When you can't promote someone: 4 tips for middle managers
Last week we talked about what to do if you are feeling stuck in your career. What if you as a manager are stuck; stuck with the options to promote your people? There can be many reasons why you may not be able to promote someone.
They may not be there quite yet from a skill, experience, or attitude perspective.
There may not be an open role at the next level.
There may be parity issues among the team where you can't promote one over another.
There may be policies, i.e., they haven't been in their role long enough, or promotion criteria that they have not met yet.
There may be policies against promoting someone unless there is an open role, i.e., you are not allowed to "create" a role as a step up.
I have experienced all these scenarios as a manager, and it can be especially frustrating if there are corporate policies to contend with that might be a barrier. However, hopefully, the policies are in place to ensure equity and fairness and not just to create an artificial barrier to growth.
Regardless of the circumstance, what can you do as a manager if you feel stuck in helping someone move to the next level? A few things actually.
One time I wanted to promote a team member to manage others on the team because he had been a manager in a former life. But, I was hamstrung and could not create a new manager role on my team as it would result in imbalance across the entire department. We were growing and the work was getting more complex so having this person manage others would have been logical from a business process and a professional growth perspective. However, I was denied the chance to do that, unfortunately.
So, I got creative and while a title change was not in the cards, I fought for more money and grew his role sideways to take on some of the strategic work I was doing without moving people under him. Once we did this, he proved himself to others and eventually was promoted to senior manager.
Here are four main tactics you can try to help your team member grow if you are hampered in giving out a promotion.
Enable lateral growth.
As in my example above, if there is no way to move up, then move out or across. Not every career growth move is upward. We don't always think about growing sideways but this is easier to enable as a middle manager. Typically, you are more empowered to help someone take on more scope, a special project, or other clients or tasks than you are to promote someone to the next level. Now, the tricky part is we also need to secure more compensation. This might take a business case but it can be done. I have had success in asking for a more sizable or off-cycle increase if I can show the expansion of work or scope or even secure a bonus for extra work.
Offer stretch assignments.
Related to the above but with a slightly more developmental spin, try and find or assign stretch assignments to someone on your team. Because it is a stretch, you often will see the potential but may not be sure if they have the skills or savvy to manage something new. Giving stretch assignments is a great way to empower someone to grow and give them a chance to shine. The keys to stretch assignments are: 1) Ensure they are not too far of a stretch so that they can be successful 2) Create and communicate clear objectives for them to achieve and 3) Ask them to document and share lessons and knowledge back with you and the team.
Create an action plan.
Whether someone is ready or not, understanding their career desires, and what skills, experiences, and knowledge they need to get there will help you create an action plan with them. This plan can be used to capture training, shadowing, mentoring, conferences, certifications, stretch assignments, etc. to help them fill the gap between where they are today and where they want to go tomorrow. Sometimes called a development plan or career development plan, these are very practical and tactical for getting someone from point A to point B and should be reviewed and discussed monthly or quarterly.
Spread the word.
Another key thing managers can do is to make their team members visible and known to leaders. It is very difficult to promote someone unknown to decision-makers. In some organizations, who you know is critical to being promoted or getting picked for that special project. Managers should be talking up their team members, sharing successes, giving public accolades, placing them on a high potential list, etc. to help their team be known.
There are many other tactics managers can use to help people grow even if they can't promote them, such as investing in their learning and development, sending them to a conference and having them teach back, asking them to lead the next team meeting, taking on new work, partnering with another client, etc. It is important to get to know your employees and their desires early so you can put that action plan in place and start spreading the word about them to get them better positioned for a promotion.
Next week, we'll look at how organizations can create career paths to help people get unstuck.