Since the economy of Kosovo is classified as an emerging economy, no business in the country has the luxury of not growing, particularly the micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSME). Growth comes along with its specific problems but deploying a qualified manager is one of the most important and most difficult problems of any size of business while it is a more adverse problem for smaller companies.

There are two options as the time comes for a new manager during the growth process of a company; Rising up and appoint a manager from the inside of the company or making a transfer from the outside. Since MSMEs do not have enough human sources to promote as a manager because of their lack of (or reluctance) investment on human capital, they tend to hire the needed manager from the outside. And in most cases, this results in “blood incompatibility” problem which practically means that the talents, professional know how and past routine of running the job of the proposed manager would not be coherent to our small business. Because of those problems in real life, it is favored to bring a potential manager up from inside of the business. If a company has invested on human resources prior to the moment of need of the manager, this would save time, energy and money on behalf of the company. Besides that; since the current employee of the company is acquainted with the company and the strains of it, the adaptation of the manager to run the strategies would be straightforward.

It is not an easy job to raise a manager up from the inside of an MSME or any size of business even with the above given superiorities and the benefits. You cannot expect a successful employee to start to play the role as a manager fast and with no problems on the way. The success as an ordinary employee and success of a manager are totally two different things. And MSMEs need more of patience and investment in human resources.

You may find below some hints on how to raise a potentially successful manager from the inside the business:

1. Defining the Necessary Skills
   An MSME owner must know and distinguish the skills of the employees. The owner shall start by asking those questions: “what skills are needed to become a manager specifically in our company? Does the potential manager candidate is aware of short and long term objectives of the business in addition to standard manager skills such as leadership, strong communication, etc.? Does the candidate has a potential to improve herself/himself on the way?”. The business owner shall have a list of potential employees to be nominated as manager candidates for the future (hopefully if there are any).

2. Defining the Candidates
   Embracing the company and the appreciation of the owner’s sacrifices are more important in case of an MSME level of a business than for bigger companies. Then come the other skills like leadership talent and high-profile working capacity, etc. It is crucial to identify the right candidates with the above given properties without any bias of ordinary such as a married manager cannot fulfill the obligations of a hard-working manager, etc. When the time comes for having a manager in a small business, there should be a kind of performance assessment system (not to be perfect). The candidate should be determined by the physical evidence taken out of the performance system in addition to the subjective evaluations of the owner. Then it is time to iterate the process to analyze what would happen if the additional responsibilities of being a manager is loaded to the candidate before nominating her/him as candidate. In either case the reason of nominating or not nominating as a candidate should be explained to the employee as feedback

To be continued.