We imagine that the word promotion is a
positive one, a word that defines success and achievement. But from a
small amount of observational experience, when you look at how
promotion can affect a person's life- not just the part of it that
exists at work- I'm less convinced that it is always so positive.
Within the workplace, promotion is
portrayed as a reward, a gift, given to someone with recognised
talent. It can be said to be given so that a person has a job best
suited to their level of competence, a distinctly flattering
description.
However, in the context of a persons
entire life, I think that very little may be gained from promotion.
In some cases, I think that a person gains nothing at all, and
instead they merely trade one benefit for another.
We will consider what is gained versus
what is lost. To set up a model of this, you have to imagine that a
job pays a person more than just money. Everyone needs to work to
live, but jobs differ on more than salary or wages- you could also
say each job 'pays' you a certain amount of free time, and a certain
amount you can relax. These are just alternative ways of describing
about how many hours you have to spend at your workplace, or how
stressful the role is, but measured in a positive way. I should add
that money, free time and relaxation are not an exhaustive list, but
they are enough to make my point.
For our example, take a typical
practical office job that pays a low salary, consists of working 9am
till 5pm on weekdays, and only requires an individual to meet the
daily target set by the manager, with no organisation required. You
could say that this job 'pays' a low salary, 128 hours of free time
each week, and a lot of relaxation.
However, say a person in that job gets
promoted and becomes the manager of their own team. They receive a
pay rise, but they also need to spend time planning how to distribute
the workload among the team, and let's say that this requires being
in the office from 8am till 6pm on weekdays. It also, for success,
depends on other people, who are harder to influence than your own
productivity. So this job 'pays' a medium salary, 118 hours of free
time each week, and a medium amount of relaxation.
You see how the promotion in this
example was not a simple gain, but a trade? The person who went from
their first job to the managerial job traded 10 hours each week and
some of their relaxation for more money. The higher salary didn't
come out of nowhere.
I said earlier that from the point of
view of the workplace, a promotion is given so that a person has a
job best suited to their level of competence. Instead of that idea,
consider that a promotion may be a term meaning that a person is
going to work harder. If not to work more hours, then maybe to work
under more difficult conditions. And all it cost the company was some
money. If promotion was offered with this description, I think more
people would reject it.
I'm not saying that promotion is always
bad, or that it is just a companies' method of paying you to
sacrifice your life in every case. Many people in the world must be
genuinely better at management or organisation than others, and
genuinely deserve recognition and opportunities to advance. But I
think that some promotions are only an illusion of generosity.
Unfortunately, I do not think I could ever draw a line where one ends
and the other begins.
Image source: http://www.thaitravelnews.net/living/thai-bosses-fifth-most-stressed-according-to-survey/
I agree that promotion isn't always the best thing. We can so often get tricked onto a 'career ladder', complaining that a job has 'nowhere to go' without out every wondering if you want to 'move up' or go anywhere!
ReplyDeleteSome people are promoted to jobs that are higher up the career ladder but which are no longer doing the things they love - doing managing instead of doing the doing - get more money but less job satisfaction. Worst of all they may have been promoted because they were very good at doing the doing - but have no skill at all in managing - it seems you can often find quite unskilled managers in positions they shouldn't be.
In this scenario a management position should not be seen as a promotion to a 'doing' position, but simply a different job requiring different skills. It is a perception of higher status (a management position requiring more intelligence?!) that needs to be challenged.