As an HR leader or a startup founder, one of your primary responsibilities is to foster growth and development within your organization. Promoting employees into new roles is not only a testament to their hard work and dedication, but also a strategic move that can significantly impact your company's success and improve your retention.
In this post, we'll walk through the essential steps to develop a promotion plan to benefit both your employees and organization.
Before you can begin promoting employees, you need to have a clear understanding of your organization's needs. This involves closely examining your company's current structure, future goals, and the skills and talents required to achieve them.
This process may take a while because you likely need to involve multiple stakeholders from other departments, like finance, product or sales – but that’s okay!
When you’re creating your assessments, make sure you’re answering questions like:
1. What are our long-term business objectives?
2. What skills and expertise are currently lacking within the organization?
3. Which departments or teams need additional support?
By assessing your organization's needs, you can align your promotion plan with the broader strategic goals.
After you've identified the areas where your organization requires growth, it's time to pinpoint the promotion opportunities: AKA, skill gaps.
For example, when you did your assessment, did you find that your Head of Product had experience managing teams of 1-2 people, but eventually you’ll need them to manage a team of 15? Or perhaps your most senior finance employee has great accounting skills – but ultimately you’ll need someone who can advise you on mergers and acquisitions or manage more significant budgets?
By writing down the talent gaps you anticipate, you can determine if there are opportunities to promote people into these roles after they meet certain criteria or get more training, or if you will need to hire externally.
Interested in learning more about hiring for leadership roles? We wrote a post on this here.
A structured promotion process is essential for fairness and transparency. Define the steps that candidates must go through to be considered for promotion, including:
1. Application and eligibility criteria: Do they need to apply for the promotion, aka a new role? Or will they automatically be considered after certain criteria are met?
2. Interview and assessment methods: How many interviews (if any) do they need to take part in?
3. Evaluation by a promotion committee or relevant managers: How many people need to weigh in on the promotion?
4. Feedback and communication channels for candidates: Most importantly, if an employee is denied a promotion – can this be communicated to them in a way that doesn’t alienate them from their current role?
By establishing a clear process, you ensure that promotions are based on merit and that employees understand the expectations and requirements.
Every organization is different when it comes to this process – a lot of companies aren’t able to promote people each year, or even every other year. In these scenarios, it's important for employees who want to be promoted to be aware of the steps and timelines in order to earn a promotion.
Promotions entail stepping into more challenging roles with greater responsibilities. Therefore, it's crucial to provide the necessary training and development opportunities to prepare candidates for their new positions.
Even if you don’t have the resources to provide a lot of training – that’s okay! You can design a training program in a way that best suits your organization.
This could include:
1. Mentorship and coaching programs: Maybe you can pair a more experienced leader with someone who needs to grow into a new role. Some VCs even have programs like this for their portfolio companies – they pair individuals across companies together to discuss what they’re doing in their respective organizations.
2. Leadership training and workshops: You could develop a program internally or send people to a program – there are a lot of options here!
3. Skill development courses: Research the best courses to develop certain skillsets. Maybe there are online classes employees can take to fill in certain gaps.
By investing in your employees' growth, you not only help them succeed in their new roles but also ensure the long-term success of your organization.
Promotion plans are not static; they should evolve with your organization's changing needs and goals. Regularly evaluate the effectiveness of your promotion strategy and make adjustments as necessary.
Consider:
1. Tracking the success of promoted employees in their new roles
2. Gathering feedback from both candidates and managers
3. Updating the plan to reflect any shifts in your organization's priorities
Developing a promotion plan for an organization as an HR leader is a complex, ongoing process that requires careful consideration of both your employees' potential and your organization's needs. By maintaining a focus on transparency and development, you can create a promotion plan that nurtures talent, fosters growth, and propels your organization toward its goals!
Let our team help you get where you need to be.
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