Why haven't you been promoted yet? Why won’t they raise the retirement age for security forces: the authorities have no other support

10 ways to get a promotion at work - are you ready for career growth?

Career growth - a completely natural process that is necessary for both the boss and the subordinate himself. But alas, even a very diligent employee often gets stuck in the career elevator. How to achieve the desired promotion and expansion of powers with a corresponding expansion of salaries?

Where to expect a promotion - secrets of career growth

What can career growth depend on, and why does your colleague, and not you, often get the prize in the form of a promotion? We understand the forms of career advancement:

• Career “elevator” based on merit. An employee’s career growth directly depends on the results of completing assigned tasks, if the company evaluates work according to the scheme “what you work for is what you get.” As a rule, reputable companies specify in detail both the time that an employee must work in a certain position before being promoted, and the skills that should appear in his career “arsenal.”

• Career “elevator” according to preferences. This form of promotion can be divided into secret and public. The first is based on certain hidden preferences, likes and other emotional factors. The second, public, is based on the professionalism and competence of the employee. A third (rare) form of preference promotion is based on “similarity” - similarity of character, communication “on the same wavelength”, or even commonality in the manner of dressing. Options 1 and 3 are rarely observed among competent and far-sighted managers (it is not customary to interfere with sympathy and work among business people).
• Career lift as a bonus for diligence. The term “zeal” includes not only the employee’s diligence and responsibility, but also complete submission to his boss, agreement in everything, obligatory accompaniment of the boss’s joke with laughter, taking the boss’s side in any conflict, etc.

• Career lift based on “ranking” or length of service. This form of promotion is present in those companies where it is the practice to reward an employee with a promotion for “length of service” either under the leadership of one boss or for work at one enterprise. In this case, the one who has worked longer will be promoted faster. A kind of “loyalty” to the company or superiors sometimes outweighs all the merits and potential of the employee.
• Career elevator with the participation of the employee himself. If the above options related to promotion without employee intervention, then this case is the opposite. The employee is directly involved in the process of his promotion. Either he is offered this promotion (“can you handle it?”), or the employee himself declares that he is “ripe” for broader powers.

10 ways to get the position you want - how to get a promotion at work?

Principles for promoting a career elevator which most companies follow:

• High quality work. The decisive factor will be the result of your work. Your reputation, impact in your work, proven effectiveness - the criteria on the basis of which top managers will make decisions - to promote or not to promote.
• Teamwork. Work as a team. The office is not a cell for solitude and not a place to express one’s position as a “sociopath.” Be with the team: participate in projects, nominate yourself to work groups, offer help, form an opinion of yourself as a person who manages everything, finds contact with everyone and develops comprehensively.

• Never be late for work. It is better to arrive a few minutes earlier in the morning and go home in the evening a few minutes later than others. This will create the appearance of your “zeal” for work. Choose the “goal” position itself based on the capabilities of both the company itself and your real capabilities. “I learn easily” will not work here; you should already be ready for anything.
• Take advantage of all opportunities for learning and professional development – ​​to the fullest. If there is a need to adjust the skills you have already acquired, seek help from trainings, take advantage of additional courses, etc. Even you yourself, let alone management, should not doubt your qualifications.

• Communication skills. Try to be on the same page with everyone - do not avoid communicating with colleagues, corporate events and meetings. You must become, if not the soul of the team, then a person whom everyone trusts and in whose reliability they are confident. That is, you must become “one of our own” for everyone.
• Remember to follow the procedure. Of course, they already know you and trust you, but in addition to internal candidates, they also consider external ones. Therefore, it won't hurt to update your resume and write a cover letter. If there are rules for applying for positions, these rules should be strictly followed.

• Discuss your promotion with your boss. Of course, the manager cannot but know about your goals and aspirations. And you may find his recommendations useful. A “cordial” conversation can contribute to a promotion. Letters of recommendation from colleagues in leadership positions will also be important.
• Prepare for the interview. This procedure, carried out when moving from one position to another, is provided in most companies. The interview can be a decisive moment in your promotion, so you should prepare for this stage in advance.

• Don't try to become indispensable in your current position. By becoming indispensable, you will show your superiors that no one can handle your position better than you. Accordingly, no one will want to transfer you to another position - why lose such a valuable personnel in this position. Therefore, while continuing to give yourself one hundred percent to your work, take on a mentee and teach him all the wisdom. So that if there is a prospect of promotion, you can be replaced. At the same time, be sure to take on more responsible tasks to show that you are capable of more. Demonstrate your serious approach to work and responsibility at all levels.
• Seek contact with management. Not with sycophancy and servile obedience, but with honesty, directness, a principled line of behavior - without participation in intrigues and collective behind-the-scenes games, responsibility and other irreplaceable qualities. Management must respect you.

And don't sit still. Under a lying stone, as you know...

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Some employees climb the career ladder by leaps and bounds, while others fail to earn the approval of their superiors, despite their hard work.

Stayed too long?

Perhaps the fact that your superiors do not appreciate your merits is partly your fault. And the point is not that you are doing a bad job. It's likely that what you're doing has become a routine for a long time. And if work is not a joy, then enthusiasm naturally decreases.

In addition, people who are busy with the same thing for a long time often get what is called blurry eyes. They carry out their work like an automaton, without thinking or trying to improve anything. But for many managers, one of the main advantages of an employee is the ability to show initiative and a caring attitude.

If this is your case, the best way out would be to change jobs. Changes will help avoid professional burnout. This is why experts advise looking for a new job every 5–7 years, even if you are completely satisfied with your previous job.

If dismissal is not part of your plans, try asking your boss for a raise. The best time is right after you have completed a difficult task or a large amount of work. Before you talk to your boss, think through the arguments in your favor. Do not hesitate to remind your superiors of your merits, speak in a firm voice, and avoid pleading intonations. After all, self-confidence is half the success!

Didn't get along?

Another reason that you are not appreciated is poor relations with the team. If you haven’t managed to make friends with your co-workers, it will be more difficult to get the boss’s approval - the bosses don’t really favor “black sheep.” After all, if a person has difficulty interacting with colleagues, this will most likely affect the results of his work. In addition, bosses are people too, and sometimes they have a “herd mentality” that forces them to join the unflattering opinion of the team about any employee.

What should you do to make friends with your colleagues? First, take a closer look at yourself and try to find out the reason for the dislike of you. Perhaps you are violating some unspoken rules that have developed in the team, complaining to your colleagues too often or, on the contrary, talking down to them.

But often the only reason why colleagues dislike you is a lack of self-confidence. Sometimes, with the help of attacks, colleagues test a newcomer’s strength, and if the test is unsuccessful, it becomes very difficult to win the favor of colleagues. The only way to combat this attitude is to remain calm. If the attacks do not evoke emotions in the victim, co-workers quickly leave her alone. Of course, it’s not easy to keep a good face when you’re playing poorly, but try not to give vent to your irritation. It is also not worth answering insult with insult. Your anger is an indicator of your weakness, and your colleagues will not be slow to take advantage of it.

The dislike of colleagues sometimes manifests itself in complete indifference. For career advancement, this is no better than open conflict, but in this case it is much easier to win the favor of the team. Try to change your behavior a little. Smile more often, smiling is the best way to make friends with your interlocutor.

Don't forget about compliments, and the effect of praise largely depends on who it applies to. It turns out that rude flattery works well on people with high self-esteem. Your praise seems to confirm the person’s thoughts about himself, so even exaggerated compliments are taken at face value. If your interlocutor's self-esteem is low, he will be more suspicious of praise. Therefore, before you give a compliment, try to determine how the interlocutor feels about himself. The more modest your counterpart is, the more restrained and subtle the praise should be.

Are you scared?

It happens that employees are underestimated due to the fact that they do not respond correctly to instructions from their superiors. This is especially true for newcomers. Fear in the eyes and lack of confidence that the task will be completed on time make the boss doubt the employee’s competence.

And if so, in order to win the favor of the boss, you need to learn not to be afraid of new things. If you have some “scary” task ahead of you, for example, mastering a new computer program or making a report using a new scheme, put off diving into the work a little. Start your day with something simpler. By doing less complex things, you, firstly, cope with the current work, which would have to be distracted later, and secondly, you kind of “accelerate” and set yourself up for work. Just don't procrastinate for too long! When starting to learn something new, don’t try to understand everything at once and don’t be nervous if some things aren’t easy for you.

In Russian society, law enforcement officers have a privileged status. This has never been a secret, but the most egregious features of the class structure still periodically amaze the popular imagination.

The last example is discussions about early retirees from law enforcement and military departments (Ministry of Defense, Ministry of Internal Affairs, FSB, Federal Security Service, Russian Guard, Federal Penitentiary Service, Ministry of Emergency Situations, Prosecutor's Office).

The triple disproportion - in the timing of retirement, in the amount of payments and in the duration of receiving a pension - between the privileged and tax-paying classes is amazing. It turns out that FSB officers can retire at 35 years old. That is, receive a pension for the next fifty years.

Class privileges exist, obviously, in order to buy and maintain the loyalty of those social strata that are the support of the system.

Today, pensions for law enforcement officers are many times higher than payments to ordinary civilian pensioners.

It was like this before, everyone knew it, this fact did not cause any public indignation. But now the problem is that if the retirement age is raised, the gap between early retirees and those retiring in the general order will appear in its most obvious form, as doctors say.

The widening gap in retirement age can become a serious source of social tension. If the increase in the retirement age does not affect the security forces, then, as before, they will be able to retire at 40–45 years old, and all other citizens at 65 years old. And privileged groups will be able to receive payments from the state not for 13 years, like the average Russian male, but for at least 20 years longer.

And this despite the fact that for the most part, law enforcement officers do not fight on the front line, but are engaged in routine desk work. At 40 years old they are quite healthy and do not have any occupational diseases.

Yes, someone takes part in anti-terrorist operations, gets wounded and shell-shocked, but in general we are not waging any frontal war and are not in the acute phase of the CTO. Therefore, the majority of security forces are office workers like everyone else.

Now, from the draft pension reform proposed by the government, one thing is clear: security forces have a much better chance of maintaining their pension privileges than all other categories of benefit recipients, including state employees.

The authorities are afraid of sharply frightening the workers on whom the state counts during elections - both from the point of view of organization and from the point of view of loyal voting. But the state will not be able to completely exclude state employees from this process, unlike law enforcement agencies, which are spared from raising the retirement age. Thus, according to the current plans of the Cabinet of Ministers, the retirement age for early workers can be increased by 8 years.

Theoretically, the main slogan of pension reform in Russia could be the words “we are raising the retirement age, but we are raising it for everyone.” Voluntarily giving up privileges for the common good, much like in the early months of the French Revolution, could be a powerful move of power.

But in modern Russia no one will do this, because the security forces are not just the support of the regime, they are almost the regime itself. No one dares to touch them even in the slightest.

The mistake most hardworking and diligent employees make is that they think that their hard work and diligence is visible to everyone, including the director. In fact, only those who know how to make themselves profitable achieve success and confident movement up the career ladder. The truth is that the manager has no time to delve into the intricacies of the work of the small employees of his company, he has no idea about who actually works and how much, and draws his conclusions based on personal observations. What do you think he can see in this way? That's right - only those who are in front of his nose. Hence the rule - if you want to be noticed, make an effort to do so. You need to be in sight of the boss: corporate meetings, ask questions at them, make suggestions. But, of course, all this needs to be done competently and in the right place, otherwise you will attract attention, but with a diametrically opposite effect.

Take a job that seems difficult or even a failure. Naturally, this must be done after thinking several times, and also in front of the director. If you offer to work for your department head, he, of course, will be grateful to you, but the director may never know about this merit of yours. And then, when your manager is promoted, you will wonder how this happened, while you yourself promoted his superiors. Therefore, if you are about to undertake something completely impossible, discuss it directly with the director. Usually, employees who are able to pull through obviously disastrous projects are highly valued, so if you really succeed, you can count on a promotion.

Never gossip about your boss! No matter how banal it may sound, walls have ears. Any team may have an employee who will be very happy to convey your every word to the director or his deputy. So, no matter how confidential your conversation is, keep your mouth shut. Perhaps your most innocent statement can later be misinterpreted and used against you.

If you have news before you tell the director, think about it. People love those who bring good news, but they hate those who bring good news for a long time. Therefore, if you have the honor of taking papers worth several million to the boss in court, be prudent and leave them with the secretary. You are unlikely to be able to console your boss, but you can easily become the reason for his bad mood. If something good happened at the company that the director would be pleased to know about, try to be the one to tell him this good news. It doesn’t matter if it doesn’t concern you personally, the main thing is that you rejoice together.

If you show management that you are striving to work for the benefit of the company, that you want something and are eager to fight, you will definitely be noticed and very soon they will begin to promote you up the career ladder. Be decisive, your luck is in your hands.

Career stages, and especially the speed of progression through these stages, are not something rigidly fixed. In some areas of social activity (especially new, recently emerged ones), it can be generally difficult to determine what a “fast” career is and what a “slow” career is. In any case, the speed of career growth largely depends not only on the focused efforts of the employee, on his career motivation (“careerism” in the healthiest and most constructive sense of the word, but also on the organization.

Many modern business organizations are "bad" in terms of career prospects. In such organizations, on the one hand, the organizational structure is not “designed” well enough. For example, an organization may have a number of “dead-end” departments where an employee’s career growth (vertical career) is limited to 1-2 steps, and horizontal or diagonal careers are in principle unavailable.

On the other hand, in organizations with poor career prospects, even if there is a complex and “high” hierarchy, there may be no planning for the career development of employees. This inevitably leads to the fact that at some levels of the organizational hierarchy there is a terrible turnover of staff, and at other levels there are “unshakable” employees who have been sitting in their positions for decades. Poor career prospects in an organization are most often either the result of the lack of a clear personnel policy on the part of the organization's management, or a consequence of the ineffective work of the personnel service.

For a more detailed understanding of the connection between subjective (the fault of the employee) and objective (the fault of the organization) reasons for a slow career, the following table is offered.

Reasons for a slow career

From the employee's side / From the organization's side

1. Lack of a clear goal in work. A blurred goal of work and a lack of understanding of the meaning of work is closely related to low work motivation (including low career motivation). The position “Why do I need this?” / Weakness of strategic planning; there is no attractive and inspiring mission (or it is unknown to employees); there are no clearly defined functional responsibilities and job descriptions; general ineffectiveness of operational management (setting tasks).

2. Slow execution. The employee works too slowly and ineffectively due to habit, low qualifications or personal characteristics. / Time is not a corporate value and/or is not taken into account in the control and motivation system.

3. Attempts to exceed competence. An employee is trying to solve tasks that are not assigned to him, which are beyond his competence. Perhaps there is not enough knowledge and skills to solve work problems. / Weakness of the personnel training and promotion system; there is no algorithm for processing initiatives.

4. “Dropping out” from the corporate culture. The employee does not understand or does not accept corporate norms and behavior. Perhaps he is isolated in the team and has difficulty communicating. / Adaptation measures have not been thought through; no attention is paid to corporate culture.

5. Personal relationships are more important than business ones; the employee depends on the group. An employee becomes a member of an informal group with a subculture whose norms contradict the norms of corporate culture. Work and career within the subculture are belittled and devalued. / There is no mission and/or corresponding values ​​are not stated; values ​​are not formalized in the form of clear rules; no control.

6. There is no good relationship with the manager. The employee does not understand, underestimates the need, or does not know how to build constructive business relationships with management. As a result, his work goes unnoticed and unappreciated. / The manager is not available for communication - there are no upward channels of information, no participation of the boss in the corporate culture.

7. Excessive “generosity” - working for others, giving ideas and achievements. Due to his personal characteristics, the employee “helps” others to the detriment of fulfilling his immediate work tasks. / Lack of attention from management to each employee; weak motivation and reward system; weak control system.

8. Inconsistency in behavior. The employee’s interests and goals change, and motivation is unstable. In this regard, the employee rarely achieves serious success; his achievements are small. There may be difficulties with narrow professionalization. / Weakness in setting goals; lack of corporate standards in assessing the qualification level and quality of an employee’s work as a whole; weakness of control.

9. Inability to learn from your mistakes, shifting the blame to others. Due to some personal characteristics, poor learning ability. / Insufficient formalization of functions; there is no feedback in the control system; there is no corporate training system.

10. Inability or inability to manage other people. This reason is significant for employees who have at least one subordinate, and it lies in the lack of managerial skills. The reason for such a shortage is most often the lack of appropriate education, less often - personal characteristics. / There is no and/or weakened corporate training system.

It is no coincidence that the subjective and objective reasons for a slow career are combined in pairs, since there is a certain synergy between them.

For example, an employee who is slow due to his temperament or due to his usual work style has no need to rush if in the organization the speed of completing even extremely important tasks is not controlled and is not connected with a motivation system. You don’t have to rush anywhere, since no one will praise you for completing a task quickly, and most likely you won’t be punished for doing it slowly. Such a system discourages people, encourages procrastination, and significantly reduces the rate of career growth for many employees.

And vice versa, if even a slow employee finds himself in the conditions of a “sweatshop” work organization, where every second of work is valued and evaluated, then he, voluntarily or involuntarily, mobilizes and begins to be more attentive to the speed of his own work. The fulfillment of assigned tasks is accelerated, and, as Eastern wisdom says, “where there are many things to do, there are many accomplishments,” and in general the career becomes more dynamic and “fast.”

If you “dig deep,” then in the course of person-centered career counseling you can discover four main reasons that ruin your career, “freezing” it. Taken together, these four reasons can form a kind of “loser syndrome,” overcoming which requires intervention and help from a professional psychologist:

1. “Focusal” on one’s own shortcomings, inability to use one’s strengths. This point deals with low self-esteem and a distorted self-concept. Often in a person’s self-awareness there is a very strange construct called “I am like a professional,” in which he does not rely on his strongest abilities. When this construction does not pass the “reality test,” a person begins to blame either the environment or himself for everything. The problem is solved by an internal reorientation of the individual to his own strengths, which need to be understood, reevaluated and accepted, “reshaping” his own self-concept in a new way.

2. Excessive care and responsibility, which leads to constant “slippage”. If the personality structure is dominated by such traits as excessive rigidity and pedantry, this also significantly reduces the rate of career growth.

3. Pessimism, lack of faith in one’s business, in one’s own strengths, and in general in the fact that success and luck are possible in life. At this point we are talking about a variety of emotional problems - increased anxiety, vulnerability and resentment, the inability to experience the joy of success, the inability to enjoy work, etc. As a rule, pessimism is based primarily on a kind of “work anhedonia” (the inability to find attractive aspects of your work and experience the positive emotions associated with them). An inevitable consequence of anhedonia is that the place of positive emotions is taken by “chronic” negative experiences. Pessimism in the middle and final stages of a career may be associated with the phenomenon of emotional burnout.

4. “Hermit syndrome” - communication problems, loneliness, inability and inability to cooperate and work in a team. The reasons for the “hermit syndrome” can be very different, from easily corrected underdevelopment of individual communication skills to rejection of the organization’s communication culture, for example, for ethical reasons, which leads to conscious self-isolation. “Hermit syndrome” can also be associated with character accentuations, neurotic problems and similar intrapersonal characteristics.

Using the above table of reasons for a slow career, you can select 2-4 pairs of interrelated objective and subjective reasons that are most typical for your organization. Based on them, you can offer your own ways to overcome such reasons for an unsuccessful career as excessive thoroughness, pessimism, and “hermit syndrome.”