MODULE 7
EXECUTIVE
DEVELOPMENT,
PROMOTION, AND
TRANSFER
Objectives: At the end of the lesson, the students are expected to:
1. discuss effective methods for executive development, ensuring that executives' enhanced
skills and capabilities meet organizational objectives; and
2. explicate the effective promotion and transfer policies considering the conditions, types,
purposes, and bases to ensure fair and strategic employee advancement.
EXECUTIVE DEVELOPMENT
Executive Development
It is an ongoing process that helps managers gain knowledge, skills, and abilities
to handle current situations in a more efficient manner and get matured to handle future
challenges successfully.
Executive development is also known as management development. According to
Flippo, Executive development includes the process by which managers and executives
acquire not only skills and competency in their present job but also capabilities for future
managerial tasks of increasing difficulty and scope.
Objectives of Executive Development
The major objectives of executive development are:
1. Sustain in a dynamic and competitive environment
2. Ensure competent staff at all levels
3. Develop leaders
4. Executive Career Growth
Methods of Executive Development
Management development programs help in acquiring and developing managerial
skill and knowledge. A Varity of methods of management development have come into
prominence these days. Different types of techniques are used to acquire and develop
various types of managerial skill and knowledge as given in the table below:
Managerial Training / Management development
The following diagram shows the stages involved in the managerial training.
PROMOTION AND TRANSFER
Promotions
According to Pigours and Myers, ‘Promotion is advancement of an employee to a
better job – better in terms of greater responsibility, more prestige or status, greater skill
and especially increased rate of pay or salary”.
The Conditions of Promotions
Reassignment of a higher-level job to an employee than what he is presently
performing
The employee will naturally be delegated with greater responsibility and authority
than he had earlier. Promotion normally accompanied higher pay. It means in
some cases, the employee performs a higher-level job and receives the salary
related to the lower-level job.
Promotion may be temporary or permanent, depending upon the organizational
needs and employee performance.
Types of Promotion:
1. Vertical Promotion
2. Upgradation
3. Dry Promotion
Purposes of Promotion
To utilize the employee’s skill knowledge at the appropriate level in the
organizational hierarchy
To develop competitive spirit and inculcate the zeal in the employees to
acquire the skill, knowledge etc. required by higher level jobs.
To develop competent internal source of employees ready to take up jobs at
higher levels in the changing environment.
To promote employees’ self development and make them await their turn of
promotions. It reduces labour turnover.
To promote interest in training, development programmes and in team
development areas.
To build loyalty and to boost morale.
To get rid of the problems created by the leaders of workers’ unions by promoting
them to the officers’ levels where they are less effective in creating problems.
Promotion places the employees in a position where an employee’s skills and
knowledge can be better utilized.
It creates and increases the interest of other employees in the company as they
believe that they will also get their turn.
It improves morale and job satisfaction
Ultimately, it improves organizational health.
Bases of Promotion
1. Merit as a basis of Promotion: skill, knowledge, ability, efficiency, as aptitude as
measured from educational, training, and past employment record.
Advantages:
i. The resources of a higher order of an employee can be better utilized at a
higher level It results in maximum utilization of human resources in an
organization.
ii. Competent employees are motivated to exert all their resources and contribute
them to the organizational efficiency and effectiveness.
iii. It works as golden handcuffs regarding employee turnover.
iv. It continuously encourages the employees to acquire
Demerits:
i. Measurement or judging of merit is highly difficult.
ii. Many people, particularly trade union leaders, distrust the management’s
integrity in judging merit.
iii. The techniques of merit measurement are subjective.
iv. Merit denotes mostly the past achievements, efficiency, but not the future
success. Hence, the purpose of promotion may not be served if merit is taken as
the sole criterion for promotion.
2. Seniority as a Basis of Promotion: refers to relative length of service in the same job
and in the same organization. The logic behind this as a basis of promotion is that there
is a positive correlation between the length of service in the same job and the amount
of knowledge and the level of skill acquired by an employee in an organization.
Advantages:
i. It is relatively easy to measure the length of service and judge the seniority.
ii. There would be full support of the trade unions for this system.
iii. Every party trusts the management’s action as there is no scope for
favoritism and discrimination or judgment.
iv. It gives a sense of certainty of getting promotion to every employee and of
their turn of promotion.
v. Senior employees will have a sense of satisfaction to this system as the older
employees are respected and their inefficiency cannot be pointed out.
vi. It minimizes the scope for grievances and conflicts regarding promotion
Demerits:
i. The assumption that the employees learn more relatively with length of service is
not valid.
ii. It demotivates the young and more competent employees and results in
employee turnover particularly among the dynamic force.
iii. It kills the zeal and interest to develop as everybody will be promoted with
or without improvement.
iv. Organizational effectiveness may be diminished through the declaration of the
human resources effectiveness as the human resources consists of mostly
undynamic and old blood.
v. Judging seniority though it seems to be easy in the theoretical sense, it is
highly difficult in practice.
Transfer
It is a lateral shift causing movement of individuals from one position to another,
usually without involving any marked change in duties, responsibilities, skills needed, or
compensation.
Transfer is defined as “ the moving of an employee from one job to another. It may
involve a promotion, demotion, or no change in job status other than moving from one job
to another”.
Reasons Types of Transfer
1. To meet the organizational requirements Production Transfer
2 To satisfy employees’ needs Personal Transfer
3 To utilize employees’ skills, knowledge, etc.
4 To improve an employee’s background by placing him in Remedial Transfer
different jobs in various departments, units, etc.
5 To correct interpersonal conflicts
6 To adjust the workforce of one section/plant to another
section/plant during lay-off, closure, or adverse business
conditions, etc.
7 To give relief to the employees who are overburdened or Replacement Transfer
doing complicated or risky work for a long period
8 To punish the employees who violate the disciplinary rules Penal Transfer
9 To help the employees whose working hours or place of work Shift Transfer
is inconvenient to them
10. To minimize fraud, bribe etc. which result due to permanent
stay and conduct of an employee with customers, dealers,
suppliers etc.
11 To increase the versatility of employees Versatile Transfer
(Rotation transfer)
8
