Promoting from Within: Don’t Just Trust Your Gut

When it comes to employee-related issues, there’s one element you may think about, but rarely talk about: promoting or not promoting your employees from within. With many factors impacting both the company and employee outcomes, the decision to promote from within or not often feels complex. Yet, when deciding on these moves, many companies just do a quick gut check and plunge into a decision.

But, it doesn’t have to be that way. Using the Profile XT assessment tool, your company can make the smartest decisions about promoting from within. Many think of applying this type of assessment tool only when making new hires, but the beauties also lie in its flexibility, strength and usefulness when promoting your current employees to higher positions within the company.

Consider the data from the book, Good to Great by Jim Collins: of the 11 “great” companies’ leaders, 10 had been promoted from within. Mr. Collins is also credited with coining the comment “get the right people on the bus.” Now more than ever, it’s important to use objective data to make employee-related decisions.

Big picture, consider these points on promoting from within or not:

– Promoting from within a company boosts morale and helps keep productivity high.

– New employees can see the potential for growth when your company promotes from within.

– If your employees know there is a potential career path within the organization, you are less likely to lose promising staff to another organization.

– Employees are more likely to take advantage of organizational training and educational opportunities if they know these activities can improve their chances of promotion.

– Companies often completely underestimate the time it takes for new employees to get up to speed when they don’t or can’t promote from within.

– After two years, the performance reviews of the external hires caught up to the internal promotes, but, sometimes a new employee has already moved on or gotten laid off before hitting that mark.

– Outside hires’ strengths often depend to a large extent on their former firms’ resources, their networks and their colleagues. There are some exceptions, like when star employees moved together with their teams and switched to much better firms as a group.

When deciding to promote from within or not, contact us to discuss the Profile XT assessment tool. It’s tough to resist the allure of a superstar, and it’s challenging for businesses to build up a pipeline of employees who are suitable for promotion. Owners and managers should know the pros and cons of bringing in talent from the outside and that, sometimes, it can pay to nurture and promote from within.

For more information on promoting from within using the Profile XT assessment tool, contact us today.