Times Ascent: Just promoted!

Beena was in cloud nine when her boss handed her the promotion letter. She was expecting an elevation but not so fast. She was happy but equally aware of the huge responsibility that was coming with her new profile.

A "promotion" does not come easily. Rather, it demands lots of hard work, proving of one’s potential and exhibiting a promising attitude to draw the attention of the boss towards the calibre of the employee. While it is a reward for the effort and dedication towards the job, it also brings along more responsibility and expectations.

“A new position would certainly mean a new role and responsibility. It is this transition that needs the most attention. It is a transition to becoming a coach, or even a step further, learning to coach the coach. It is during this transition where we either create a future leader, or loser a perfectly good doer,” said Zoya Brar, MD and founder, CORE Diagnostics.

Once you get a promotion, it becomes important to establish a culture that is challenging, positive and allows employees the security to voice their qualms and concerns. “A culture that is transparent, trusting and focused on high performance is a pre-requisite for the transition being successful," adds Brar.

Deepika Pillai, director-HR, Xavient Information Systems, says, “A promotion definitely sounds like a bed of roses that lands you with more income, leadership and authority; however, it brings along a different set of challenges too. Establishing authority among your team while maintaining good relations is a tactical task you may not be prepared to handle.”

How you deal with the sudden uplift in your duties will determine your future in the organisation. A promotion doesn’t guarantee you an overnight upgradation in skills and calibre. “While the designation/position defining you might have changed, your contribution in no way would’ve decreased and you did not suddenly become better than what you were a day before,” Pillai notes.

Once you are promoted you need to handle a host of things like worker-to-manager transition, team management, delegation of work and grappling with managerial duties to name a few. “The promotion might bring with it a set of new responsibilities like budgeting, strategy sessions, presentations, annual plans etc. These tasks can be daunting and actually require formal training for some,” points out Pillai.

Sunil Goel, MD, GlobalHunt, says, “Increment and promotion have been a tradition way of rewarding a good performer.  But it comes with various challenges for both an employee and an employer. Although an employee works with similar passion post promotion but as the expectations of the manager and the organisation goes up, it becomes a challenge to meet them.”

Often, a new resource joining at a lower cost and doing the same job becomes a challenge for an existing employee. “Challenge are more with employees who are not able to upgrade themselves or do a proper value addition on the job. Also many times, a new role calls for managing existing people wherein acceptance may become a challenge.  It is important to analyse the competencies required for the new role and get into a dialogue with your manager to understand the expectations and work on a plan to execute the new role by gaining knowledge on the required competencies,” Goel concludes.

So, if you have just been promoted, it’s a time to rejoice but at the same time brace yourself for some tough times ahead.