There are many benefits to promoting from within. First of all, you can save a lot of valuable time and resources. There is also more risk associated with bringing in someone whose skills have only been demonstrated on a resume; when you hire from within, you will already have confidence in the individual’s drive, attitude, and potential.
Promoting from within can also have a great, positive impact on workplace morale. Your employees will see that there is an opportunity for advancement within the company, which means that they feel as though their work is seen and appreciated.
However, there can also be a number of challenges that comes with this internal hiring process. For one thing, some individuals may feel as though they were overlooked for the position if one of their colleagues is promoted instead. You may also run into difficulties with insubordinate behavior, when a team member is promoted into a management position.
Regardless of the situation, there are a few steps that you can put into place that will help the internal promotion process be as seamless as possible.
Promote for Skills, Not Tenure
One of the biggest mistakes you can make is to automatically fill your empty position with the team member who has been with your company for the longest amount of time. Instead, you should be considering who has the best skills (or who shows the most potential) relevant to the open position.
It will benefit your workplace culture to detail the criteria and qualities you are looking for. Make sure that they know that number of years at the company will not play into the decision making.
Do Not Forgo the Onboarding Process
When you promote from within, there is a chance that you will be hiring someone who does not have all of the skills you are looking for, but instead shows a lot of potential to learn and grow. Luckily, this individual will already be familiar with many aspects of your company. However, they will not be familiar with all of the expectations for this particular role.
In addition to making sure that the promoted team member is properly trained for the new position, an onboarding process also signifies that they are stepping into a new role, which may have a higher or otherwise different set of expectations.
Communicate Your Decision to the Team
When any new member is brought in, it is important to communicate to the full team. This is particularly true when someone is promoted from within. Make sure individuals understand why their colleague was chosen. You will also need to articulate what the new role will entail, and what that means for the rest of the team. There should be no confusion when it comes to workplace hierarchy, reporting, or delegation.
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