To most employees, promotions are often mysterious. They often feel that some people rise quickly based on who they know rather than what they know. Unfortunately, this might be true for some organization, this assumption is not accurate for all situations. Actually, most managers don’t provide their employees with enough information about their promotion, and hence, their employees always feel that their promotion is purely based on luck (or lottery). Thus, as a manager, we need to help clear up their confusion by providing clear answers to their questions. In this blog, I will provide you with some tips through which you can prepare yourself to answer their questions.

Get your basics clear: Before you talk with your employees about their promotion, you should do your research. For example: Look at your organizational guidelines for promotions. Identify how people are chosen for promotion within your organization. Does your organization use their values as a primary screening tool for advancement, or does job-specific competency supersede all other considerations? Are your policies administered uniformly, or are they bent on a regular basis? Does who you know matter more than what you know? Once you have a clear picture of your organization’s practices, then only you can talk to your employees regarding their promotion opportunities.

Help them learn: No matter which position or field your employee works in, he/she needs technical competencies in both hard and soft skill area. Some employees might already have few of these skill-sets that you might be looking for in the next position, while some employees might lack these skills. As a manager, you need to make your employees understand that they need to take charge of their own skill development for their promotion. And if they need any kind of a support for that, then you are available to help them. You can display your support by informing them about various skill development programs that your company already offers, or by providing him/her with the opportunity to learn on the job through a mentor.

Provide regular feedback: Most projects and tasks at work are not just about getting the job done, they are about how you go about getting that job done, too. Your employees can be very intelligent, but if they can’t work well in a team or if they always carry a negative attitude towards their job, then this is going to hinder their promotion chances, isn’t it? Unfortunately, some employees don’t even realize that their behavior is hurting them, and that’s where you come in. As a manager, you need to ensure that all of your employees are given regular feedback, not just once a year at review time. Whenever you have promotion communication with your employees, make sure that you talk about how their attitudes are perceived throughout the organization. If your employees need some help in changing their behavior then try to help them by providing avenues through which they can match their behaviors with the organization’s values, so that they can get that promotion quickly.

Once you are clear about your company policies, and once you become transparent to your employees about their strengths and weaknesses, and try to help them increase their skills to get that next promotion, then only your promotion communication with your employees will become natural and more easier.

Would you discuss anything else with your employees during these promotion talks? If so, please share it with me through your comments here. Thanks – Bhavin Gandhi