Engage Employees Part 3: Promote and Part

In the last post we discussed about “pay more and disengage”. Now, let us consider can we use promotion as a tool to engage employees?

Let us consider the following:

1. Promote and Disengage Employees:

A Communication and technology client during my consulting days positioned careers as a differentiator. While the company was growing at a rapid stride, it was easy to promote people and provide larger roles. As the growth slowed down, promotions led to change in designation and compensation without a material change in role. We observed that all those promoted without a role change demonstrated an increase in engagement for a year and then the engagement dipped even below the level of engagement before the promotion.

2. Promote beyond the level of Incompetence

This was more than a decade ago. One of my team members was very high performer and was a high potential. But we strongly felt that he was not ready for the next role. However, he threatened to resign and we did not want to lose him. We promoted him. In about a year’s time he resigned. When I called him to discuss the reasons, he said that he resigned because he was promoted. I insisted that he told me more. He said that a year ago he felt wanted by the firm, loved by the team members and respected by the clients. With the promotion the expectations from all the three stakeholders changed dramatically and he found it difficult to meet the new set of expectations. Therefore, he felt that none of the stakeholders respected him any longer. He felt he was in a fix as he could not request us to demote him. After that episode I preferred to lose people rather than promote them, as that would eventually lead to a loss in any case.

3. Promote and Sack People

As in example 1 above, another client promoted people leading to higher salaries and better designation, without a role change. This did not give people an opportunity to increase their value add to the organization. In turn, they did not add value to themselves. When the market stagnated as these employees did not add value concomitant to their hierarchy and the compensation they received they were the first ones to be asked to go. As they did not add value to themselves, they did not find an appropriate job in the market. They had to settle for less, impacting their self esteem.

So, those who thought that they can use promotion as a tool to engage and retain employees could be up for a rude shock. You may end up disengaging employees, exiting them and impacting their self esteem for a long time.

Even while they stay, they stay disengaged. They do not help the business.

Should you then not promote? You should definitely promote. Promotions should be based on:

1. Performance and Potential

2. Availability of a bigger role

3. Readiness for the role.

Such promotions will engage employees who are promoted and motivate others to strive harder. This would be good for people and good for business. Therefore, this would be sustainable, even if you lose a few in the bargain. 

If Pay and promotion should not be used as tools to engage and retain employees, should PMS be used as a tool to engage employees? Let us discuss next week.