All Episodes

March 25, 2025 15 mins

"Have a very deliberate process for filling existing roles that is the same for everybody, external, internal. Make sure that process is also going to identify the best candidate for the role and that you're developing people to be the best candidate."

Notable Moments

00:53 Deliberate Internal Candidate Development

04:28 Pitfalls of Internal Promotions Without Purpose

07:04 Create a Deliberate Hiring Process for Internal and External Candidates

12:35 Developing Leadership Skills for Longterm Employee Growth

14:15 Recruitment and Strategic Organizational Culture Services

A common pitfall in organizations is making internal promotions based on sentiment rather than strategy. One of the worst approaches to filling a position is promoting someone just because it felt like the right thing to do. On the flip side, organizations that focus primarily on external hiring neglect internal talent and miss the opportunity to further develop people already committed to your business. Talent coming from within the organization can bring unique advantages when the process is approached correctly.

Read the blog for more on the importance of implementing a structured approach, developing your people, and how internal promotions done right can boost morale and strengthen your organization. 

Connect with Tim and his team:

Website: https://bestculturesolutions.ca/

LinkedIn: Best Culture Solutions, Inc

Instagram: @best.culture.solutions  

Email: tim@bestculturesolutions.ca

 

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Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:07):
Welcome to the World at Work podcast, where business leaders
and job seekers come together to create winning cultures and
fulfilling careers. I'm your host, Jody Mayberry, and
I'm here with Tim Ditt, the founder of Best
Culture Solutions. Tim, how is it going in Northern
Alberta? It's getting warmer. Thanks for asking. But I have to

(00:28):
say, that intro, you are always good at giving intros,
but I felt extra enthusiasm there. Oh my goodness. Well,
I hope I have set you up to just deliver quite
the performance on this episode. I don't know if I can follow that
performance. That's the thing. Well, we have two choices. We can go ahead and
do the outro right now, or we can have a discussion and do the outro

(00:50):
in about fifteen minutes. Hey. I'm in your hands. You're hosting the show.
So but I think I know you're gonna pick that we should continue. Yes. We
should. Yes. We should. There's been so many episodes where we've
talked about hiring from the outside. You all know
by now, Tim is a guru. He wouldn't use that
word. He's a master. He wouldn't use that word, but he knows hiring very

(01:13):
well. Quite often, we're talking about bringing someone
from the outside. But there's a whole other aspect
when you have open jobs and that's hiring people
internally. You've heard Tim talk about Disney a lot. Disney
is known for preferring to bring people up
through the ranks and hire that way. It's a whole process there. It can be

(01:35):
a whole process at your organization too. But, Tim, what
if we don't have a process in place for this? I've
seen internal hires done wonderfully, and
it can be the best option done right. Mhmm. And I've seen it go
wrong. I'm sure you've seen it where someone is technically good at
their job, which gets them a promotion, but they're not

(01:57):
necessarily a good manager. They're not a good leader, but they were technically good
at the the job that led to that promotion. So if
that's not the right way to hire someone who's technically good,
what is the right way for an internal promotion? Yeah. That's a
really good question. So now you mentioned Disney and how they bring a lot of
people up in the organization. Now look. It has been twenty two years since

(02:20):
I was a cast member there, so I cannot speak to how they do this.
And I would be the wrong person to make this suggestion. But I also
suspect knowing what I know about the organization and the way that they
develop their people, They don't just promote people when they seem like they're
doing good at the job they're in into a job they hope they'll do good
at. They develop their people along the way. So

(02:40):
when that opportunity comes in, you know, it makes it so
that way hiring the internal candidate is not just doing it for the sake of
hiring the internal candidate, but they truly are the best and strongest candidate for the
job. And I suspect and if anybody works here and is listening to
this and has insight on that and is willing and able to share it because
sometimes it's not shareable, You know, I'd love to hear about it, and and let

(03:02):
me know if my suspicion is correct or not. But I suspect that
they have a way of developing people so that way they're not just shooting
from the hip and promoting from within. They are
deliberately choose developing people to be the best
possible applicant when that comes, if that makes
sense. But what I often see organizations doing is a

(03:24):
couple things. Right? A need develops in the organization.
And instead of deliberately sitting down and saying, is this a
need we need to pay attention to? How should this be added to the organizational
chart? Should it be added to the organizational chart? Things like that. They just add
it and they say, well, Jody, you're so good in your role right now, and
it just seems to make sense that this would be for you. So we're gonna

(03:44):
put you in this role now. How do you feel about that? You get a
promotion and a title. And what's missing in that so
often is that you might be great in the job that
you're at, but the skill set changes, especially when you're going from an entry level
or frontline role to any level of leadership, be it low level leadership, mid
level, high level, the skill set has changed. And

(04:05):
a lot of times, I see this as because, you know, they can do the
job that they're in well. Maybe they show up on time, right, all the time,
and they're reliable as a frontline employee. So you should be a supervisor.
And and don't get me wrong, that is a good quality for a leader to
have when you have to lead by example, but there's more to it than that.
And it's how are you leading people and how are you going to, you

(04:26):
know, how are you going to work with them. And I've seen situations where
leaders are even moved, right, in a different way, and it's based
on a specific skill set now, and it's not
always the skill set that's required in the job. And so what I'm trying to
say is I see so many organizations make the mistake of not
being deliberate about actually interviewing that person for that job

(04:48):
and making sure that it does fit what they bring to the table
and suit what they need out of their career, and it's gonna fulfill their you
know, what they're passionate about and what they're motivated to do. And
then they just kinda promote because you were there and you're a good employee, and
it's a feel good story that we promoted from within, but they have done nothing
to properly identify if you're motivated to do that job or if you have the

(05:09):
skill set for it. You're cornered into saying yes because that's what they
you know, it seems like the thing to say. I'm a promotion. Why would you
ever say no? And then they're also not being developed with the best
person for that job, and it's all just not very deliberate. And a lot of
times when that happens, I get a call not long afterwards and say, this isn't
working out. What do we do? Right? Because we're not thinking about it. It's just

(05:30):
we seem to have this need. You're good in this role. You seem versatile, and
you might be versatile, but that doesn't mean every job is for you or is
the right one for you. Why don't we just put you over here and see
if it'll work out? And it comes with great expectations,
almost unmanageable expectations that that person can never hit, and then
all sides end up being disappointed. This is a a

(05:52):
great conversation, and I think now I'm thinking of
two sides. One is the idea of having
an internal development program, and maybe
we talk more about that. That could be its own episode too
though because I think what we'll find is some
organizations don't have that in place yet. So

(06:15):
there's two sides to this. One is developing
that program, but the other is, okay. I love the
idea of having an internal development program,
but I have an open position now. That's gonna get me
talent down the road. I have an open position now. So
let's talk about that one first. I have an open position,

(06:37):
and I wanna make sure I'm not just promoting someone because it's a feel good
story. I'm not promoting someone because they've got seniority or
they've been a loyal employee for a long time, and I want to reward them
for that. I want the right person for the right job. Mhmm. So
how do we do that? There's your setting open position. Yeah. I would
prefer to to promote someone from what the inside

(07:00):
Right. But only if they're the right person for this job.
Yeah. Here is what I have done. And it's
hard to have the self discipline sometimes to do this. But I
have always and I know a lot of employers struggle with this because they want
the job filled sooner than later, and so they don't take the
time to do this. But then if you don't take the time to do this,

(07:22):
what's gonna happen? Right? You need to have a deliberate process, but it also needs
to be decisive and go as fast as it can based on what it is.
But I have always, always, always, always, always, even if I
had internal candidates in mind for a role, set up
a deliberate process where people have to apply
and they have to interview, and I'm gonna validate that this is the right

(07:44):
role and who it's the right role for. And so what I have done is
I've always said, you know, internal or external, it doesn't matter.
You're gonna have to apply like everybody else can go through interviews and make sure
that this is the right role for you because it's not. It's funny because, like,
when you don't make sure that you're putting somebody in the right role, even if
it's internal and even if it feels great, all you are doing is

(08:06):
something for yourself to make yourself feel better and pat yourself on the
back about so you can feel good about internally promoting people.
Don't get me wrong. It feels great to watch people internally rise to
the top. I have known people that you know, you mentioned Disney. I have known
people who worked there for twenty seven years, and it's so much fun to watch
their career. But I also suspect that each time, they've been

(08:28):
challenged, they've been developed. They don't maybe get every promotion they wanted. They have
to, yeah, they have to work for it and demonstrate it. But I have always
said that for every role, if it's a deliberate hire, do the same
process, treat every candidate the same, and invite people
internally who you think might be good for the role to apply and
participate in that process and manage their expectations around what that process is

(08:50):
gonna be. Hey. Look. If you are an internal candidate and you apply, I will
100% interview you for sure. But then have an
objective interview criteria, which we've talked about so many
times in this show. Right? But an in a proper deliberate
interview criteria to find out who really is the best candidate for the
role, who really is, and then invite that

(09:11):
person to have the job. Now in between those moments, you should
be 100 working with those internal people
to cultivate their capacity and their leadership skills so that
way they have the absolute best chance possible
when those opportunities arise. You have to do that.
It's not good enough to just tell them too bad, so sad. You

(09:34):
have to work to help them as well. And, I mean, and and leading and
teaching and mentoring people is 100% part of being
a leader. But also part of being a leader is not putting people in
position the wrong way. You know? Imagine, like, if somebody gets promoted just
because they knew somebody from being within, but it was clear that they were not
the right role for them. That hurts their credibility and legitimacy,

(09:56):
and and you put them in the line of fire when you do that. And
so I've always said you should have a very deliberate
process with existing roles as to how you are going
to to fill them, and it should be the same for everybody, external, internal.
But make sure that
that process is also going to

(10:17):
identify the best candidate and that you're developing people to be the best
candidate. I'm glad you touched on the downside.
What happens if you don't do this the right way and you
hire someone for the feel good story? It's gonna
perhaps derail their career. Other people will see it.
Plus, there's the job function piece that won't go well. Well,

(10:40):
this is I think the first part of it
is we don't have this program in in place yet. We're
going to hire for an open position. So Tim talked about that,
what to do. Now, Tim, if we need to come back and do
an episode about an internal promotion program, we
will. But let's finish this episode talking about that.

(11:02):
If we don't have something like that in place yet,
what are we looking for? What makes it so successful?
Like, is it like an internal promotion program? Yeah. Because we've seen
you've mentioned Disney does it and how well they do it. And they basically
are developing people for roles that will open
later in their career. Right. Well, the biggest thing too is is

(11:25):
this. Like, when I for instance, when I worked there years ago, you
know, a great example of this was the vice president who ran Epcot when I
worked there. His name is Brad Rex. He was actually my understanding and if
anybody's listening can correct me on this, I would like it. But I my
understanding was that he had a leadership role in the finance department, and
and running Epcot was gonna be an operational job. And what happened

(11:47):
with him is that his leadership skills were just so strong that
that was at the VP level, that was what mattered more than operational exposure.
You could learn the operation once you were there. And he would have been chosen
over people who might have had more operational experience, but because his
leadership skills was were what really mattered in
that role, he thrived. He did a great job. Now what I

(12:08):
would say, going back to the question, what does it look like to get people
ready for internal promotion? Well, here's my opinion. And, I mean, this is a
short hit podcast episode, so we we could be here for hours' time, but it
was pretty simple. We need to ask people where it is they wanna go with
their careers. Right? Not everybody wants to run the show. Some people do wanna run
the show, but find out what it is that interests them as their careers
evolve. Right? What is it that you're gonna wanna do as your career

(12:32):
evolves? And ask yourself what that is. And as you're
doing that, you know, and you're working with your people to find out what that
is, you know, sit down and say, well, what skills do you need to do
that job? And a lot of times, you know, I see this all the time
with the frontline job that turns into
a leadership job. The skill changed completely. It's no longer

(12:53):
just whatever the frontline thing is that you do is.
It's leadership skills now are what matter. Leadership
skills. And and that is what people need to develop if they wanna
move from a frontline to leadership. And my point in all this is to say
is find out what people are interested in, find out what
skills they are needing to do that job or to grow into

(13:15):
it, and then come up with tangible ways that they can
develop those skills. Maybe it's courses. Maybe it's
shadowing people. It could be any number of
things. Right? Any number of things that they need to do, but you
need a skills inventory for where they wanna go in their career, and
then you need development plans and mentorship to help them grow in those

(13:37):
areas and get practical real world experience learning there and
allow people that opportunity to learn. So that way, when those roles do come
up, they are the best people for them. If this is new
to us and we have not really thought about
internal promotions and handling them better, we've just been
picking somebody internally because our team

(13:59):
loves it. It makes our managers feel good. It's just a wonderful
story, and that's what we've been basing it on. What can we do?
How do we where can we get some help in building this
in program for developing for internal
promotions? Well, now that we've talked about it, you're an expert, And the
enthusiasm from your intro means that, you know, you might be but I

(14:22):
can help too, and we can help, and our team at Best Call or Solution
can help. And we our website doesn't specifically say internal
promotion process help on it, but we do do recruitment. And and that
includes strategic advice, how to handle certain things. We can be reached
at best culture solutions dot c a, or you can email
me, tim@bestculturesolutions.ca. Alright, Tim. I

(14:43):
think this is a topic we will likely have to come back to. So
if you have a question about internal promotions
or internal promotion program or something
you'd like Tim to go deeper on related to this, please
send an email to Tim, ask the question. He'll bring it
here on the show and we'll go deeper. Thank you so much and thank you,

(15:05):
Tim. This is this has been a great conversation. Thank you for
listening to World at Work.
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