Are you delighted with your employees? If so, you might consider whether some should be promoted. Make sure that you can tell when an employee is ready to be promoted before you leap to this conclusion.
1. Your Employee Excels Consistently
A promotion isn’t necessarily a reward for a job well done. It’s a natural progression when each job is done well over and over again. Insurance jobs are full of daily hurdles, both large and small. Make sure that your employee is excelling consistently over time at these hurdles before you give that employee a promotion.
2. Your Employee Fails Well
Employees don’t need to be perfect all of the time. In fact, one of the best ways to see whether an employee is able to handle the successes and failures of a job that involves more responsibility is to watch that person struggle or fail. It’s easy to be a good colleague when you’re doing well, but it’s harder to maintain composure and be a fair and friendly colleague in the face of difficult choices or hard feedback.
3. Your Employee Sees the Big Picture
If an employee is doing outstanding work in the job, you have an employee who’s doing well at that particular job. What you’re looking for is an employee who’s moving beyond their current position to take the initiative or make suggestions that show that person sees the big picture. As your employees move higher, they’ll need to deal with higher-level problems, questions, and initiatives. According to Forbes, employees who “outline new strategic initiatives, product ideas or plans to tackle a particularly vexing process challenge” see the bigger picture and are more ready and able to handle a promotion.
4. Your Employee Knows Why You’re Here
Why does your insurance agency exist? Any employee who may get promoted needs to work in alignment with the core values of your insurance agency. If you have any concerns that your employee’s interests or values aren’t aligned with those of your workplace, that person might not be the right person to move into a position of leadership.
5. Your Employee Connects With Others
Whether you’re moving someone into a managerial role or not, you need to know that individual can communicate skillfully with others. According to Forbes, “You can easily teach technical skills and systems, but people skills and communication skills are harder to teach.” What communication skills show that your employee is ready for a promotion?
- Skillfully setting boundaries and articulating expectations
- Communicating clearly
- Talking with diverse people
- Working with conflict
- Handling feedback
- Understanding and balancing the needs of employees, clients, and the agency as a whole
6. Your Employee Completes The Task
You love enthusiastic employees, but sometimes they can leave a trail of unfinished projects behind them. As you cultivate an atmosphere of innovation at your workplace, note who is finishing projects and who begins with enthusiasm and then tapers off. To find the right person to promote, you’ll need to find an employee who can consistently follow through, even when the going is difficult or the task feels less exciting than it did at the beginning.
We’re here to support independent insurance agencies. Whether you’re advertising your insurance jobs, wrestling with questions about your employees or agency management, or you want to network with other agencies, we’re here for you. Contact us today and learn more about our membership benefits and Alliance Convention.
