Promotion Recommendation Form

This form is used to document a specific employee promotion case before approval. It captures the current and proposed role, the reason for the promotion, evidence of results, and how the employee meets level expectations. It is useful when you need a consistent record for HR, managers, and approvers to review.

The employee’s manager usually completes the form, often with input from the department leader or HR partner. In some organizations, the submitter may be the manager’s manager or a promotion committee member. The key is that the person filling it out can speak to scope, impact, and level expectations with evidence.

Use it whenever a promotion is being proposed, whether during a formal review cycle or an off-cycle request. It is not meant for routine performance check-ins or general career development notes. If your company has a promotion calendar, this form can standardize submissions for each cycle.

Include concrete outcomes, changed responsibilities, and examples of work that show the employee operating at the proposed level. Focus on what changed, who was affected, and how the employee’s work contributed to team or business results. Avoid vague praise without evidence, because approvers need a clear basis for the recommendation.

The level expectations section ties the recommendation to the organization’s role framework, such as technical depth, leadership, independence, and judgment. That makes it easier to compare the case against the target level instead of relying on title alone. It also helps reviewers spot whether the employee is already performing at the proposed level or still has development gaps.

Yes. You can adjust the level-expectation fields for engineering, sales, operations, HR, or other functions while keeping the same core structure. Many teams also add job-family-specific evidence prompts so the form matches the criteria used in their promotion process.

Only include compensation notes if your process requires them and the submitter is authorized to provide them. Keep the form aligned with data minimization and avoid collecting unnecessary PII or salary detail in free-text fields. If compensation is handled elsewhere, link to the separate approval workflow instead of duplicating it.

The most common mistakes are writing a generic recommendation, leaving out evidence of results, and failing to connect the case to level expectations. Another issue is proposing a new title without explaining the scope change that justifies it. The form works best when it shows both the business reason and the role-based reason for the promotion.

An email can start the conversation, but it usually leaves out consistent fields, approval context, and a clear audit trail. This form makes the review easier because every promotion case is presented in the same structure. That reduces back-and-forth and helps approvers compare requests more fairly.