Promotable or expendable? Don’t put your fate in someone else’s hands.

Are you Promotable or Expendable at work? 

Do you know where you stand with your manager? Most employee opinions about their performance differ from those of their managers. In most cases, the difference is career. This week, I share observations on how managers view their employees and how employees view themselves. These opinions are based on 20 years of experience, including:

• 100’s of conversations with managers who have teams
• Leading HR teams for the past 20 years, who update me on conversations between employees and managers.
• 100’s of conversations with employees who want to be promoted

It is your manager’s opinion that counts here

Forget the NineBox, forced ratings, stack rankings, and the bell curve. Generally speaking, there are three types of employees at work.  

1. These employees are ready for promotion or have the potential to be promoted.
2. They are getting the job done but not moving the company forward or backward.
3. This employee is someone the manager would rather not have in the department.

If you turn in your 2-week resignation notice

1. Your manager panics and tries to convince you to stay with more money, larger projects, titles, etc. Your manager doesn’t know what will happen if you are gone. 10%
2. The reaction is “meh”. The conversation is more of a “congratulations and good luck, Suzy.” 80%
3. Inside, your manager is jumping for joy because they can’t wait for the door to hit your ass on the way out. Regardless of what you think about your performance, your manager wants you out. 10%

If you can’t determine who is in category number 3, you might be “the one,” and I don’t mean the first category.

Ninety percent of employees feel they are solidly falling in category one

From a manager’s standpoint, 90% of the employees fall into categories 2 and 3. 

For the record, I don’t blame the employee for their opinions. Most employees have not spoken to their current manager or executive about qualifying for a promotion.

Herculites said the following of men going into battle: 

Out of every one hundred men, ten shouldn’t even be there, eighty are just targets, nine are the real fighters, and we are lucky to have them, for they make the battle. Ah, but the one, one is a warrior, and he will bring the others back.

I am not focusing on the “One” that will bring others back. I am focused on the “nine out of 100 “we are lucky to have. Most employees believe they fall into this category.

Are you promotable? 

Are you making your manager’s job easier? Most employees will say they are making their manager’s job easier. But making a manager’s job easier in one or two ways is not enough. Here are a few examples of how your manager thinks that differs from employee thinking.

Are you the only one in the department with specific knowledge?

If you answered “yes,” you are more expendable than promotable. Yes, expendable.

If you want to be promoted, your manager needs someone to take your place to ensure continuity. Managers worry when all their knowledge is in one basket. We need a replacement or a training plan for a replacement.

What will place an “expendable” target on this employee’s back is if they don’t want to train up a replacement. The attitude of hoarding knowledge makes us expendable. A department is a tribe, and tribes share.   

Influence others without a title

Even though you don’t have the title, can you influence others and change behavior? Can you change a negative dynamic into a positive dynamic? 

A potential manager doesn’t need a title to influence others around them. They have the confidence to motivate people to move forward. Managers do not motivate through fear or by relying on their titles. 

When a new idea, product, or process is generated, are you supportive or hostile? If the company needs to make a hard decision, can we get on board with the company train? If you are positive 90% of the time, this isn’t enough to be promotable. This ratio leads employees to believe they are promotable. It makes us expendable. 

Here is why. Anyone can shoot down an idea. Companies don’t need to pay extra for employees to shoot down an idea. They can and do get this for free. Companies get two for the price of one when it comes to negative attitudes. We pay managers to manage tough people in tough times. Tough times are the last 10%. When everyone has given up, can you bring everyone back? 

Do you have a pile of work to do when you come back from vacation? If you do, this is one of 3 signs.

1. No one knows how to do your job or
2. No one wants to help you out while you are gone.
3. Both number 1 and number 2. All three of these options are a liability to the company.   

If you are like most employees, you have identified a time or two where you could answer in the positive to all four bullets. But one or two instances a promotable employee does not make. The above is a lifestyle, an ingrained mentality, and a heartbeat. If you can think of an instance or two where we could not answer in the positive, then we are probably not promotable.  

What are you being paid for?

We can do all the good in the world, but one negative instance can tarnish our reputation. There is an expectation that we are going to be positive. We are being paid a salary. No one is being paid to have a negative attitude or horde the knowledge. 

Working in HR, I am asked to have one-on-one conversations with employees on tough topics. These are the conversations I am paid to have. Anyone can tell an employee they are receiving a raise or promotion. That is an easy conversation. However, how we handle ourselves when faced with tough problems is what makes us valuable.   

The lesson to be learned: confirm with your manager that you are performing to the level you think you are performing and the level your manager expects for the next stage in your career. These are two very different opinions, and again, only one matters.

Career advice to make yourself invaluable and bulletproof in a weak economy

See you at the after party,

HRNasty

nasty: an unreal maneuver of incredible technique, something that is ridiculously good, tricky, and manipulative but with a result that can’t help but be admired, a phrase used to describe someone good at something. “He has a nasty forkball”.

Ongoing writing and context live on LinkedIn and Bluesky.

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