Are You Moving Up?

The verb “move” has many meanings. A person moves up into management and gets a bigger office. He or she moves up through the ranks and every level of management to become the head honcho. To move up in the world is to advance and become successful, wealthy, well-known, etc.

Many people want to move up in the companies they work with. In other words, they want to move upward, be promoted, and move to a better position. I was not different. When I was an employee in business enterprises, I strongly wanted to move up and, luckily, I almost always got it. How about you? Do you want to be promoted?

I hope you do and belong to a majority of energetic and forward-looking individuals who consider promotion as a positive development in their careers. Money is not even very important to them. In a survey of 1,200 employees, a majority (63%) of respondents would rather get a promotion than a raise (Valerie Bolden-Barrett, 2017). On the other hand, a significant number - more than a third of the respondents - appeared to be content with their status.

What Promotion Means

Promotion in a company is commonly known as the advancement of an employee from one job position to another job position that has a higher salary range, a higher-level job title, and, often, more and higher-level job responsibilities (Susan M. Heathfield, 2016). Perks come with the job, too.

If you stop training and learning you start sinking. Nobody can float: You're either rising or sinking. It's been this way for a thousand years. The only difference is that you can rise, or you'll sink, a whole lot faster now. ~ Tom Hopkins

I was quite fortunate to experience getting promoted in the first company I worked with. In this large Filipino ad agency, I rose within one year from the position of an Assistant Account Executive to that of an Account Executive. After another year, I moved up to the position of Account Group Head with two Account Executives and a full-time secretary working under me.

The ad agency business, I was told, was the best place for moving up the executive ladder. This must be due to the fierce competition for people and accounts among its players. This is probably true because in the next company I worked with, a subsidiary of a multinational automotive corporation, I got salary increases, more allowances, and perks but did not get promoted to a higher position during my 7-year stint with it.

Climbing the corporate ladder is tough, but if you want an exciting and well-paying job, you have to start the climb at some point.

A tip given by consultants reads: Work for a company which can give you room to grow, otherwise seek employment elsewhere. That happened to me. I left the marketing department of a garment manufacturing company upon learning from an external management audit that the salary scale for my position was too high, and I had reached the upper limit. It meant I could not hope to get a salary raise for an indefinite period of time.

Experts advise that the person seeking a promotion should concentrate on doing the best he possibly can in his or her current position. It’s important to make people aware of the great things you’re doing and the right people in the company to know you want a promotion.

About the most important thing to do is to seek out new skills and get a mentor. Today, the most important are knowledge and skills in using the computer and the Internet. I surely have an inborn fascination for gadgets. In 1990, I got my first computer and started using the Internet for business as soon as the dial-up connection was available.

Have a Mentor

A person with a strong desire to move up and improve circumstances in his life should have a mentor. What can a mentor do? Mentors help people learn and develop faster than they would otherwise do so.

For a quick understanding of the matter, remember the acronym coined in 2004 by David Clutterbuck, an academic who studied mentoring relationships: “Mentors Manage the relationship, Encourage, Nurture, Teach, Offer mutual respect, and Respond to the learner's needs.”

The two persons who I closely worked with and served as my mentors were the president of the ad agency which hired me for my first job in a corporation and a Korean American based in Florida, USA. The first one guided my decision to leave the ad agency business and pursue a career path in marketing, sales, general management, and public relations. This was the best preparation I had for my consulting business.

The other was my guru in Internet-based business. I joined him in a business group he had formed, composed of a handful of individuals in different countries (USA, Australia, Belgium, South Korea, and the Philippines). The virtual corporation used the Internet in 2004 onward to market successfully in North America products that were manufactured in South Korea.

Moving up has many rewards but it involves tackling challenges and obstacles. You’re ready to move up if you attend to a few important things like learning effective interpersonal skills and working hard as required. The right mentor will help you?navigate your career path?to success.