Promotion Policy

Thus, seniority and merit suffer from certain restriction. Therefore, to be fair a firm should institute a promotion policy that provide due weightage to seniority and merit both. To strike a correct balance between the two, a firm could study the following points:

1. Establish a fair & equitable basis for promotion for example, merit or seniority or both.
2. Thus, a promotion policy established should provide equal chances for promotion in all of the categories of jobs, departments & regions of an organisation.
3. It should ensure an open strategy in the sense that every eligible worker is considered for promotion instead of a closed system which considers just a particular class of worker. It has to tell the workers the various avenues for attaining vertical development through career maps, charts etc.
4. The norms for judging merit, potentiality, length of service etc., ought to be established beforehand. The associative weightage to be given to merit or seniority or both should also be spelt out apparently.
5. The mode of attaining new skills, knowledge, etc., should be specific to all workers so that they can prepare themselves for career development.
6. Appropriate authority should be entrusted along the responsibility of taking a last decision on promotion.
7. Detailed records of service, performance, etc., must be maintained for all workers, to avoid charges of, nepotism, favouritism etc.
8. This should be consistent in the sense that it is applied consistently to all of the employees, inspective of their background.
9. Promotion policy should be consist alternatives to promotion while deserving candidates are not promoted due to the reason to lack of vacancies at higher level. These alternatives include, redesignation, upgradation sanctioning of higher pay or development or allowances assigning new & varied responsibilities to the workers by enriching the job or enlarging the job. An option for appeal against (alleged) arbitrary actions of management and its review should be there.
10. Initially promotions may be for a trial period so as to reduce the mistakes of promotion.
11. Promotion policy, once it is formulated, should be communicated to all of the employees, specifically to the trade union leaders. It should be periodically reviewed, depend on the experiences and discovering of the attitude and morale surveys.