The road to a promotion
It's sometimes rocky. Or nonexistent.
What contributed most to you getting your last promotion?
I saw this question on Twitter, a long time ago (before I left Twitter). It made me think hard enough that I saved the tweet to write about it in the future (and now here we are).
The responses were a lot of the expected: crushing goals, working hard, and taking initiative. Some people were more blunt or honest. "Right place at the right time" or "quitting."
Promotions are arbitrary. Titles are arbitrary. And too often, people are stuck in situations they can't control. Your ability to move up the food chain is based on your boss liking you or unspoken rules about what an "ideal" candidate looks like. And when I say "looks like" — I'm including discriminatory practices like being male or white.
No wonder people say, "The best way to get promoted is to leave your job."
The best promotions come before an employee asks for one. They're acknowledged for their contributions or for meeting pre-defined company requirements for a promotion. But too often, the promotion is too little, too late, and the employee already has one foot out the door.
Promotions are arbitrary
Many companies don't have a formal promotion system in place. Or if they do have one, they don't adhere to it.
Ava was given a promotion shortly before her boss left the company. Her employer had a well-documented promotion process and she'd met all the criteria. Her new boss came in and told her she "didn't deserve" the promotion. She was baffled: he barely knew her. She showed him all the documentation supporting her promotion, but it didn't matter. He didn't like her (or respect her work). Promotions, in his mind, were based on gut instinct — people deserve a promotion — rather than actual results.
For a long time, I believed that promotions were handed out to people who deserved it. Maybe that's still true in some cases. But far too often, people are given promotions they don't deserve or deserving people are denied a promotion. It all comes down to the whims of the boss and a system.
In 2015, a former Twitter employee proposed a class-action lawsuit, claiming that the company's promotion system unfairly favored men over women. In her complaint, she alleged that employees were typically "tapped on the shoulder for advancement" and that it was the manager who was responsible for making a case for an employee's promotion. The case was eventually dismissed in 2019. A California judge found that 135 current and former female engineers "didn't have enough in common" in how they were held back from promotions compared to their male counterparts.
Even absent the evidence to proceed to a trial in the Twitter case, employees everywhere can envision the "tapped on the shoulder" promotion scenario. It's a scenario that will likely increase as contention between return-to-office mandates and remote work continues. People in the office can literally be tapped on the shoulder for a promotion, an environment that unfairly punishes people who want flexible work (especially people who are already marginalized in an office setting). I foresee a class action lawsuit someday that alleges unfair promotion practices that favor people in the office — thereby contributing to workplace discrimination against women (for example).
Executive coach Robin Camarote wrote an Inc. article about being passed over for promotion. She argued that "the system" itself was flawed.
The company had defined advancement criteria that applied to all staff and to each level. I'd call them rigid and archaic. They'd call them transparent and necessary. They also had an elaborate set of unwritten advancement practices. I'd call these political and arbitrary. They'd call them history and culture. Either way, we were both stuck.
Anyone who thinks promotions are based *solely* on hard work is ignoring the fact that other people are kept down for arbitrary reasons.
Promotions can be exploitative
The other problem with promotions is that many companies expect employees to show they can do the work and then they're given the promotion.
In that scenario, you're donating time to the company. You're doing work outside your current role without compensation. On top of that, you could get screwed over. You're doing the work, with no guarantee of a new title or pay bump. This happened to Katherine: she did all of the work of the level above her role, but because the company was struggling financially, she wasn't given a promotion. The company was benefitting from her additional work, but she wasn't compensated for it. She asked for a promotion in title only and was still denied — a move that her boss couldn't justify. She began looking for other work, and although it was harder without the title attached, she eventually found a role that valued her more.
Some members of the Gen Z workforce think promotions, on the whole, are a raw deal. "The main thing I'm hearing about doing more work to get promoted is really just it's not worth the pay and it's not worth the stress," career coach Emily Rezkalla told Business Insider. The additional pay may not be proportionate to the additional amount of work.
And promotions often don't set people up for success. People are moved from individual contributor to management roles, simply because they've maxed out on the IC path and management is the only way to earn more money. But such a move often lacks training or coaching on how to manage people. It creates a system where people can be really, really good in one role and then be ill-equipped for the role of manager after a promotion. (And then these managers are the same people who end up being responsible for the promotions for others... it's a cycle.)
Promotions aren't the solution
On top of everything else, promotions are often too little, too late. According to data from payroll provider ADP, 29% of people in the U.S. quit their jobs within a month after their first promotion. A promotion acts as a band-aid to a gaping wound. The employee is already doing the work, without acknowledgment.
As I thought back to the original question, "What contributed most to your last promotion?" I reflected on my own promotions over the years. The first one, I thought was well-earned. And my boss liked me, a lot, which certainly helped. My second promotion came after I'd been doing the work for months, which I now realize was completely backward.
My last major promotion was to an executive role. I thought the promotion would give me the authority and decision-making power to fix problems I saw in the company. It didn't. And I left.
At another company, I had to meet certain (rigid) criteria to qualify for a promotion, which I eventually earned. But I later found out that another employee (male) had been promoted FAR above me WITHOUT meeting the criteria. Turns out, the rigid promotion system could be bent for certain people.
If you want a promotion, it's important to reflect on the why.
Are you already doing the work and want to be acknowledged?
Do you want a new challenge? Will a promotion give you that challenge?
Or do you think a promotion will solve a problem you have in your current role?
Promotions aren't a means of escape. If you think a promotion will fix things, you'd be better off leaving.
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