Tips for Small Business Owners: Handling Promotions

Most businesses have a hierarchy of some sort. Even if you only have one employee, he or she will be under you, the owner, required to follow your orders and to stick by your decisions. As your company grows, there will probably come a time when you will want to delegate some of the management responsibilities to someone else. The first place most business owners look is to the loyal and responsible employees that they already have. It feels good to reward those who have served the company well. Will one of your current employees be an effective manager though?

It is important to realize that even the most competent employee may not be competent when promoted to a new job with different tasks and responsibilities. It is typical for good employees to be promoted over and over until they are no longer capable of carrying out the responsibilities of their job. This leads to an organization filled with incompetent workers. Start your search for a manager by writing a detailed job descriptions and then making a list of the qualities that you would want the manager to have. Include character traits as well as skills. Will they need to be assertive and a people person? Do they need basic computer skills?

Now carefully observe the employees you currently have. Do any of them already exhibit the qualities that you are looking for? Is there someone who regularly steps in and takes a leadership role? Casually ask coworkers about each other. Who do they trust? Remember your best worker may not make a great manager. The best way to reward good workers is with raises or bonuses, not promotions. If you find that one of your current employees is exhibiting the needed skills and aptitudes, go ahead and talk to the person casually. Feel out whether they would be interested in a promotion. If the promotion will require different hours or days than the employee currently works, make sure that he or she would be open to that change. Not everyone wants added responsibility, and some people are very resistant to change.

If you don't feel any resistance to a promotion, go ahead and ask the employee if he would be interested in applying for the management position. It is always better to have a formal process for promotions. This gives both the business owner and the employee a chance to back out if it just isn't working. I prefer to give the employee a copy of the job description for the new position and a list of questions that I want them to answer to see how they would react in varying situations that the new position might involve. I ask him to return the sheet to me within a week if he is still interested. If I don't see any problems with the answers to the questions, I will pull them into my office to discuss salary increases and changes in benefits, and then officially offer them the job.

Some business owners prefer having the employee actually do the job as a sort of temporary thing before they offer the promotion. Although this might sound like a good idea, there are some drawbacks to that plan. First of all, your other employees will wonder what is going on. Gossip tends to be rampant in most businesses, and there is no need to fuel it. If someone is being promoted, I prefer to be upfront about it, announcing that the employee now has a new position and that I expect everyone to treat them with respect. When someone is only sort of managing to see if it works, I don't feel that they have the authority they need to do a good job. Everyone loses in that situation.

After promoting someone, it is the business owner's responsibility to make sure that they have the proper training and feedback to learn to do their new job properly. No matter how good someone was in a different position, they will need plenty of support to learn the new position and develop into the kind of manager you would like to have working for you. Provide guidance and feedback while still giving the manager space to make their own decisions and grow. Check in with the new manager frequently. Ask how he is doing and if there is anything you can do to help him.

If you can't find anyone in your organization with the skills that the new position requires, do not hesitate to recruit a new employee. Everyone will be happier if you hire the right person for the job, and you won't risk losing the good employees that you already have.