One of the key ways in which to ensure happy employees and a much lower employee turnover is to consider promoting internally when there is a new position to fill, as opposed to looking to bring in senior talent from the outside. Growth and development within the company that they work for is likely to be the career goal for the vast majority of your employees. If they do not feel as though those goals are being effectively fulfilled or they have hit a ‘ceiling’ in terms of career progression, they are likely to begin looking elsewhere for bigger, better opportunities.

Luckily, you have decided to make promotions within your organization as a hiring strategy. So, how do make sure that this decision is as advantageous to you and your business as it is to your employees themselves?

Here is everything that you need to know.

Know what to look for

Obviously, what you look for will depend heavily on the nature of the new role on offer. However, generally, when hiring for more senior positions, you should choose employees who demonstrate leadership in their already-existing roles.

Who is the person who always comes to the ‘party’ with great ideas and isn’t afraid to speak up on behalf of their team during meetings?

You should also keep an eye out for work ethic and dedication. Who always manages to meet deadlines and is rarely absent from work?

Finally, you should seek out existing employees who have demonstrated excellent communication skills. Who is always articulate and polite when communicating either verbally or in written form? Who is the first one to come to you to report a problem that is interfering in their team's ability to be productive?

Conduct interviews

Ultimately, it is important to know for sure whether the employees whom you are considering for the role are, in fact, interested in filling it. Conducting interviews will give you a better idea of this and help you to establish who might be a better fit.

Consider an executive assessment

If you want a more thorough insight into who is right for the job, hiring a company to conduct professional executive assessments is a wonderful idea. These assessments include tasks and questions which are specifically tailored to measure a potential candidate’s ability to solve problems quickly and efficiently, to measure their critical thinking skills, to measure their numerical reasoning abilities, and more.

An executive assessment also encompasses interviews with a consultant, intensive data analysis, comprehensive reporting on various findings, as well as follow up interview questions expertly crafted for each candidate based on the information garnered. The end result is a much clearer view of who would be the better choice for the promotion.

There are countless benefits to promoting from within your organization for both you and your already existing employees. Take heed of the advice as mentioned above and you will certainly be very glad that it was the route you opted to follow.