My husband listens to a podcast called The Skeptics Guide to the Universe.
I can’t do math and I don’t know anything about science (which is why I work in HR) but last week’s episode was interesting because I learned about an organization called Improbable Research. It’s a group of smart people who conduct weird scientific experiments (or report on them) and administer something called The Ig Nobel Prizes. From the website:
The Ig Nobel Prizes honor achievements that first make people laugh, and then make them think. The prizes are intended to celebrate the unusual, honor the imaginative — and spur people’s interest in science, medicine, and technology.
This year’s Ig Nobel Management Prize was awarded to Alessandro Pluchino, Andrea Rapisarda, and Cesare Garofalo of the University of Catania, Italy. They demonstrated (through math) that organizations would become more efficient if they promoted people at random.
Without reading the study or understanding the math, I totally love this conclusion. First of all, it helps me to justify my own conclusion that the much of the science behind “management theory” is psuedo-science and pop psychology used to push both a political and economic agenda in the workplace. More importantly, I really love the Ig Nobel conclusion because it’s so much more interesting than the real 2010 Nobel Prize for Economics.
Peter A. Diamond, Dale T. Mortensen and Christopher A. Pissarides [won the award] for their research on “markets with search frictions,” which means any setting where buyers and sellers don’t automatically find each other. Search models are relevant in many settings, including dating, used cars and housing, but above all, these models help us make sense of unemployment.
Hm. Companies have many open requisitions and (claim that) they can’t find the right people with the right skills — but I also know that companies keep positions open for far too long because they don’t know how to hire. It’s not always a market problem rooted in skills/supply/demand. It’s often an assessment or selection problem….
…but there’s no room for this discussion on my blog. And frankly, people will tell me that I’m wrong and that technical and scientific jobs in America go unfilled because of the friction in the market and the insane H1B Visa process.
Fine, go have this discussion on HBR.
I want to go back to the Ig Nobel prize and hear from HR practitioners, I-O psychologists, professors, and employees. (You.) Would love your answers to the following questions.
- How does your company promote people?
- Is there a fair and transparent method to select the right people?
- Does it seem as if people are promoted fairly in your office?
Give me the scoop.
Just don’t talk about math.
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1. Much as reality is how you perceive it, so are our promotions. Title change (check); Increase in responsibility (check); Teaching some one else your prior tasks (check); Increase in pay… umm….. well…. I know profits have gone up more than 75%, and I know we just hired a receptionist who makes as much as you do, but……. Let’s talk about this at your next semi-annual review, okay?
2. In short, no. And that’s okay. We don’t really understand how some people got to the top in the first place. My best guess is, some times people just want to work with a man, so that’s why he’s where he is. He certainly doesn’t do any work, and no one cares, so I’m going with Gender.
3. “Promotion” is suck a tricky word….
=)
Wow, that sounds depressing.
No one gets promotions where I work because no one leaves their position – they won’t even retire. Several of my colleagues have been here 20+ years. I only got this job because someone else thought the world was ending with the recession and freaked out and left and I was willing to take a chance that it wasn’t in order to leave the twisted gig I used to have. It also means I will probably never get a promotion either unless I figure out a way to create a workforce development empire that attracts a ton of funding. I like a good challenge.
This is the challenge of your life. Schwoo.
Love the idea of Ig Nobel Prizes. There must be a way to add this element into our performance review procedures.
How does your company promote people?
- Varies among departments and circumstances such as the fiscal time of year, company needs, and upcoming lunar eclipses.
Is there a fair and transparent method to select the right people?
- I would have said yes for the fair & transparent method, until you threw in the caveat of “right people”…now I need to say, it’s in development
Does it seem as if people are promoted fairly in your office?
- only to those who are promoted and those that do the promoting; to those that just expect that service = promotion, no and it will never be fair
I wonder how much angst could be avoided if we just communicated more effectively.
Politics. That’s how people are promoted, if ever, at my company. Those in sales determine everything. The top sellers call the shots. They are above managers, VPs and even the owners at times. What they say goes, what they want happens and the rest of us are just at their mercy. New car? Trip to New York? Another employee? Sure! The rest of the company that does the work that you’re selling in order to make you look good gets paid and treated like dirt. But sure! We’ll hire someone just for you and hold off on reinstating the pay cuts that went around during recession time.
Don’t even get me started on the managers. There is a manager here that I would LOVE to witness you meeting. She is a piece of work. Zero communication or social skills. AND, she’s in charge of customer relations. How she got the job and is in charge of so many people is so beyond anyone here. The kicker? She’s uber, yes I said uber, unprofessional. Short skirts, low shirts… flappage. Over 40 flappage. It’s not good.
There’s always a tension between sales and [insert everyone here]. That battle has been going of forever. Sigh.
Flappage! Love that.
I love the idea. That being said, I think we go to management theory and pop psychology bullshit because we are looking for ways to be seen as consistent, fair and logical. I think it gives us a false sense of security the same way that asking everyone the same questions in an interview does. My argument continues to be that we need to think about how the bigger processes are fair, not how we can make sure everyone answers that behavioral question the right way.
Dr. Charles Handler has written some fantastic pieces on ERE (shameless plug, sorry) about selection and sometimes talks about some of the insane ways we do choose to evaluate candidates that seem valid but aren’t (think: credit checks).
Lance, you should put in URLs and links when you shamelessly plug it.
Plug big or go home!
Well Laurie, you have once again hit a topic near and dear to my heart. Promotions have been a thorn in my side everytime I have done an employee opinion survey. More often than not there is a perception that promotions are unfair. The fact is that if you have 4 people apply to a job, 25% feel the process worked as it was supposed to and 75% believe that it did not, so the odds are stacked against us from the beginning. Then there is the insult to injury added when we make announcements to the whole organization. I am sure people are well intentioned and want to provide recognition but these often make others feel slighted by the simple reality that in flat organizational structures opportunities for true advancement are very infrequent. Making it worse, we often make these jobs sound bigger than they are. Moving from Accountant 1 to Accountant 2 should recognize an individual for perfecting certain skills or gaining new ones as part of their normal progression within the organization. This case probably does not warrant a corporate wide announcement and recognition should be the increase is salary / job grade / etc. Some well intentioned managers in this situation like to play the “title game” and say that the person is moving from Accountant 1 to Senior Accountant. What is a senior accountant and how old do you have to be to get a senior title? This makes it sound like a bigger move than it is and then the Sr. Accountant goes to salary.com and feels like they are terribly underpaid and defeats what was trying to be accomplished in the first place. Summarizing this point, I believe we should always try to differentiate what is progression related versus what is truly a promotion. Certainly going from Accountant to Accounting Manager is a promotion and warrants public recognition since it is assumed that the level of responsibility or reporting structures have changed. In general, a true promotion should have a potential for failure, if not, why promote the person?
Okay so I am off my soap box on the title game and self defeating employee relations activities so your questions remain. How do you promote someone in a fair and transparent way? We do an internal posting and accept internal applications to the job. We interview the individuals, sometimes subject them to additional testing, and always tell them why they weren’t selected for the job and offer them a discussion about development since that has typically not been a discussion at performance appraisal time. Or, it was a discussion at review time and that is why this person felt they were a shoe in for the position despite the fact that their manager never looked at a job description or considered what other potential candidates had done to prepare themselves for the position. We have a clear policy outlining when jobs are filled internally, what jobs are progression related, and when we will compare internal applicants to external applicants. This leads me back to my first point about statistically more people will be dissatisfied than satisfied.
So, we have tried many things to be transparent and fair only to be let down by opinion surveys that tell us that our efforts only had a moderate improvement in the opinion of our employees. I believe the fact is that completely objective processes tend to lead you to conclusions that are wrong and completely subjective processes are always wrong. We have to have a blend. It should be obvious to the organization that the right person was selected. I know how you love sports analogies but I must use one. Terrell Owens has all the talent that most any coach would want as a wide receiver but yet teams do not want him because of the more subjective things he brings to the team; better known as bad behavior. Policies and procedures, regardless of the topic, should help us run a business but not run the business. If we get too digital on requirements then we aren’t managing. I have become convinced that the measurement in determining how good and fair promotions are is not related to opinion but instead objective performance of the individual promoted, their department, and the overall organization. My 2.5 cents…..
Dwood — again, another great comment. You need a blog or you need to write a guest post somewhere on this issue! And I’m laughing about TO.
Honestly you have been inspiring me to blog to help bring common sense to what most think is something more than it is.
Just to add one thought….I want you to know that I found you on post you did regarding job titles specifically meaningless ones. We don’t always agree but you rock.
http://www.ere.net/2010/10/21/are-corporate-recruiters-capable-of-hiring-top-passive-candidates/
All we need is Lou’s “achiever pattern” and we will always promote the right people ! I love this active/passive thing too, as if it really makes an actionable difference .
I like lou but I’m going to ERE — packing right now! — so I’ll just read this when I get home.
How does your company promote people?
nepotism
Is there a fair and transparent method to select the right people?
oh its fairly transparent it is nepotism
Does it seem as if people are promoted fairly in your office?
Is the Pope jewish?
Wow, that’s so cynical. This is the place for you.
And technically all catholics are jewish if you ask me.
The shared guilt is uncanny.
As a science person, I love this and accept it. I’m not sure they took into account the exodus that would on occasion take place were there truly random promotions.
If you added in random events – like any given day someone might be kicked out and replaced, then a strong performer wouldn’t believe he would have to wait for someone to leave a position before the next chance for getting his number pulled – then maybe this would work. Sure would save a lot of money and time….
Great blog posting. My sincere belief is that managers are at their core lazy. That is why jobs are open too long, decisions not made, and H1-B visas pervasive. Too me, companies that operate in that way tend to not innovate or create. Being in the automotive industry two letter help to shine the light on this, G-M.
Of course. No surprise here. Think about it. Why and how do people get promoted? It’s because they are liked by those who are in a position to promote. Being liked CAN be related to being “Productive,” “Thrifty,” “Brave,” “Clean,” “Reverent,” etc., (see Boy Scout Oath)—but being liked does not necessarily relate to the virtues necessary to the health of the organization.
As a sort of an un-mathematical mathematical example, if being liked correlates by only 1/2 to actual virtue, then there is a 1/4 chance that a virtuous person would be promoted in an organization where 1/2 the people exhibited actual virtue. Compare a 1/4 (liked and virtuous) likelihood of a successful promotion to a 1/2 (random) likelihood of a successful promotion. Maybe it’s a sloppy example, but it shows that trying to strip the process of bias can go a long way to improving the hiring process. Well, duh.
Enough of my bloviating for now. Suffice it to say, random is probably better than what most of these trust fund baby hiring managers are doing these days.
Posted by The Bloviator.
23 comments ...wanna add one?