Create space for employees growth, do not promote them casually

Every employee aspire to have promotion in corporate.  They believe that getting promoted is nothing but getting recognized.  But in truth, do they really qualify for promotion is a million dollar question.  HR should know how to deal the issue of promotion and how to ensure employee satisfaction.

If HR wants, they can learn about how to develop people and how the promotion criteria should be decided in corporate from farmers.  Every farmer when wanted to develop a mango orchard or any other fruit trees, they plant the samplings keeping sufficient distance between one to the other.  The distance is calculated based on the crown cover of the respective tree when they grow in future.  Unless sufficient space is given between the trees, they may not either grow well or able to give better yield. 

Minimum and adequate space is essential for every tree to grow well.  This is not only true for farm or orchard but for corporate as well.  Frequent promotions to people in a corporate would be like planting trees without much space between them.   Mere performance alone should not be considered for promotion.  Promotion also should not be on the basis of lack of alternatives.  Usually, such phenomenon is prevalent in single man driven corporate. 

When an employee is hired, his/her capability needs to be measured and monitored regularly as to understand what extent they have the capability to grow in the organization.  Some organizations will have more managers than officers or more GM’s than managers.  Such situations will never do any good to the organization.  The idea of promotion for an employee itself must be thought of only when they show such signs of leadership otherwise such people should not be considered for promotion.  The year of service is another criterion many organizations would consider.  But giving importance to such criterion is very dangerous.  Unless the eligibility is seen, people should not be promoted to next level despite the number of years they have been working.

When the organization is exploded with many managers or many GM’s, HR need to handle such situation carefully as promoting one or two may upset the equilibrium. Best way to handle such system is expanding the reporting hierarchy of the promoted employee.  When the entire system is made to report to the promoted employee, the conflict may not brood further. 

Corporate must be very firm and shy free in exerting its view to the employees on why they were not chosen for promotion. Looking at an orchard HR can learn that promoting people en mass is dangerous for the organization.  Make promotions very precious and ensure that the employees have to work hard for years to achieve it.