Getting that next promotion sounds universally appealing. Everyone should want that, right? Maybe. But what does it mean to promote someone?
Ideally, it means someone is reliably and demonstrably adding greater value than they used to. They are consistently meeting explicit, pre-defined criteria for the next level of responsibility in the org. We change their title, change some of their official duties, bump their pay, and boom. Promoted.
Nowhere in there, however, did we say “Know what? This person has just…I dunno…been here a long time so we should promote them.”
Don’t do that. Tenure is a lousy promotion criterion. Been here 10 years? It’s astonishingly easy to be bad at your job for 10 years. So maybe don’t promote someone who’s been actively detrimental to the company’s competency baseline for a decade.
Now, the other way around is bad too. Making someone the Acting Head of Something or the Interim Something Manager because a) we need someone in this role due to vacancy or whatever, and b) this person is clearly competent, but c) we won’t make it an official title change or bump their pay…yeah don’t do that either. Unless there’s some really bizarre extenuating circumstance afoot. If they can clearly do the job and you’re giving them the responsibility of the job “until we backfill the role officially” but you aren’t truly promoting them? Yeah, you’re inviting them to burn out, or leave the company, or burn out and then leave the company.
Once someone’s been promoted, does that mean we expect them to do the same level of work, just more of it?
No.
That’s another quick route to burnout.
What should happen when someone’s promoted is they are now expected to regularly perform actions that have greater impact on the company. You don’t give them a higher quantity of comparatively fiddly stuff. You give them less, but make it more important. If they’re on an IC track, give them tougher problems to solve. If they’re on a management track, put them in charge of one or more team members to whom the fiddly stuff can be delegated. That’s how you leverage the value they can add, and it’s also how you show your appreciation, improve their morale, and stave off retention issues.