Promoting from within
The founder's dilemma while scaling
As you build and grow your company, new positions and vacancies will definitely open up, especially if your goal is to ensure that you are efficiently operating and not piling on '‘excess’ work on a few resources.
This question will likely arise: Should I make an external hire or promote from within to lead teams/projects?
On the Grinders Table Podcast, Bola Lawal, founder of ScholarX had an interesting perspective on this. Please listen and share here - Apple, Google, Anchor
From an employee's perspective, the ability to climb a company’s corporate ladder is most likely viewed positively. There’s no downside to potentially earning more money and advancing in your career.
But it is not foolproof obviously!
However, I’m only going to dwell on the benefits for this article.
Promoting from within gives employees a reason to work harder than they otherwise would. If there’s zero chance of promotion at all, why should they bother putting in the maximum effort possible, going above and beyond?
It keeps institutional knowledge which is very key. Important members of staff tend to leave with some knowledge unique to doing the job that cannot be captured in a handover document.
Your current staff are already a culture fit. External candidates may look good on paper but don’t just fit when hired causing you to lose time and money on the mishire.
Here’s what I suggest to get the best from promoting from within - design an onboarding process for newly-promoted employees just like you will do fo for external candidates. You won’t need to cover everything in the employee handbook, but they’ll need a formal introduction to their new team and role expectations for a smooth transition and the tools to succeed.
Are you setting up your staff for long term success??