What happens if there are no vacancies for promotion in an organization?

In my last posts, I have written about the some issues relating to promotion in organizations. Today, I am going to talk about the problem arising from lack of vacancies for promotion in organizations. How do employees react when they notice that there are no chances of moving up in the hierarchy? Secondly, how should an organization address this problem? These problems are real and many companies are affected by them. This is the case of small and medium sized businesses. Suddenly, these companies discover there are no more vacancies for promotion.

     Small and medium-sized companies generally have limited business operations, offices, and only a small percentage of them are multinationals. As a result of this limitation in size and operation, the number of openings for promotion is generally limited. The openings refered to here implies moving up vertically or horizontally. There is no vertical or horizontal promotion unless the people occupying those positions leave the organization or are fired. 

     The first consequence of this situation is the demotivation of employees who see themselves as not making any career progress. This is because promotion is considered the most important factor that affect career progress and fulfilment. Some employees with more marketable skills immediately leave the organization to go to a place where their career can grow. Consequently, there will be high turnover of employees in those type of organizations.

     Now, what happens to organizations facing this problem? We will try to answer this question in the next post. So, watch out!  

           

Establishing criteria for promotion in organizations 2

In the last post, I gave some insights on how organizations should establish criteria for promotion of their employees. At the end of the article, there were some questions as how organizations should deal with promoting candidates who do not have the ability to work in groups. In my earlier posts, I wrote about the two main factors that determine the promotion of an employee as technical skill and behavior. I also stated that for senior management level positions, behavior is the most important factor. However, behavior covers a wide range of a person's endeavor. Establishing criteria for promotion should highlight all these factors and even give them weight. 

     In order to antcipate the problem that may occur, organizations should provide training so that all employees can acquire the required skills. In the worst case, an organization should give training to the potential candidates just before the promotion. They should also give them support through coaching. 

     It is important that organizations understand the consequences of unprepared leader. A leader must transmit trust to his subordinates. The power of a leader is eroded when subordinates discover his weakness and undermine it. There should not be room for questioning a leader's ability to lead. Therefore, establishing proper criteria and preparation of leaders for promotion is the key for the effective fucntioning of an organization.                 

  

The effect of culture on negotiation 3

In some of my posts about negotiation, I wrote how the culture of people from Asian region and from Latin America affect their business negotiation. Today, I am going to write about the the effect of African culture on negotiation. This is important because it provides a guide to those who will like to do business in that Continent. For the purpose of disclosure, I am from the African Continent.

     Africa, my continent of origin, is the least developed Continent in the world. The lack of economic development leaves the continent with very high level of unemployment rate. It is known that natality rate of Africa is high. However, many adults are unemployed with only a few able to sustain the whole family members. As a result of tradition, Africans generally live together and consider helping others as a norm. This means that those who have better condition should help those in bad shape. Another factor that complicates the situation is that there is no organized society, no social security, and governments are generally dysfunctional. In this condition, each African has to protect and meet all the needs of his family members. This condition puts any African under a lot of stress.    

     The high level of desperation in which an African is found makes him or her think only for the short term or immediate satisfaction of his needs. Therefore, when negotiating with an African, you must first prepare a long-term plan or project. The plan has to be explained to an African in a way he or she should understand so you can get the best out of him. You should work him through how this plan will play out. You should let him see how he should be transformed and his problems solved in a long-term.

     I hope this post will help clarify some myths relating to doing business with Africans or in Africa.

                 

Establishing criteria for promotion in organizations 1

Every employee who secures job in an organization will like to make progression in his or her career. This progression is taken as a recognition of the employee's contribution to the organization. This progression in career is done through promotion. Although promotion seems to be more important to the employee, it is also importanto to an organization as a way of compensating employees for the loyalty demosntrated. However, the decision to choose those to promote from all employees should not be an easy one. In order to overcome this dilemma, organizations should establish some criteria for promoting their staff.      The criteria for promotion should be clear and communicated to all employees. The question then arises: what should be the criteria to be used? Some think the main factor for promotion should be technical skill, others consider a combination of technical and behavior, while others consider affinity with the superiors as the most important factor. However, there are some things that should be thought about. Firstly, any type of promotion involves going to a new position where the individual will lead a team, whether a small one or a big one. Therefore, the criteria to be set must recognize this fact.

     Leading teams implies the person should have good interpersornal relationship skills. This also means being able to work in groups. There is no way a person can lead a team without having this ability. An organization can verify this ability by looking at the performance assessement of the employee. The track record of this employee will show if he or she has this quality or not. The question is: what happens if the employee has other qualities, but lacks in team work ability? How should organizations deal with this?

     In the next posts, we will try to answer these and other questions. So, watch out!                    

Promotion and conflict 3

In my last post, I presented two ways in which organizations can reduce the intensity of conflict resulting from promotion. These were by stating clearly the criteria for promotion and by providing training to the new managers.If these measures do not work, organizations should consider a more drastic one.

     Insubordination is dangerous for teamwork, and consequently, to the organization. The insubordinates should be given some time to change their behavior, resign from their job or face demition before they contaminate the whole company. This measure should be taken so the situation does not get out of control. However, this punishment should also be communicated together with the criteria for promotion. 

     It is important that organizations take such a drastic measure because the effect of rotten apples in any environment should not be neglected. The dissatisfied employees generally try to gather many people to their side. In this way, they form small groups or silos through which the flow of information is controlled. Information of sympathisers are left to pass through while those of the enemies, not. One of the killers of organizations is lack of internal communication. Therefore, organizations should take the case of insubordination serious. 

        

Promotion and conflict 2

In my last post, I introduced the topic of promotion and conflict. That is the conflict resulting from promotion of one of the colleagues at work. At the end of that post, I left a question about how companies should address this problem. In order to reduce the intensity of the conflict, companies should adopt the following measures.

     Firstly, organizations should state clearly their criteria for promotion and make them available to all their employees. This simple act will show the employees that promotion policy is purely based on merit and not on favoritism. It is understandable that organizations reach a limit where they cannot carry out promotion unless aged employees retire. Even in this situation, they should make it clear to all their employees that promotion is frozen so nobody will be expecting to be promoted. This opens door for those who want to leave the organization. Transparency and open communication always reduces tension among people in any situation.

     The second measure organizations should take to minimize the problem is to give proper training and coaching to the newly promoted managers. This will help them understand their roles appropriately and give them tools to be used in dealing with their subordinates. This is very important because young employees are sometimes promoted to higher positions in innovative organizations like the hightech ones. These younger managers generally come from technical background without any management or administration training. Their roles had always been related to solving technical problems and no experience in interpersonal relationship. Therefore, these must be trained to acquire this ability if their organizations want them to perform well.

     In the next posts, we will look at other measures that can taken. So, watch out! 

                   

Promotion and conflict at workplace

One of the problems workers have in organizations is lack of good relationship with their superiors. There are various reasons for this to occur. However, we will look at one of its causes - promotion. Whenever promotion occurs in organization, there are always the happy and the unhappy ones. Those who are promoted are happy while those who are not, are unhappy. There are those who think they are more qualified for promotion than those promoted. There is also the problem of promoting someone to lead his peers.

     In the first case, those who feel more qualified, but not promoted do not accept their new leaders and conflict is created. There was an Organization where this problem was evident. In this, one of the two middle-level managers was promoted to a senior level position while the more experienced one was not. The more experienced one could not support the situation that he had to leave for another organization where he took an even lower position than his original position. However, there was conflict with the new boss before he left for another company. Others who did not leave stayed, but continued complaining and showing dissatisfaction.

     Conflict arises because a new leader does not feel very comfortable to command his former peers. The second is that the subordinates apply a lot of resistance in taking orders from the new leader. In some situations, the president of the organization spend time mediating the conflict. Many companies do not consider it as a conflict because it seems to be subtle or may die away after sometime. As a result of the conflict resulting from promotion, the following questions are posed. How should organizations promote their staff? How should organizations address the promotion problem when it occurs? Watch out for the answers to these questions in the next posts.          

Consider being a linchpin in your Organization!

In my earlier posts, I have written many things about how one can have an extraordinary career. However, these issues are not limited to career, but to all areas of endeavour. It is true in whatever we do. There is no way you can desire to have an excellent result from something without an excellent performance input. It is one of those logics of life. It seems so easy, but many do not apply the concept to their daily activities. 

     For someone seeking to have successful career, he or she should first consider being a linchpin in his Organization. Before we move on to explain the importance of this concept, let us first understand the meaning of a linchpin. A linchpin simply means a part that connects a whole structure or body. The importance of linchpin lies in the fact that if removed, the whole body disintegrates or collapses. It is important you become a linchpin in your organization. This can be done in the whole organization if it is a small company or in specific areas or departments in the case of large organizations.  

     The next question you should ask is: how can I become a linchpin in my Organization? In the next posts, we shall look at how one can do this. So, look out for this!

  

How does your dressing fit your job?

Have you ever wanted to know something about your dressing? About how your dressing matches with your job? Do you go by the dressing code? in the case of the absence of dressing code, how do you go about it? Dressing is not restricted to clothes, but to other things you put on your body. For example, tattoos and piercings. 

     What you might not understand is that how you dress affects people's perception about you. This is true, especially, in positions of higher responsibility, such as managerial and executive functions. This is because people occupying these positions generally represent their organizations outside their companies. They are considered as the image of their organizations which they represent. However, it is impossible for you to change your behavior overnight when you reach these positions.

     The objective of this post is to show that you should start dressing appropriately in junior position so you can transmit confidence to the administration earler in your career. In this way, they can consider you a possible candidate for senior position when the opportunity arises. As I said before in my earlier post, behavior is the most important factor of consideration for occupying executive position. How you dress is taken as a part of your behavior.

     If your Organization has a dress code, you should abide by that. If your Organization does not have it, you should understand your organizational culture, your business segment, and the niche your Organization attends. Always ask yourself how your dressing matches with the culture of your Organization and the people you attend. Compare your dressing with people working in an organization to yours. Observing others ahead of you is a powerful way to learn! Do not think that because your Organization does not have a dressing cade implies that you can dress anyhow you like. Think about this!                  

  

What is holding your career back from progress 5?

In my earlier posts, I gave some reasons why some people are not making progress in their career. These reasons are flexibility, inability to work in teams, and lack of identification with the organization. In this post, we are going to look at another factor that limits career progress. That is lack of appropriate skills. 
     I know many workers may think because they have college degree automatically gives them the necessary skills. In the world of today, a worker should engage in a life-long learning process. You should update your knowledge in order to fit with the dynamics of the market. The global market is highly competitive and in some segments, disruptive. That implies that what you learned today may no longer be applicable tomorrow. One's level of adaptability to changes depends on his ability to learn new things. 
     This means that your college degree is an entry point to a constantly-changing world. Take for example a chemical engineer working in automobile company. The tendency since 25 years ago has been on renewable energy or alternative energy to gasoline. This means that the engineer's knowledge of battery has shifted from traditional one to how batteries can power vehicles. This can be in the form of hybrid cars or purely electric cars. If the engineer does not have knowledge about this new technology, the Auto company will fire hime and hire another chemical engineer with this knowledge. 
     As a teacher and a coach, I realized that many electrical engineer managers have been fired from a utility company where they used to work. This occured, in part, as a result of automation of systems and their inability to adapt to new technologies resulting from that. Therefore, it is not enough that you have a degree in something. Your knowledge and skill must be applicable to your organization in solving problems. However, the problems depend on the dynamics of the market. The unpredictable nature of the problems makes it difficult to anticipate the solution. But, you can always upgrade and update your skills in such a way that it will help you find solution whatever the problem may be.
     That is the essence of life-long learning. Many workers forget this fact by living lifstyles that do not permit them study anymore. Only public functionaries have guaranteed job. The rest has to make it. Today, there are many ways one can update his skill. There are online classes, free online materials, company-sponsored courses, etc. Even if it involves paying for it, you have to do it because it is an investment. You cannot have a successful career unless you invest in it. Think about this!