That Elusive Two-Step
I was recently discussing whether our company does or should have a policy specifically prohibiting two level promotions. The particular case was for a junior employee, what Radford might consider someone in the first half decade of experience/learning in their career. Someone at the "level 2" profile (2-3 years experience) getting bumped to the "level 4" profile (typically 7+ years experience, on an ordinary learning curve). This employee fell somewhere in between in terms of years of experience, but was outperforming some "level 4" team members.
We don’t specifically have a policy that completely prohibits much. I like to leave enough room so that reasonable, well articulated and defended exceptions to standard practice (in this case, one promotion at a time) that the peer group finds compelling can prevail.
A two step promotion is unusual. It is slightly less unusual at a lower level such but it is still a very small percentage of cases.
It would be VERY useful to get alignment from other leaders, and the managers peers, about the employee's performance -- especially related to your peers' own "level 4" people. It would also be good to find some of this employee's prior managers and ascertain their perspective. Arguably they had the option of promoting this employee in the past, and chose not to. Why?
If management can stack rank this person among existing "level 4" employees they are familiar with, to honestly show how this person ranks against them, that would be very useful -- not just for the end result, but for the dialog to get to the result.
And then, of course, I added some management tasks to the plate of the manager in this particular case, that will help separate speculation from intent:
Have you read through the prior performance reviews for this person? How much experience do they have? How long here? Assuming you have, on average, enough budget to give each of your people at 4% raise this year, are you ready to divert some of that to this person, to make sure you could bring them to an appropriate compensation level for a two step jump?
Finally, while we don’t do something or not do something solely because of optics, how will this be perceived among her or his peer group? Will there be a general air of surprise? Will the surprise be “wow I thought she was already at that level” or “how could this possibly happen?”?
We don’t specifically have a policy that completely prohibits much. I like to leave enough room so that reasonable, well articulated and defended exceptions to standard practice (in this case, one promotion at a time) that the peer group finds compelling can prevail.
A two step promotion is unusual. It is slightly less unusual at a lower level such but it is still a very small percentage of cases.
It would be VERY useful to get alignment from other leaders, and the managers peers, about the employee's performance -- especially related to your peers' own "level 4" people. It would also be good to find some of this employee's prior managers and ascertain their perspective. Arguably they had the option of promoting this employee in the past, and chose not to. Why?
If management can stack rank this person among existing "level 4" employees they are familiar with, to honestly show how this person ranks against them, that would be very useful -- not just for the end result, but for the dialog to get to the result.
And then, of course, I added some management tasks to the plate of the manager in this particular case, that will help separate speculation from intent:
Have you read through the prior performance reviews for this person? How much experience do they have? How long here? Assuming you have, on average, enough budget to give each of your people at 4% raise this year, are you ready to divert some of that to this person, to make sure you could bring them to an appropriate compensation level for a two step jump?
Finally, while we don’t do something or not do something solely because of optics, how will this be perceived among her or his peer group? Will there be a general air of surprise? Will the surprise be “wow I thought she was already at that level” or “how could this possibly happen?”?
What does your boss think?