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HBR Guide to Retaining Your Best People
book

HBR Guide to Retaining Your Best People

by Harvard Business Review
August 2025
Beginner to intermediate
272 pages
4h 11m
English
Harvard Business Review Press
Content preview from HBR Guide to Retaining Your Best People

Chapter 11 How to Motivate Someone—When You Can’t Promote Them

by Carrie Ott-Holland and Mengyang Cao

In many work environments, promotions serve as one of the few indicators of career success and advancement. But promotions have a long feedback loop. They often take years to happen, which means they mask the growth happening across the months and years before a promotion is conferred. Promotions are also not entirely under an employee’s or their manager’s control. Sometimes a higher scope of work is not available, or leadership roles are limited in number.

The bottom line is organizations can’t promote everyone. There will always be talented, capable employees who want to get promoted in situations where promotion isn’t possible or requires ...

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Publisher Resources

ISBN: 9798892790895