Promotion Policy

Promotion Policy

A Promotional Policy can be understood as the linear movement of executives from lower grade or level to the upper grade or level as in the line of promotion. In this paper we will draw a general idea on the importance and conflicts that are involved in a promotional policy (A diverse workforce, n.d.).

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General Norms

Certain norms pertaining to the promotion policy includes fulfillment of a certain set of guidelines. It is usually found that these guidelines include the foremost a stipulated time period for which the employee must be employed with company or until the previous person on the same post is promoted. It is often found that mere completion of the time period is often not the only fulfillment criteria. It may also include certain set of qualification, experience and target completion. These form the basis of the entire promotion criterion that the employee must fulfill. However, it is often seen that under certain special consideration promotion norms may be otherwise let go or bend it as per the needs of the organization

Possible Conflicts

It is often seen that vague Policies create demotivating impact on employees who haven’t received promotion as against to their counterparts who have. It also creates a point of biasness and is seen to be discrimination when vague policies often follow a trend. This causes conflicts among the employee and their counterparts. At the same time it disrupts the mechanism for the working of the organization. Points of conflict could be work force diversity, authority and power, decision making capacity, better pay check, communication gap, perceived racism and so and so forth (Harvey & Allard, 2012).

Work Force Diversity

Work force diversity is both a boon and bane. While work force diversity ensures that the company gets the most out of all the essential skills of the employees it also requires for the company to make the correct work environment for the encourage of the efficiency of each employee. As the audience of target is equally diverse it is essential to at least be able to provide them with point of contact at their terms. The most essential point of strategic conflict remains on the point of promotion as a single linear policy does not suit work force diversity for too long. In order to sustain a mixed workforce and avoid most of the discrimination perceived by the employees it is necessary to be able to bend the policy to suit the needs of each employee as and when the time calls for.

Conflicting Areas

In any policy as designed by the company the essence is to remember that no stone is left unturned i.e. while ensuring to design a promotion policy all the major points that could probably create conflicts must be avoided at all terms (A diverse workforce, n.d.).

Following are some essential conflicting points:

· Racism: It is often noticed that in an organization when it comes to promoting a member from a team it is often a biased decision by the leader and if the decision is based on color it is racism in true sense. This very activity has led to a phenomenon previously known as top White which meant that while the low cadre could be a mix and diverse workforce the top positions ought to be held by the Whites. However, in recent times the market for every industry has gone global and thus the need is to find the best individual to cater to a specific market and that can only be attended through a higher opening for individuals of mix race. The organization must integrate their policy to accept and modify work culture to include cultural acceptances from point of view of varied races, ethnicities and culture. The top as well as the bottom positions should be only filled on merit and avoid favoritism (Sullivan, 2011).

· Performance and Evaluation Mechanism: here the conflict is often with regards to the criterion for assessment. The company usually chooses the criterion which seems more suitable for their particular need. However, in the mix of candidates that criterion could only direct to one particular candidate. Thus, predetermining the choice for promotion and indicating towards favoritism. This could be fatal for the operational purpose of the company. Thus, the organization must ensure consistency in performance appraisal for a specific position. All potential candidates must once again be reviewed and they must be once again involved and be allowed to perform problem solving tasks to prove their self-effort towards that particular position.

· Communication Gap: the problem of communication gap is seen when the promotion is announced and then there is a boiling uproar. Post promotion announcement from a particular team it is often seen that there are a few candidates who definitely have plastered smiles which eventually leads to the problem of jealousy. In order tackle this conflict a correct communication system between the leader and the employee in conflict must be set up, Wherein the employer will be able to explain the reasons behind selection of a particular candidate as against to the other one. For this purpose the performance appraisal executive must be able to sit and focus their attention on the employee in conflict and explain the choice of a certain candidate as against to the other.

· Other Causes: Usually a promotion is seen by employees among a team as a change in authority and power and not merely an increase in the zeroes on a pay check. Such a situation causes the now new subordinates to feel awkward and may result on change in consistency mechanism.

Key areas of Concern during performance appraisal

When performance appraisal is being conducted both the employer and the employee have a set of worries and choice for their needs in their mind. These thought process require ventilation for fair review and optimization of efforts.

Employer Concerns: the major concern for employers is to assess the employees. The performance appraisal is the major task among employers. It is often seen that assessment with the best design also often fail due to the simple reasoning that implementation went wrong in the process. Assessments are conducted merely for three reasons, promotion, and termination and in order take disciplinary actions. This costs the employer a lot more than they estimate in terms of the HR time, cost advantage, employee assessment time and so on. The implementation process further complicates situation as often it is the actual performance as an individual is assessed in place of the money value or value addition the individual made to the organization. The next set of problems occurs with deficiency among the assessor, they often avoid the assessment process and if put on them they will provide vague reports that will not be clear enough for any action that can be conducted. Often the assessment is made on the performance in the recent time instead of the entire year being considered. Thus the employer area concerns can be concluded to be of process related, execution related and design related (Sullivan, 2011).

The best solution is to try and address each of this issues one at a time depending upon the urgency and development of the organization. The process related problems can be soughed out through clearer criterions and aims of the organization. While the company must try and evaluate without favoritism there also must be scope to sit by and discuss each appraisal so that deficiency in appraisal process can be met with. At the same time design related problems must be solved through technical application of empirically important criterions. Personal, out of job assessment must be avoided. The assessment should be simple and should not hinder the task of assessors. Execution related issues can be dealt through more awareness and incentivisation of managers and executives who are working as the assessors (Challenging Institutional Racism, 2002).

Employee Concerns

When the promotion is due it is the assessment that every individual fears the most causing high end anxiety which would spiral down the efforts of every individual instead of showing them as the strong and confident employee that they are. Another issue is that of time in case of appraisals, often employees just sign their appraisal forms without being able to sign up for their feedback in fear of termination. Often the assessments are one way process and self-assessment is disallowed as often there are employees who are highly ambitious. Thus this leaves the only choice for the employers is to create a virtual scoreboard and assessment management system wherein the employee fills up their actual task for the day and how much they feel they should be scored while at the same time employer can review the performance and score them. At the end of the year the score boards should be tallied and the employee assessed on the performance.

Resolution Mechanism:

It is necessary that a set of lawful guidelines be in place to resolve the assessment issue for both the parties. For this purpose, it all requires that an internal communication channel be there to address the above mentioned conflicts and concerns.

· Legal Remedy: Lawful manner to resort to solve the discrimination issue is through financial helping as in by remedying the money value lost in the discrimination process. The idea would be to ensure that the compensation is enough to help them put the employee at the stage where he should have been had the discrimination not taken place. At the same time the legal side would ensure that in future such discrimination is completely prevented from occurring.

· Internal Remedies through Communication: another way is to ease the communication passage between the employee and the employer and the employer must ensure that a hearing ear is provided to the employee in concern or conflict and his needs as well explanation is considered for revaluation. By doing so the employer will be able to maintain friendly relations as well as maintain a peace bearing environment. It would also increase the employer to employee trust and loyalty factor and be beneficial to the organization (Remedies for Employment Discrimination, n.d.).

· Transparency in the Evaluation Process: the last essential way in which one can rectify the promotion policy is to make the entire assessment process more transparent and accountable so that there is no scope for discrimination and the meritorious candidate can prove their worth and be awarded the promotion.

Conclusion

To conclude this paper has gone through all the aspects of the promotion policy and the ones that are of major concern and that which causes employer to employee conflict. It is necessary to consider all aspects before a promotion policy is formulated. Special care must be taken in the evaluation process and discrimination must be avoided at all cost.

References

A diverse workforce. (n.d.). Retrieved from BBC: http://www.bbc.co.uk/diversity/workforce

Challenging Institutional Racism. (2012, March). Retrieved from http://www.attend.org.uk/sites/default/files/9.%20challenging%20institutional%20racism,%20a%20toolkit%20for%20the%20voluntary%20sector.pdf

Remedies For Employment Discrimination.(n.d.). Retrieved from U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission: http://www.eeoc.gov/employees/remedies.cfm

Sullivan, J. (2011). The Top 50 Problems with Performance Appraisals. Retrieved from TLNT: http://www.tlnt.com/2011/01/31/the-top-50-problems-with-performance-appraisals/

Carol P. Harvey & June M. Allard (2012). Understanding and Managing Diversity, 5th Edition. Pearson.