Inc.com columnist Alison Green answers questions about workplace and management issues—everything from how to deal with a micromanaging boss to how to talk to someone on your team about body odor.
Here’s a roundup of answers to three questions from readers.
1. New hire demanding a promotion after a year
I hired a young employee, Frank, almost exactly a year ago in an entry-level administrative role. He didn’t have a lot of relevant experience but his enthusiasm and passion was infectious, and so I made the call to invest time and resources to skill him up and to explore new opportunities over time. It was going great.
Now our work is expanding so I proceeded to hire an additional, more senior role on my team. It’s a brand new position so I posted it for internal and external candidates to apply, and Frank applied. During the few weeks of the hiring process, Frank has been emphasizing that he doesn’t actually like a significant portion of the work he does now (a lot of which carries over into the higher level role) and that he wants “more” (which I take to mean more responsibility and recognition but he has struggled to elaborate). Ultimately I offered the higher level position to someone external with several years more experience and with demonstrable commitment to this line of work. Behind the scenes, I started talking about finding a different role that Frank would enjoy more and would likely be a level up, and started to get the ball rolling. I hadn’t yet had an opportunity to discuss this with Frank and didn’t want to over-promise anything, but let him know (when I broke the news that he didn’t get the posted job) that I was in his corner to help him find a better fit and that we’d work together to make something happen.
When I told Frank he didn’t get the job, he immediately shared that he has another job offer, and that we need to match their salary and increase their job level within two days or he’s gone. In some ways I’m not surprised — especially when our city is expensive so higher pay is definitely valuable.
But it’s been almost a year, give or take a few weeks. Is it the new norm that people expect a promotion and a raise at the one-year mark? Especially in a role and field they’re brand new to? My understanding is that you’ve got to put a couple years into a company, advocate for yourself, make nice with the senior leaders, etc. to move up. Am I behind with the times?