If you ask employees at any organization about their goals, dreams and what they are looking for, then you will find that the majority are seeking to get promoted at work. They really look at higher positions where they get authority and lead some other employees. There is nothing wrong about this. However and from my experience, the concern is how the employee gets promoted and also the timing of this promotion. In this post, I will look those two issues form my experience and point of view.

How to Get Promoted

Last year I attended Andy Kaufman’s keynote “The Dirty Little Secret of Business” in which he talked about getting promoted at work. Andy mentioned that promotion can be achieved through good connections in business. Therefore, an employee will be a safe option for promotion if he/she has good relationships and connections in business. This promotion can be within the same organization or getting a better job offer at a different organization.

I do agree with Andy about this. Just have a look at several working environments and you can see that it is neither the hard working nor the most experienced employees who get promoted. Employees who get promoted are those with good connections in business even if they do not have the required skills for the new position!

Timing of Promotion

The second point I want to look at in this post is the timing of promotion. In some cases, employees get promoted so fast. I am sure they will be happy with it. However, those employees will miss a lot to learn from their previous position. The knowledge, skills and experience they miss will help them a lot to do well in their new position. For example, being promoted so fast for testing team leader position is not a big advantage for the employee. This employee still have a lot to learn by being a tester for enough time so that he/she will gain lots of knowledge, skills and experience in different areas of testing such as test automation, testing tools, … etc.

At the end, I am sure that no one will reject getting promoted. However, make sure when you accept this promotion that you deserve to be promoted especially by having the knowledge, skills and experience which will help you to face the challenges of the new position and to do well in them.

All the best…