Employers value employees who can operate independently and don’t need to be micromanaged. Similarly, particularly among employees with some level of management responsibility or who aspire to such responsibility, there is often a desire to handle things on their own without asking supervisors for help. At the same time, managers are there for a reason, and it’s important for employees to know when they can and should escalate issues up the chain of command.
Here, we’ll discuss a few examples of situations when it is appropriate to escalate, and in a future post, we’ll talk about how to train employees on those situations and how to handle them.

The Employee Has Reached Her Level of Authority

This is perhaps the most common situation when escalation is appropriate or necessary. Employees shouldn’t be expected to make decisions that are above their pay grade. Instead, they should bring these issues to their managers, who can make the call or escalate further as needed.
How do employees know when they’re bumping up against their level of authority? Their job descriptions should convey some indication. In addition, though, direct supervisors and managers need to help employees understand where their decision-making authority may end and when they need to turn to their managers for support. Citing specific examples and providing real-time feedback are both good ways of coaching employees.

Cross-Department Support Is Needed

Sometimes, the solution to a problem requires input across departments or business units, and an employee may need to engage his leadership team to engage the appropriate resources.
As a Clarizen blog post notes, the success of a project can depend on a number of resources, including human inputs, money, technology, or outside expertise. “When you see a project careening towards possible disaster due to the non-provision of resources then you must consider bringing attention to those further up the chain of command,” the post says.

Maintaining Relationships

It can be awkward for employees to be the ones to say “no” to an important customer. This is particularly true when employee-customer contact is frequent and long term. In these situations, it can help maintain that close relationship if the employee can take an issue to his manager and let the manager deliver the bad news—obviously with the appropriate explanation. This lets the employee demonstrate that he advocated for the customer while insulating that employee from the unwelcome decision.
Again, supervisors and managers can help employees understand when this handoff is indicated by conveying clear expectations and providing feedback.
Independence is important for employees and employers alike, but there are always going to be situations when employees need to escalate issues to their boss, their bosses, etc. This is true at any level of the organization.
There are decisions that vice presidents often need to escalate to the company president or CEO, issues the CEO needs to discuss with the board of directors, and even issues the board of directors needs to take to shareholders.
Here, we’ve looked at situations in which it is appropriate to escalate. In a future post, we’ll discuss how to train employees on when and how to do that escalation.