Sounds harsh right? But yeah. Your employer, for certain reasons, may not promote you even if you’re hardworking. Promotions in the workplace sometimes are determined by factors beyond being hardworking. Please see some of the reasons below:

1. If you’ve reached the maximum grade for your role – It’s important for you to know that job roles are graded in most big organizations. Every job role has both the minimum and maximum grade. If anyone in a job role has reached the maximum grade, s/he cannot be promoted in that same role no matter how hardworking the person may be. You need to know the grade range of your role. If you’ve reached the maximum grade then you might need to change your job role if not, you’ll likely spend more years in that role without being promoted. Though, some organizations compensate staff in this condition by increasing their pay or bonuses but the fact is, the staff cannot be promoted beyond the maximum grade for the role.

2. Obsolete skills – You might be an expert in your job role but if your skills are outdated, chances are that you won’t be promoted. You might even be shown a way out if care is not taken. You don’t believe? Ask the early bankers of what happened to them when computers were introduced into the banking industry.

3. Working in an unprofitable business unit – if your unit is not making profit possibly because it’s still at its early stage, chances are that you won’t be promoted. Profitability has a lot to do when it comes to promotion. Promotion comes with a cost – salary increase, allowance increase, annual leave extension and so on. If a business unit is unprofitable, the management might be sceptical of promoting the staff of the unit as that may make the business unit more unprofitable. You want promotion, fight first for profit.

4. Working in a support role – you wonder why staff in business unit are promoted faster than those in the support functions? It’s clear. The business unit makes revenue. Even though the support unit are quite important for the business unit to earn revenue, staff in the unit do not have sufficient space for negotiation. A staff in a business unit can negotiate next grade by pledging to bring in certain revenue which the support staff may not be able to do.

5. Certifications – Yes you heard me. If your next role requires some degrees or certifications, you won’t be promoted if you don’t have it. You need to investigate the requirements for the next grade and prepare yourself ahead. Some organizations do not tell their staff about this but they take note of the professional qualifications of every staff and use it to determine who will be promoted. Do you know the requirements for the role you’re eyeing?

To be promoted, you need not only be hardworking but smart. Work smarter not harder.

https://joblytics.com.ng/blog/2017/06/04/reasons-your-employer-may-not-promote-you/