1. Make a plan for promotion
Start by thinking about what promotion means in terms of the skills, qualifications, and experience required. You can find information on the skills, qualifications, and experience required from your employer or from job advertisements listed on www.jobsjobscareers.com. You can also find out more by talking with colleagues and through attending social and professional events. Obtaining this information will help you to create a plan to acquire the skills, qualifications and/or experience required in the promoted position.
2. Learn to impress
Promotion often entails the achievement of certain skills and/or academic qualifications. Whether you want to be an Accountant or Zoologist it is likely that you will need to study in order to gain the skills required to do the job. Find out want skills and/or academic qualifications are required and impress your employee by achieving them.
3. Be an amazing employee
The best way to gain promotion is to be amazing at your current job. Employers often promote employees because they perform well in their current role. If your aim is to be promoted in 2017 be amazing at your current job. Be punctual, dependable and enthusiastic. Show initiative and try to develop good working relationships with others in the organization and work hard to achieve performance targets.
4. Build the business case for your promotion
A business case is a document that outlines the justification for a proposed action on the basis of its expected benefit. How can you justify your promotion? To do this you will need to think about what benefits you can bring to the organization if promoted. Will you increase sales? Reduce costs? Increase productivity? If so, how will you do this? Be prepared to demonstrate your suitability for promotion by showing that you have the skills, ability and track record to succeed.
5. Manage setbacks
Even if you have developed a strong business case and gained the qualifications and experience required you may be turned down for a promotion. There are a number of reasons why this may be the case but understanding these reasons will help you plan your next steps. It may be that your organization believed that you have some gaps in your skills and/or experience that these must be filled prior to promotion. If this is the case you can (a) try to convince your employer that these gaps do not exist or (b) agree a plan to develop skills to fill these gaps. Alternatively, it may be the case that your organization is unable to promote you due to economic circumstances. Again, find out what the reasons are and try to find whether a solution can be found.
Conclusion
By planning for promotion, learning to impress, being a model employee, building the business case and managing rejection you can help you can feel more confident about what you need to do to climb the career ladder and gain promotion in Zambia in 2017.