Promoting people internally the right way.

We’ve always tried to promote people into management roles from within. 

Culturally, it’s one of the greatest things you can do as your company grows. 

And financially it saves you a bucket of cash on recruiting.

People who have come up through the ranks often know those subtle details about the business that are near-impossible to learn during typical onboarding processes.

Not to mention all of the established relationships with colleagues, customers and clients. 

That trust and rapport is incredibly valuable as they progress inside the company. 

But over the years we still saw the process fail over and over… 

Good people came up, and then the wheels fell off. 

Instead of pointing the finger at the employee, or writing it off as a training problem, we wanted to uncover how we could create a better process to set people up for success and allow us to keep growing.

When we zoomed out, we saw that we were automatically picking people who were doing well in their area and assuming they’d be great at taking on responsibilities in other areas.

This was completely different to how we’d assess an external applicant. 

We were overlooking loads of really important questions and criteria because of assumptions and previous relationships.

That was the biggest mistake. 

We weren’t assessing them against the actual job we were recruiting for. 

We were assessing them against their past performance in other roles.

I’m just going to point out that this is stupidly obvious as I write this to you…

But I couldn’t see it in the weeds while running the business. 

Maybe we’re just trained to look for the path of least resistance because we’re busy?!

Either way, when we started to interview internal applicants for jobs in the same way we interviewed external applicants, everything (and I mean EVERYTHING) started to get better.

Here’s how it helped:

1. Clear Evaluation

When you evaluate against a set of criteria instead of making assumptions and doing what ‘feels’ right, the outcomes get way better. 

(this is true for just about anything)

Most of the time in small businesses, people who are good at something get the opportunity to step up into a management position. 

Their performance as skilled employees is often used as an indicator that they should be promoted, given extra responsibilities, and handballed a team (usually the ones they used to work with). 

But they’re rarely assessed in the same way a new applicant would to assess if they have the proper skills for that role which means you don’t have certainty that you’re making the right decision, and the employee isn’t mentally preparing to switch.

It feels a bit weird to ask them to formally apply and answer all the same questions as someone you don’t know, but it is the best way to objectively report against things you’ll later hold them accountable for.

2. Skills Gaps

When you post a job ad internally and put a timeline on it, it forces the applicant to consider their own skillset in line with the position. 

It takes away assumptions that they might get the job because they’ve been there longer and focuses them on skills, responsibilities and outcomes.

The weird thing is, inside a business people often want to be given the job first and then trained on how to do it later.

But the reverse is true when they’re looking for a new role elsewhere. 

If they were going for a higher-level position with a different business, they would need to demonstrate the skills first. It means they might have to take night courses or pay for specific education/accreditation to be considered for the role.

To orchestrate that inside a business, you have to give people time to prepare.

Outline a bunch of future roles you might need for your business, and demonstrate particular skillsets current managers are assessed on, and then share that with the rest of the team.

It means that if people want promotions or want to grab someone else’s job when it frees up, they can learn and demonstrate the required skills in advance.

It also means that the people who aren’t successful in getting promoted at that time can clearly see why and you can make a plan to help them close the skills gap while they’re still working for the business.

3. Buy-In

Part One:

The first part of ‘buy-in’ is on the incoming manager's side. 

Often internal promotions are treated differently than new hires. There’s no spark.

It almost feels like ‘business as usual’ because the person has been there for a while. 

And if you’ve made it easy for them by just handballing them the position, it can feel like an anti-climax. 

When you ask for them to formally apply and interview, you’re making them want it. 

You’re adding a tiny bit of uncertainty and chase to the role.

They have to decide to apply and actually ‘show up’ differently.

And that tiny switch in mindset is very powerful.

Part Two:

It’s often hard to get buy-in from the rest of the team when promoting from within. 

When you get it wrong, the rest of the team won't support the person you’re promoting. 

I’ve seen it cause all sorts of issues for people who get promoted and find themselves having to manage their resistant workmates. 

If their team feel like they were overlooked for the position or should have got it because they’ve been with the company longer, it can create an impossible situation for the new Manager.

It’s why posting the job internally and conducting formal interviews against really specific criteria is the most transparent way.

It removes all the ambiguity that normally comes with these types of transitions and allows you to involve the team in the process to gain their feedback and buy-in. 

At the end of the day, promoting from within is incredibly powerful.

But only when you do it the right way. 

I hope this tiny behaviour helps you build better teams.

Have a great week!