Promotions in the workplace should be positive. They create new and exciting opportunities for employees and the businesses that they work for.
They are however, like all aspects of people management, subject to complications. Are you aware of the risks involved when promoting an employee?
Too often employers promote someone because they excel in their current role, but it then turns out they don’t have the necessary skill set for the new role. The result is that the phrase “promoted to their level of incompetence” is all too often heard.
A lack of clarity about the knowledge and skills needed, for example, can lead to a newly promoted employee struggling in their role. Meanwhile, a disgruntled co-worker who feels they have been overlooked could be seeking to make a claim for discrimination.
Best practice HR can reduce these situations from happening and see promotions lead to great success for both an individual and the wider business.
Watch out for indirect discrimination during hybrid or remote working
When you promote an employee, you may well come across some naysayers questioning your decision, especially from those who feel that they too deserve to be promoted.
You should be able to justify your decision to avoid complications and claims of discrimination.
It is thought that the recent rise in hybrid and remote working has also increased a risk of indirect discrimination. Australian Bureau of Statistics data shows that 36% of employed people usually worked from home in August 2025, but this isn’t spread evenly across the workforce around 60% of managers and professionals work from home regularly, compared to just 21% of workers in other occupations. Where “face time” with a manager influences who gets noticed for a promotion, this uneven pattern can create a real risk of indirect discrimination for staff on hybrid or remote arrangements.
Indirect discrimination occurs when rules or arrangements apply to a group of employees, but in practice are less fair to some. So, if you’re promoting your office-based staff, make sure there is a justifiable reason for doing so to avoid HR issues.
This also highlights the importance of good communication, fair processes and access when managing a hybrid workforce.
Watch out when restructuring your team
Organisational restructures are commonplace amongst businesses and can have an impact on roles. Depending on the needs of the business, this could lead to promotions and at the other end of the scale, redundancies.
As part of a redundancy consultation, looking for an alternative role is crucial. Sometimes the only alternative is a more junior role which is effectively a demotion. However, when the alternative is redundancy, the employee may feel this is acceptable.
A redundancy during parental leave
When Kirsten Gilchrist was six months into a year of parental leave, with a newborn and a toddler at home, she got a call telling her that her role had been restructured and she was being made redundant. She admits she felt blindsided she’d assumed parental leave offered more protection than it actually does.
In Australia, one in five mothers report being made redundant, restructured, dismissed or not having their contract renewed during pregnancy or parental leave. A redundancy made during leave is lawful, provided it’s genuine and follows proper consultation and redeployment steps. Monash University law lecturer Dr Amanda Selvarajah notes that some employers can disguise unlawful discrimination as a legitimate redundancy, which makes these cases difficult, costly and stressful to pursue part of why the practice persists despite the law. Nine Australia reported no suggestion of wrongdoing on the part of Gilchrist’s employer.
Left without a job, her accrued leave or a team around her, Gilchrist had to start her job search from scratch while caring for two young children, eventually finding a new full-time role after four months. When she shared her story on LinkedIn, mothers across Australia and overseas reached out with similar experiences of their own.
If you are working through a restructure, it’s a good idea to seek professional HR advice to avoid costly mistakes.
A promotion policy can help
Whilst your reasoning for promoting an employee should be enough, having clear job descriptions performance management records and a promotion policy, which details how, why and when promotions occur in your business, can offer that extra bit of protection should a situation turn sour.
If you need advice about promotion, or a restructure in general you can contact HR Dept we can help.