How to Spot Promotable People

08/20/08

How can HR spot good candidates for promotion into management or other positions of importance? Certainly not by appearance; they come in every type and size. Perhaps the best approach, using input from department managers and supervisors, is to examine job knowledge and other factors that are general predictors of success at higher levels. Here’s what to look for.

Technical Know How
Promotable people understand their department’s role within the company and how each job contributes to it. They also grasp their work group’s problems and responsibilities and can articulate them to higher management and other parties such as customers, vendors, and subcontractors. Supervisors should rate them high on quality and productivity and hold up their work as a benchmark for others.

Peer Respect
Look for informal leaders whose performances and personalities have earned the respect of their peers. Such people tend to work well with others, tolerate conflicting opinions, and know the art of making a point without making an enemy. They set high standards for themselves and lead by example.

Communication
Prime candidates for promotion need to be clear communicators, as evidenced by their oral presentations, memos, letters, and reports. They’re patient and understanding when working with less experienced peers or orienting new employees, and they are adept at creating examples to illustrate a point or demonstrate how work ought to be done. They have a knack for putting people at ease while teaching them new information.

Listening Skills
Promotable people are also effective listeners. They ask questions to draw people out, encourage feedback, and are good at picking up on voice inflections and body language that sometimes reveals confusion or misunderstanding.

Ask the supervisors you’re collaborating with to identify employees who are good at following oral instructions. Haphazard or indifferent listeners usually make more mistakes and need to be told things over and over again. Their bosses may also feel compelled to follow up often to make sure they got things straight. Good listeners, by comparison, don’t hesitate to ask questions. They’re not embarrassed to admit confusion and will work as hard as necessary to understand their manager’s message. Before diving into a project, good listeners often summarize a boss’s instructions in their own words to confirm they’re both on the same wavelength.

Leadership
Scan your promotability pool for people with a reputation for being diplomatic and democratic with coworkers when trading job assignments, negotiating deadlines, working out production schedules, or resolving other issues that involve potential conflicts. Preferred promotional candidates are collaborative, not confrontational. Although their hands-on performance may be excellent, asking people with a “my way or the highway” leadership style to change their abrasive behavior may be asking the impossible.

Organizational Skills
Which workers examine problems from several angles, look for the fastest and most efficient way to approach them, and tackle them systematically? Rank those folks high on your promotability roster. When under pressure, people with poor organizational skills often become dithering ditzes which makes them look incompetent and foolish. Their cooler headed counterparts, by contrast, show grace under fire. Their even tempers and steady temperament can be contagious; they’re positive role models for others to emulate.

Ambition and Initiative
Other things being equal (although they rarely are), pay special attention to employees who’ve declared that they want to advance and have backed up their words with actions.

For example, they’ve shown initiative by volunteering for jobs that would broaden their experience and enhanced their worth to the company by taking courses and seminars—perhaps at their own expense—that taught them new skills or helped them stay abreast of changing technology in their present work. People like that have earned a shot at the prize. Given the opportunity, they’ll probably validate your decision many times over.