Managers play the role of advisor, but employees need to research their career interests independently to build their case for moving up.

Managers need to indicate their availability to employees who are focused on career growth. They also need to encourage employees to talk with those whom they consider successful to learn how these individuals went about their own career movement.

While employees have objectives to achieve, the competencies designated for the job they have their eyes on are critical to readiness for the promotion. These competencies describe a level of communication, independence and leadership (for example) that should be demonstrated by the employee before a promotion into those responsibilities is granted.

Promotions are far more available when there is turnover, leaving open jobs to fill. If an employee's job is not being reevaluated because of company changes, promotion through retitling happens far less frequently. That doesn't mean that career moves, special projects or salary increases reflecting increased responsibilities aren't available, it's just that the employee needs to seek them out.

Managers should encourage the employee's dedication to growth and learning, and point out any other competency that is especially valuable in your company's current business situation.

Finally, make clear that the manager should close the conversation by calendaring the employee for follow-up career development conversations following the promotion request (instead of hoping the employee will just forget about the whole thing once the door is closed!) Recommend that they give the employee feedback to consider and suggestions for research in preparation for their follow-up conversations.

Margaret O'Hanlon, CCP brings deep expertise to discussions on employee pay, performance management, career development and communications at the Café. Her firm, re:Think Consulting, provides market pay information and designs base salary structures, incentive plans, career paths and their implementation plans. Earlier, she was a Principal at Willis Towers Watson. A former Board member for the Bay Area Compensation Association (BACA), Margaret coauthored the popular eBook, Everything You Do (in Compensation) Is Communications, a toolkit that all practitioners can find at https://gumroad.com/l/everythingiscommunication.

Comments

[Chris Dobyns]

Enjoyed this posting a lot, since other than the inevitable pitfalls associated with pay-setting, promotions and their use and purpose are one of my favorite topics (or perhaps near-obsessions . . .). In reminiscing, I think promotions was in fact, the target of my inaugural "guest" posting (https://www.compensationcafe.com/2014/04/editors-notetodays-post-comes-to-us-courtesy-of-guest-contributor-chris-dobyns-promotions-are-probably-one-of-the-most-mis.html).

This guidance was all completely correct, but I'm always a little "uneasy" when right off, promotions are not stipulated as being a Management tool, as promotions are principally granted for the benefit of the organization and secondarily for the benefit of the employee. I'm frequently fascinated at how many employees (and even some managers) are often confused or forget about that.

[Joe Thompson]

I chuckle when reading Chris' post wondering how many Millennial/Gen-Z hires would be "triggered" by the idea that a promotion was a management tool. I suspect that many recent college graduates might say something to the effect of "promotions are a basic human right, surely we can all agree on that."

In general, a lot of new hires that I see have a viewpoint that suggests that they are being taught (or at least exposed) to the notion that they should expect frequent promotions with large increases. (I know that young women we've hire have told us that they were taught in college that, because of their gender, they should expect to receive below-average increases unless they fought to get the increases they "deserved." So their starting point in a conversation was that whatever increase they were given was too low - based on gender.)

Even beyond promotions, I've encountered employees who labor under the misapprehension that an "average" annual salary increase - even without a promotion - should be 10-percent.

So, I think that even before the promotion request comes, managers should work to cage expectations of their employees.

[Chris Dobyns]

It looks like once again I'm woefully incapable of providing a working hyperlink - even back to one of my own postings ( https://www.compensationcafe.com/2014/04/editors-notetodays-post-comes-to-us-courtesy-of-guest-contributor-chris-dobyns-promotions-are-probably-one-of-the-most-mis.html ) (although these comments seem to re-interpret the link and include the closing parentheses).

I particularly like the entitlement slant from Joe, and his premise that promotions are perceived as almost a basic human right. Yeah, right.

I've done my darnedest to try to extinguish some of that entitlement thinking where I work. That's made a "harder climb" because to encourage "fairness" my organization encourages employees to nominate themselves for promotion - which engenders an unfortunate "I've got nothing to lose" mindset.

A couple of years ago I actually explained to an employee that they did have something to lose:
1) Completing the promotion nomination can be pretty time-consuming and therefore represents an investment of time for the employee.
2) If the nomination isn't compelling then the employee has put their manager in the awkward position of having to deliver negative feedback.
3) And upon receipt of that negative feedback, how do you think that ends up making the employee feel about themselves?

The classic illustration of the three strikes law.