In the years since I started CIS with my business partner, Janell, we have seen our program grow eight-fold in population. We have ten times as many employees and have still managed to maintain our existing program while continuing to grow.
How did we do it? We grew steadily by increasing our government contracts’ size and scope, but we also made three acquisitions over the years, two of them in the last three years.
As you can imagine, that kind of rapid growth isn’t always easy. And we couldn’t have done it without our exceptional employees. As a human services organization, CIS takes the care of our clients seriously, but we also take the care of our employees seriously. Our mission is to provide better lives for our clients and our employees. That’s why we want to do more than provide jobs; we want to help our staff succeed professionally and personally. One of the most effective ways to do that is to promote from within.
Promoting From Within is Good for HR
For many business owners, the policy of promoting from within offers obvious benefits to employees, but it also makes HR’s mission clearer and easier to execute.
When we commit to promoting from within, our human resources team can hire people based on a fit with our core values and culture, which is essential in our work. Instead of looking for people based on a list of past jobs, our recruiting team can focus on an individual’s approach to caring for others. That means they can spend more time finding people who are good fits for social services careers. As a result, our potential employee base is much broader, and we can recruit from various fields.
Promoting from within also fosters loyalty. Employees know that they can create a professional future with our company. That has helped us reduce turnover.
This policy also means that our HR department spends less time searching for hard-to-find senior employees. They can spend more time hiring foundational positions, hiring people based on their fit with our company culture and mission. At CIS, we spend less time recruiting and more time training.
Promoting From Within Works Well With our Mentoring Approach
Our management team is committed to informal mentoring. We talk with our teams regularly to help us better assess their strengths and weaknesses and create a well-rounded understanding of their professional needs and goals.
This shared-knowledge approach isn’t limited to senior management. We also train our employees to think about their career paths from day one. Any employee who is new to the field must complete a 75-hour training and orientation course, which includes a peer coaching component. After the orientation training, there is ongoing formal and informal training done within departments, as well as technical training in state law and policy.
We often ask employees to shadow other positions, always under the guidance of each department’s head or leader. The shadowing program helps our people understand the responsibilities of other staff members, supervisors, and departments. Not only does this help employees create a more holistic understanding of what we do and how we do it, but it also introduces them to other positions and placements. By creating an increased understanding of how each job works, we also reduce the likelihood of moving an employee into a position that is a poor fit.
Of course, many employees will require formalized training before taking on new responsibilities, but shadowing is often an effective way to pave the way to a job shift.
Promoting From Within Allows for Rapid Growth
Because CIS has a well-established history of promoting from within, our employees tend to have a “can-do” attitude. When your team knows their efforts are noticed and may be rewarded with advancement, it motivates your entire staff. A motivated staff is essential for a fast-growing company.
Promotion from within has created job flexibility, also needed for rapid growth. Through the years, CIS has occasionally created a variety of temporary, dual roles. When any company expands, they usually experience “stretch” periods, when the income does not yet warrant a full-time hire, yet the growing areas still require some attention. By creating hybrid positions based partially on business needs and partly on employee skills and preferences, a firm can cover tasks in a wide range of areas until the company has stretched enough to create a new, full-time position within a department.
Tips for Promoting From Within
Creating hybrid or interim positions comes with challenges. That’s why it is so important to establish clear directives. Even if the new duties are a small part of that person’s overall responsibilities, create a job description that clarifies expectations for the current role and the new tasks. It is also vital to carefully monitor performance and make frequent updates to the job description as the person and position develop.
Any newly promoted individual must have plenty of support and guidance. It’s smart to connect the employee with a senior team member who can monitor progress and assess the need for additional training.
Having a solid knowledge of other jobs or responsibilities within the organization is critical for successful transitions, but they are not a guarantee of success. Keep in mind that some positions require a certain temperament, inherent skills, and natural abilities. For example, highly active people who avoid math will have difficulty sitting at a desk working through budgets. Conversely, introverts who dislike talking to new people may not be the best choice for public outreach roles. Take time to assess skills, desire, and natural ability before testing an employee out in a new position.
And What Happens When Internal Promotions Don’t Work Out?
It can be difficult for someone who has secured a promotion to admit that they are not suited for a particular position. Returning to a previous post can feel like a failure or an embarrassment and might be the reason an employee leaves a job.
That is why it is important to “test the waters” with current employees. Arrange for them to take on pertinent tasks or short-term projects with a defined end date. With limited-time engagements, an employee gets a glimpse of what the position entails, and the employer can evaluate skills and abilities in action. Short-term assignments reduce the risk to the employee and the employer.
However, being too flexible can be a double-edged sword. While a willingness to experiment allows a company to discover hidden talents in successful employees, too many moving parts can make it difficult to monitor job structures and make quality control more challenging. That’s why it’s important to always name a dedicated mentor or supervisor to these kinds of assignments, to evaluate the employee and their accomplishments closely.
For example, in social services, it is common for individuals to start by providing direct care or services to a client, then be promoted to a case management position, and then to a supervisory role where they are responsible for overseeing multiple clients, supervisors, or sites. While we often promote from within, we usually start by asking for short-term assistance in one area. Sometimes one employee will complete several short-term assignments before being asked to move to a new position. Because each job shift requires a deep understanding of procedures, regulations, and even state laws, we don’t rush anyone into new responsibilities without thoroughly preparing them for the new role.
When developing a short-term project, be careful to avoid positioning an employee’s performance as a pass/fail. A common misstep is to say, “We’ll try you out here and see how you do.” This statement implies the employee will either meet or fall short of expectations. Instead, use language like, “We need short-term help in this area until we hire more people. Can you step in this month?”
By developing short-term assignments with clear end dates, not only do we get a person to help us meet temporary needs, but we also get a chance to monitor them carefully and observe how their skills transfer to other roles. If we need them to return to their original function, that’s also a success. At CIS, many of our short-term projects really do have end dates. Sometimes a new position materializes, but often it does not.
A Final Word
No matter which job our team members are tackling, we make sure our entire staff understands how highly valued each contribution is at CIS, in every department. By keeping our promotions program flexible and ongoing, we encourage our team members to try new roles with little personal risk. After all, as long as you excel at CIS’s core competency – compassionate care – we’ll find the right place for you in our organization.