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Making Promotion Decisions



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In general, promotion processes must comply with all the same antidiscrimination laws as do procedures for recruiting and selecting employees or any other HR actions. For example, Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act covers any terms, conditions, or privileges of employment. The employer should establish safeguards to ensure that promotion decisions don’t prompt discrimination claims, or claims of retaliation, as many do.

One way to defend against such claims is to make sure promotion procedures are clear and objective. In setting promotion policies, one decision is whether to base promotion on seniority or competence, or some combination of the two. If the firm opts for competence, it must define and measure competence. Defining and measuring past performance is relatively straightforward. But promotions should also rest on procedures for predicting the candidate’s future performance.

When they don’t, employees (and courts) may conclude that factors like “who you know” are more important than performance, and that working hard to get ahead is futile. Promotions aren’t necessarily upward. Some employees may have little or no interest in promotion to managerial roles.
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