Before you promote anyone: what "who is ready to step up" shows you

Promoting the best salesperson to sales team lead, then losing a good salesperson and gaining an unhappy manager, happens in small companies every year. Not because they lack ability, but because the new seat asks for different things than the old one.

Read readiness before you decide

On the team page in Team fit, the who is ready to step up section lets you pick a team member and a target seat and read the result once (50 units, kept for 30 days). You get four things.

1. A readiness band: ready for this seat, workable, or not their seat yet.
2. Fit against what the seat asks for, and their rank in the team for that seat. If they are second of five, you know who is first before you announce anything.
3. What to grow before stepping up: the weaker areas, with advice in plain words such as "have them set the question instead of answering it".
4. Good years to announce and years to hold.

Using the result fairly

This is input for a decision, not a verdict, and HappyJob's principles forbid using it to refuse or disadvantage anyone. What works:

• Turn "what to grow" into a three-to-six-month development plan you discuss with the person, instead of telling them they are not ready.
• For "workable", try partial responsibility first: looking after two people, or owning one project.
• If this is a year to hold, announce next year in the suitable one, and tell them now that you are preparing them.

A promotion changes the pairs

Moving one person to a new seat changes the working pairs around them. Open the team overview again after changing the seat, to see which pair has become tense and who can be the glue. Sometimes promoting one person has to come with hiring one into the old seat.

Open your team and read the readiness of the person you have in mind.