A normal working life has always included promotion as a dual tool: to recognize increased competence and at the same time build employee loyalty within the company.
However, this reality may have changed somewhat. A recent American study, which analyzed the work histories of more than one million workers, from 2019 to 2022, found, in fact, that 29% of those interviewed left their jobs in the two months following the promotion. And, again according to this study, only 18% of the latter would have left if they had not been promoted. Put another way, the promotion led to a 67% increase in the probability of leaving the company.
What accounts for this impressive statistic? As usual, we find ourselves talking about the pandemic and how this has, without anyone realizing it, enormously changed our way of approaching reality.
First of all, the promotion increases the market's interest in the worker, who can therefore be offered more advantageous conditions by a different company, and on the other hand we must consider the phenomenon whereby promotion is increasingly no longer considered as a prize itself.
Obviously, companies have some responsibility. During the pandemic, promotions were often accompanied by increases in workload, but not in parallel with the salary increase that one would have expected.
Indeed, promotion without a salary increase was seen as a rather widespread practice.
Experts say that while waiting for the labor market to normalize, managers should do their best to recognize and reward workers outside the normal performance appraisal cycle. And, at the same time, they should accompany promotion with adequate preparation and support, to reduce the risk of abandonment.