7 ms·

The biggest reason why promotions are becoming rare is because it actually isn't in the interest of the company to do them. If you're filling an opening by pro

The biggest reason why promotions are becoming rare is because it actually isn't in the interest of the company to do them. If you're filling an opening by promotion you'll still have to find someone new to fill the position that has been vacated with that promotion: and now you've got 2 new people vs 1 when hiring from outside.

WesternWind 4y ago
Or you hire one entry level person, promote internally and have employees who are quick to train and ready to contribute.
- extr 4y ago
  I used to work at a company like this. Only hired new grads, and promoted mostly from within. It was great in some ways but you would definitely have "blind leading the blind" moments and it was very frustrating. I came to see the value in hiring externally for some roles. If you're in a startup or even a small business, really great to have at least a few people around with deep, external experience in the industry to help build context and point out solved problems.
  - SkyBelow 4y ago
    I think one would want a mix of both. You want to promote internally so you have some people higher up who understand the business deeply in ways that an external hire would not as well as promote retention and reward going above and beyond by having career growth opportunities available, but you also want to hire externally to ensure you are getting an influx of new ideas that have been working at other companies.
  - greedo 4y ago
    We had the same experience when starting to use AWS/Azure. Our in-house team was all experienced with using VMware on-prem, with some mainframe and a few legacy physical servers. So we had a broad depth of knowledge for running our own datacenter. So when we started using AWS, we really made a lot of mistakes by trying to replicate how we did things on-prem. And there was a lot of resistance to using cloud services; some people viewed it as a threat to job security. Others simply had a difficult time adjusting to the change in operations/procedures and philosophy. This held us back quite a bit until we hired a few contractors who helped us better understand where we needed to change, which features worked well in the cloud (and which sucked). We brought the best contractors onboard as FTEs, and it's been a much better experience.
  - Aloha 4y ago
    The "we've never seen it done any other way" problem is 100% a real thing. One of my employers 60% of the company had spent all or most of their professional career there - and things were scrolerotic at times - because there was a huge amount of group think, and a strong NIH/"the way we do it is fine" problem - simply because of a lack of indexing to how other players did it. You ideally want around 50/50, 50% lifers, and 50% new blood, its even helpful to encourage employees to leave go get knowledge elsewhere and then come back later if they desire.
mason55 4y ago
What does this have to do with promotions becoming rare? It seems like this would have always been true.
- 411111111111111 4y ago
  > It seems like this would have always been true. Yes, but our society changed to see every inefficiency as a fault to fix, which makes situations like this increasingly rare
  - sokoloff 4y ago
    I don’t directly care if a supplier is efficient or inefficient. I do care if they’re competitive (in price, quality, and other measures that matter). It turns out the inefficient places tend to get out-competed and are forced to change or wither and die.
    - ClumsyPilot 4y ago
      > It turns out the inefficient places tend to get out-competed It turns out that a lot of 'efficiency optimisation' is done inconpetently, like removing 'un-needed' parts from a car: seatbelts, airbags - they just add extra weight! Lika federal aviation authority hiring engineers from boeing to check their own work to 'improve efficiency'
      - sokoloff 4y ago
        I think the 73-Max issue is even worse than that. It was likely Boeing DERs (FAA-authorized Designated Engineering Representatives, but employed and paid by Boeing) who signed off on most of the root cause issues.
    - greedo 4y ago
      That's because lean companies can leverage either price, regulatory moats, etc to avoid externalities. JIT has been demonstrated to be incredible profitable in good times, yet extremely brittle in bad times.
dwallin 4y ago
This is a great example of missing out on third order effects. What do you think happens to your existing employees if they have no avenue to advance their careers internally? They will leave for another position elsewhere leaving you with that same need to fill 2 positions. And now you are in a situation where instead of retaining your best people you are losing your best people. Penny-wise, pound-foolish
- greedo 4y ago
  Unfortunately, many employees won't leave a job, even when career advancement is shut off, or pay rates don't match what a competitor would offer. Changing jobs is risky; you're trading a known for an unknown. In the last year as RTO has started to replace WFH, I've begun to consider whether it's worth looking for a new position. My minimum calculus is that is has to at least pay me as much as I make now, be remote, provide me with the amount of autonomy I currently have, and have workers and managers I enjoy working with. Remote isn't hard to satisfy now, at least for the near-term future. Pay, I can probably get a 10-15% raise. Coworkers and managers I like? Who knows. Autonomy? Who knows. Both of those are a roll of the dice, no matter how carefully you investigate prior to taking a position. So for a 10% raise? That's a pretty big risk. Now if your current compensation sucks, or you hate your boss, sure. But I think that most people are risk-averse (at least I am), and most will stick with a less than optimal situation.
SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
Very true. I've found myself in places where I'm pretty sure I wasn't promoted despite being a very high performer simply because I was filling a role that would have been hard to re-fill. Though at the end I left and the company had to find a replacement for both positions anyway. It is only good for the company if you stay and don't take the position you're earned.

WesternWind 4y ago

Or you hire one entry level person, promote internally and have employees who are quick to train and ready to contribute.

extr 4y ago
I used to work at a company like this. Only hired new grads, and promoted mostly from within. It was great in some ways but you would definitely have "blind leading the blind" moments and it was very frustrating. I came to see the value in hiring externally for some roles. If you're in a startup or even a small business, really great to have at least a few people around with deep, external experience in the industry to help build context and point out solved problems.
- SkyBelow 4y ago
  I think one would want a mix of both. You want to promote internally so you have some people higher up who understand the business deeply in ways that an external hire would not as well as promote retention and reward going above and beyond by having career growth opportunities available, but you also want to hire externally to ensure you are getting an influx of new ideas that have been working at other companies.
- greedo 4y ago
  We had the same experience when starting to use AWS/Azure. Our in-house team was all experienced with using VMware on-prem, with some mainframe and a few legacy physical servers. So we had a broad depth of knowledge for running our own datacenter. So when we started using AWS, we really made a lot of mistakes by trying to replicate how we did things on-prem. And there was a lot of resistance to using cloud services; some people viewed it as a threat to job security. Others simply had a difficult time adjusting to the change in operations/procedures and philosophy. This held us back quite a bit until we hired a few contractors who helped us better understand where we needed to change, which features worked well in the cloud (and which sucked). We brought the best contractors onboard as FTEs, and it's been a much better experience.
- Aloha 4y ago
  The "we've never seen it done any other way" problem is 100% a real thing. One of my employers 60% of the company had spent all or most of their professional career there - and things were scrolerotic at times - because there was a huge amount of group think, and a strong NIH/"the way we do it is fine" problem - simply because of a lack of indexing to how other players did it. You ideally want around 50/50, 50% lifers, and 50% new blood, its even helpful to encourage employees to leave go get knowledge elsewhere and then come back later if they desire.

mason55 4y ago

What does this have to do with promotions becoming rare? It seems like this would have always been true.

411111111111111 4y ago
> It seems like this would have always been true. Yes, but our society changed to see every inefficiency as a fault to fix, which makes situations like this increasingly rare
- sokoloff 4y ago
  I don’t directly care if a supplier is efficient or inefficient. I do care if they’re competitive (in price, quality, and other measures that matter). It turns out the inefficient places tend to get out-competed and are forced to change or wither and die.
  - ClumsyPilot 4y ago
    > It turns out the inefficient places tend to get out-competed It turns out that a lot of 'efficiency optimisation' is done inconpetently, like removing 'un-needed' parts from a car: seatbelts, airbags - they just add extra weight! Lika federal aviation authority hiring engineers from boeing to check their own work to 'improve efficiency'
    - sokoloff 4y ago
      I think the 73-Max issue is even worse than that. It was likely Boeing DERs (FAA-authorized Designated Engineering Representatives, but employed and paid by Boeing) who signed off on most of the root cause issues.
  - greedo 4y ago
    That's because lean companies can leverage either price, regulatory moats, etc to avoid externalities. JIT has been demonstrated to be incredible profitable in good times, yet extremely brittle in bad times.

dwallin 4y ago

This is a great example of missing out on third order effects. What do you think happens to your existing employees if they have no avenue to advance their careers internally? They will leave for another position elsewhere leaving you with that same need to fill 2 positions. And now you are in a situation where instead of retaining your best people you are losing your best people. Penny-wise, pound-foolish

greedo 4y ago
Unfortunately, many employees won't leave a job, even when career advancement is shut off, or pay rates don't match what a competitor would offer. Changing jobs is risky; you're trading a known for an unknown. In the last year as RTO has started to replace WFH, I've begun to consider whether it's worth looking for a new position. My minimum calculus is that is has to at least pay me as much as I make now, be remote, provide me with the amount of autonomy I currently have, and have workers and managers I enjoy working with. Remote isn't hard to satisfy now, at least for the near-term future. Pay, I can probably get a 10-15% raise. Coworkers and managers I like? Who knows. Autonomy? Who knows. Both of those are a roll of the dice, no matter how carefully you investigate prior to taking a position. So for a 10% raise? That's a pretty big risk. Now if your current compensation sucks, or you hate your boss, sure. But I think that most people are risk-averse (at least I am), and most will stick with a less than optimal situation.

SketchySeaBeast 4y ago

Very true. I've found myself in places where I'm pretty sure I wasn't promoted despite being a very high performer simply because I was filling a role that would have been hard to re-fill. Though at the end I left and the company had to find a replacement for both positions anyway. It is only good for the company if you stay and don't take the position you're earned.