What is the main advantage of promoting from within when filling an opening within the organization?

A hiring process can be a daunting time for businesses. For whatever reason an employee vacated their position, it now lays unclaimed, and while the company efforts to fill it, money is lost. There are two options for filling an open position: hiring from within, and hiring externally. There are many factors to take into consideration before committing to one option or the other. Many of the benefits associated with hiring from within a company are tied to employee morale.

Employee Morale

Hiring internally is quicker because the candidate is already an employee with the company, and are therefore already familiar with operations and business methods. The training process will be quicker, and the transition will generally be smoother than bringing on a new employee. Hiring from within sends a message to other employees that there are real career opportunities with the company. Often, this boosts company-wide productivity, as it creates added incentive for increased productivity.

Trust

Companies like to hire from within because the candidate for the position is a known commodity; someone whom the company is already familiar with. They know the person’s strengths and weaknesses, and the candidate has already established relationships with employees in the company. The costs associated with hiring a new employee are also lower, meaning advertisements and time spent working with an unfilled position won’t accumulate, because of the speed of a quick hire.

New Outlook

Conversely, hiring a candidate externally introduces a fresh perspective to the fold. Bringing experience from outside the company can be a breath of fresh air, particularly in a struggling business. Hiring an external candidate means access to a larger, more diverse talent pool. Often times, the company only has one or two qualified candidates for an open position, hamstringing them into choosing between two under qualified candidates. Hiring externally gives a company a chance for a fresh start

While hiring a known commodity may appeal to many, it comes with its potential disadvantages as well.

‘Thinking Within the Box’ Syndrome

Hiring an existing employee for a position with more responsibilities can lead to a narrowing of ideas; more of the same. A struggling business that hires from within is less likely to receive the proverbial “shot-in-the-arm” of innovative concepts and ideas that comes with hiring someone outside of the company.

Jealousy

Even though there will be less training and need for orientation for an internal candidate, they will have to adjust to new expectations and responsibilities, just like an external candidate would. Internal politics also play a hand, as some fellow employees may not agree with the promotion, creating tension in the office, and hurting overall output.

Relying on the Unknown

When hiring an external candidate, all a company has to judge them is a resume, the interview, and perhaps some examples of work, depending on the type of position. This puts the hiring company at a disadvantage, known commodity also applying for the position.

Organizing a search for external candidate means spending money on advertising for the position, and means that the position is open for a longer period of time, draining the company of additional funds, and diminishing productivity. A person hired from the outside will take time to not only train, but to become familiar with other employees, and their respective strengths and weaknesses.

Unhappy Workers

Announcing to a group of employees that the position has been filled externally can hurt morale just as much as the news of a hiring from within can help it. Knowing that all of their hard work will lead nowhere except a paycheck hurts effectiveness, costing the company money in the long-term, as right now.

Weighing the pros and the cons for hiring internally, or externally, comes down to what the company is looking for. Is it looking for a fresh perspective for the position, or is it looking for stability, and a smooth transition? It’s an easy question to ask, but not nearly as easy to answer.

About the Guest Author:

What is the main advantage of promoting from within when filling an opening within the organization?

Hilary L. Smith is a small business entrepreneur who enjoys topics involving mass communications, technology development and international relations.

What is the main advantage of promoting from within when filling an opening within the organization?

It’s time to fill a higher-up position at your company, and you’ve got two options: is it time to promote someone internally, or should you search outside the company for a suitable candidate? HR managers face this question all the time, and it’s a hard one to answer. There are advantages and disadvantages to both, so let’s take a look at what might happen further down each road.

Promoting Internally: The Pros

1) Internal recruitment will support you in advancing your own talent, which in turn increases retention and can improve performance. If you’ve set KPIs to determine who your high-performing employees are, you might already have an indication of who’s excelling in their role and may need a new challenge.

2) When one employee succeeds, everyone benefits. Promoting internally is known to have a positive effect on staff morale because it’s a concrete indicator that your organization rewards for high performance. And with higher performance comes the opportunity for new or additional responsibilities, for the employee to move to a department of interest, or get promoted.

3) Internal hires also keep your hiring costs down. If you’re promoting from within, you’ll save on the cost of posting on job boards, websites, with hiring agencies, newspapers, social media or referrals. Some companies have an internal job board, but regardless if you have one or not, the up-front costs of preparing the open position are extremely low in comparison to hiring externally.

4) The hiring manager often has knowledge about internal candidates, and typically has a relationship with them as well. Knowing a great deal about your internal candidates and their performance will often shorten the interviewing process, getting you back to business sooner.

Read More: Create a reverse mentoring program at work to help upskill your employees

Promoting Internally: The Cons

1) If you’re promoting internally, you may be filling one position while opening another. Your candidate’s role now has to be filled, which brings you back to the original question for this new position. It’s like a domino effect. So, if you hire internally and now have to fill that person’s position, you may be limited with other internal options.

2) Hiring internally often promotes a sense of status quo, since existing staff may stick with the same or similar ideas and approaches that they’ve historically used. This could limit your company’s opportunities to try new ideas or think outside the box. If you’re trying to really shake things up, this approach may not be as effective.

3) Even though internal hiring may offer incentives for staff and motivate high performance, it can also increase competition, which can negatively impact culture and team performance. Employees may feel the need to compete with each other to get ahead, which can cause interpersonal conflict. This may be exaggerated between employees who feel as though they’re a great fit for your open positions but aren’t promoted.

4) Advancement opportunities may cause other employees to get impatient. If employees believe that the only way they’ll get promoted is when someone leaves a more senior position, they may start looking for other opportunities with faster advancement.

Pro-tip: Here are 5 skills to hire for today to prepare your for tomorrow

Hiring Externally: The Pros

1) Sometimes a company needs revitalization. Bringing in new candidates from external avenues can provide the company with new perspectives and ideas that may support the company’s growth and advancement. As SHRM notes, “Employers also use external recruitment to attract individuals with the necessary skill sets, especially when seeking to grow the business or take it in a different direction.”

2) Hiring externally opens the company to a much larger pool of prospects to choose from. In many organizations, there are only a handful of current employees who are ready to fill an open position. Hiring externally eliminates those limits.

3) Candidates may have additional skills and experiences to complement the role.

4) There’s a lower chance for internal resentment, competition, and conflict when hiring externally. Employees may not feel like they’re competing with each other to get ahead, which may foster a more positive team dynamic.

Hiring Externally: The Cons

1) Recruiting from external sources is more expensive than promoting from within. You’ll have to account for advertising fees from online recruiting sites, recruiting agencies, social media sites, magazines or newspapers.

2) Hiring externally is also a longer process. It takes time for HR or the hiring manager to shuffle through resumes, screen candidates, and interview candidates (sometimes two or three interviews per person). This can drastically extend the length of time it takes to fill the position. In fact, Workable estimates that the average job in America takes nearly a month to fill.

3) There are limitations to how much information you can glean from a resume and interview. They might have the education an experience, but are you really getting the full picture when it comes to their behavioural qualities? Often, it takes about 3-6 months before you’ve really got a full picture of an employee’s personality and natural behavioural traits.

4) There will always be some uncertainty about how external candidates will blend in (or not) with your current work culture. Sometimes, candidates seem great on paper and in the interview, but end up creating rifts in the corporate culture. Hiring for culture fit is a critical piece when you’re hiring external candidates.

The bottom line here is that there are a number of powerful benefits and critical drawbacks to either promoting from within or hiring externally. This Forbes article indicates that promoting from within is usually the preferred choice, and that the costs of hiring externally are typically quite high. But I recommend considering what your goals are for the role: what’s the impact you want this person to have in the organization? Retention rates, performance, and company culture might be positively impacted by promoting from within, but if you need an injection of new ideas to change course, an external hire might be the catalyst for significant change.

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What is the advantage of promoting from within when filling an opening within the organization Group of answer choices?

Promoting from within a company helps keep productivity high. New employees appreciate opportunities for advancement and the potential for growth. If your employees know there is a potential career path within the organization, you are less likely to lose promising staff to another organization.

What is the advantage of internal promotion?

Internal promotions demonstrate that your company values hard work and is willing to reward it. Recognizing employees in this way can help strengthen your employer brand to both future candidates and consumers. Consumers are also more likely to support a brand that treats their employees well.

What are some of the advantages and disadvantages of promoting from within an organization?

Keep these pros and cons in mind if you are thinking of promoting from within your organization:.
Pro: Seamless Transitions. Transitions can be a challenge when you're bringing a person into a job. ... .
Pro: Proven Fit and Loyalty. ... .
Con: Negative Emotions of Other Workers. ... .
Con: Same Skill Set..

What are the advantages of promoting employees?

Employee Promotion plays a big role in Employee Satisfaction. It aids in employee engagement, boosts morale, reduces absenteeism, and ultimately in productivity. Employee Promotion is also a helpful tool for reducing attrition retention.