Great People Works

Many employers when thinking about promoting from within find themselves looking out at their employee assets and wondering "Is this all I have to choose from?" The reason for this is that they didn't hire their future manager or begin to develop their future manager from Day 1. This is what smart companies do. Many large corporations do it through well orchestrated training programs lasting anywhere from a few weeks to a couple of years and combine it with a succession planning system that constantly works to train, develop and coach talent into future management and executives. Small and medium sized companies do not have those kinds of resources but with the use of the Internet and outsourcing pieces of the process they can emulate those processes effectively at a very low cost.

Simply using assessments in the initial hiring process will help to identify high performing employees now for the jobs for which they are applying as well as whether or not they have the seeds to become a good manager in the future. Used smartly, even the smallest company can begin hiring people for jobs now that will be able to grow into jobs with greater responsibility, authority and accountability in the future. This makes the most sense also because the talent you hire and then grow based on your company, your culture and markets, is actually building up your companies intellectual assets in their career. Overtime they become experts in the company and have knowledge that you need to keep in order to train and develop new people as your company grows. The worst mistake any company can make is only hiring people to fill jobs now, resulting in a situation that when they need to promote or hire managers they go outside the company and bring in people who know much less about the company than the people that report to them. The lack some of the expertise to manage effectively and will have a steeper, more challenging learning curve in order to build loyal followers and trust with their subordinates.

All business decisions, especially in a small company, should have a time-factor. Is this the best decision for today. How would this decision change if I was making it for my business next year or where I hope to be in five years? You need to constantly keep your vision of the future in front of yourself and your employees in order to keep everyone on the same track marching in the same direction. Your hiring decisions should reflect this too as part of your overall organizational development plans.