• Miles Neale (12/5/2012)


    Did I read the article right? If you have an employee who does a good job, is somewhat driven to get the job done but sees value in his life and family then that person is not worthy of a promotion? I might have tossed a little opinion or yellow journalism into that but it just sounded that if an employee loves his family more than hiss job then they are cannon fodder.

    I think the promote part was indicating that the employee in question doesn't have the "drive" to move into management, but wanted to instead stay a technical worker.

    Some of that comes down to personality, some people can handle switching from the "get your hands dirty" technical worker to the "get someone elses' hands dirty" of management, others can't. I fall into the can't. I don't like being "in charge," and promoting me into a management position would result in an unhappy employee (me) and an unhappy staff (those I'm managing) Could I gain the skills to manage? Likely yes, but I've always been the quiet guy. The one who rarely speaks during a meeting, the one who never tried to be the one to pick teams in school, the one who rarely picks what to do in a group.

    Does that make me "un-promotable" or someone who's going to just keep getting more and more "senior" tacked onto my job title?

    It really comes down to, do the person want to climb the corporate ladder, or do they want to keep improving their skills (and pay) while staying in the same "title."

    Jason