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Comment by stormking | Hacker News Reader

When it comes to promotions, there is one simple rule:

A promotion is not a reward for doing a good job in your current role. For a company, promoting people is an optimization technique. Good employees are hard to find and if you already have one and he or she shows the potential to do even more valuable work, you promote them.

It's as simple as that.

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I disagree. Well, I agree, but with nuance. A promotion for a knowledge worker role is typically a recognition of already having been operating at a higher level than the employee is currently mapped to. This is not the same as promoting someone because you recognize potential, but those two concepts do usually coexist.

I'm sorry but I fail to see the difference, except "shows the potential to do more valuable work" and "having been operating at a higher level" being not quite the same. But this doesn't change my main conclusion. Can you please elaborate?

Using something like Helpdesk as an example; "having been operating at a higher level" is a Level 1 person who does Level 2 work, and "shows potential to do more valuable work" is a level 1 person who only does level 1 stuff, but knocks it out the park and looks like they will succeed doing higher level work.

In my experience, companies that have a policy of type 1 promotions are not to be trusted with one's career.

Yes sounds like a company with rigid hierarchies "you cant have a chair with arms on as your not the right level".

Or rules about what the wood a managers desk furniture should be made of and how many square yards of carpet "he" was allowed - note the use of the male pronoun.

These are examples from a company I used to work for in the UK.

I once had a Vice President explain to me the rules at the bank he worked for. A person of level X was entitled to an office and one piece of art. A person of level X+1 was entitled to an outer office and two pieces of art, and so on.

When he started telling the story, I assumed he was pulling my leg. Once he got about three levels in and had clear details on all the differences, I realized (sadly) that he wasn't kidding.

I worked at a (big) company where this happened: Very expensive HQ offices built with policy that >= Director get private offices. Due to miscount, restructuring or some combination thereof there ended up being ~3 offices less than needed. "Fixed" with a policy change that only >= VP get private offices. This left a very large number of vacant offices and the HQ looking a ghost town.

I still don't see how that's different.

How would a level 1 person "knock it out the park and look like they will succeed doing higher level work" if not by either doing level 2 work or succeeding in some other area that is technically above his paygrade?

Dear downvoter, how about you join the discussion and point out where I'm wrong?

From the guidelines (see link at the bottom of the page):

>Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.

Let a Level 1 job consist of doing tasks "foo", "bar" and "bash" on a daily basis.

Let Level 2 tasks consist of doing "aleph", "zeta" but also sometimes a little "foo".

Some L1 employee killing it in terms of time-taken-to-complete bars and bashes, as well as being solid at foo...

Is not the same as

Some L1 employee is [okay to above average] at their regular job responsibilities (foo, bar and bash) and every now and then handles aleph and zeta without trouble (and sometimes excels at it).

Why would the company promote them your getting l2 performance for l1 pay.

This working beyond your level long term is a trap you should avoid your just being taken advantage of.

> Why would the company promote them your getting l2 performance for l1 pay.

Only temporarily. They'll probably find a job somewhere else, and now you've lost a great employee, need to find someone else that good and train them up again.

Because if the company doesn't do (your first paragraph) the employee will realize (your second paragraph).

Basically a rehash of the other comment you got, but I found it funny you kind of answered your own question :)

This sounds like the typical corporate line explaining why someone hasn't gotten a promotion: "A promotion for a knowledge worker role is typically a recognition of already having been operating at a higher level than the employee is currently mapped to."

Why would you need to explain why someones hasn't got a promotion? As an employee, you can expect a raise, sometimes, or a golden watch, maybe, after x years of service. But there is no reason to promote someone just for doing his job, no matter how good or how long he has been doing it. On the contrary, it would be dumb to do so.

edit: typos

> Why would you need to explain why someones hasn't got a promotion?

Presumably because they asked you why they haven't gotten a promotion.

I would ask them why they think they deserve one. And if the answer is, because they have been doing doing such a good job for such a long time ... well, I think you can guess what my answer would be.

On the other hand, if they point out occasions where they stepped out of their comfort zone and succeeded, there might be a promotion on the horizon already and I would discuss with them what's still missing for it to happen.

Don't think most managers have the guts to explain why.

Most prefer to hide behind a corporate saying.

Well, then you have at least an answer to the question why those managers get stuck at some point ... ;-)

It may be, but it also has the benefit of being the correct way to think about it. Because the opposite -- promoting someone before they have proven they can perform at the next level -- is exactly how you get the Peter Principle.

I appreciate where the cyniscim comes from, but e.g. Facebook is fairly explicit about working this way, and makes it work quite well. First, because the criterion for promotion is precisely “performs at roughly the middle of the pack for the next level over”, so there is an objective(ish) metric for what you should be doing. Second, because performance bonuses are mapped such that your effective pay before and after the promotion are essentially the same (so you were both performing, and earning, as if you had the promotion).

Interesting. So Facebook assumes that some large number of promotions will fall behind previous performance? Probably a valid assumption. But interesting that they'd perform at one level and then degenerate when that's recognized.

Sorry — when I said “middle of the pack” I meant performing at “meets all” level for the level above.

That makes sense.

This kind of promotion structure basically just launders a manager's intuition through a veil of objectivity. The committee studiously evaluates, with careful argumentation, checks & balances, neutral parties, and appeals, whether the candidate has been doing L + 1 work. But the decision to assign the candidate an L + 1 scope/impact project is made unilaterally by her manager.

It’s never objective. Ever.

> Good employees are hard to find

Is that true though? I feel like I've worked with some outstanding people over the years how hard can they be to find?

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