Is Performance No More A Criteria For Promotions??

This is one trend which i m noticing in the industry for sometime when i joined my very first job that is seeing people not getting promoted even after working so hard and performing very good.At initial part of my professional life i was wondering that perhaps there is more expected out of them to get to the most expected fruitful promotion or there is a stiff competition which has left them out this time and next time it will be there day of glory.But soon i have felt these decisions taking in alot of factors in the notion to device the most wanted path for promotion for an individual other than PERFORMANCE.I believe there are multiple parameters on which a person should be rated and then only with successful evaluation he or she can be promoted or given a hike but within these all parameters the "P" word, yes the "P" for "PERFORMANCE" should be the main word in the individual's evaluation sheet.Sadly, i have seen a bit too much around me here and there which is diminishing my confidence that the most wanted-- "Performance" is loosing its sheen.There are multiple reasons why we see this in industry some people must see them as justified but mostly will feel bullied with it.

No, i m not at all blaming to the good old classical reason of all this mishaps called "Politics" somehow this has become a very known factor and the mother of all reasons which causes the unavoidable surprises of injustice.But for the moment with the discussion over here i m just keeping it aside and would want to discuss other curses in the path of promotions.The most significant reason which the firm's are taking into account is to retain the employee, to cut down the attrition.I would clearly agree there is alot of attrition in the IT sector but companies should never ever try to retain all of its employee which also includes the non performing lot. The black cloud of attrition on the firms head should not hide the low performing employees and the firm should strickly not try to retain such people. Thats a good thing that company is not firing every now and then but at the same time firms need not be overcautious of giving good hikes or promotions to non-performing people.I seriously have felt that in a team if at all the managers are not awarding the promotions to the actual result oriented people of the team, the team starts dis-integrating. If at all the manager have moved away from the "PERFORMANCE" factor in delegating his budget for hikes than its the team in the first place who gets to know that its not the performing people who have got the hike.Once, such trend is induced in the team even the non-performing member of the team starts expecting it because he knows that its not just performance.Its a clear cut fact, a manager cannot promote or give good hikes to all his team members at once but this wrong feeling being inculcated has set every members sight on manager's only positive feedback.Its a human nature everybody knows about himself or herself that how much contributions they are making with the real work, even a lier knows that even though he might be saying that he did work but deep inside he knows there are other people who have done well and they deserve it.If he does not get good hike as compared to those people thats pretty much acceptable.

The old experience enriched folks in the team are the major pillars of the team since their experience lends great support to the team. But a manager should never make them the curse of their teams as and when they start becoming non-performing, managers need to show them the red flag.Since its a team and everyone has to do their part. All members of the team cannot perform at equal scale of efficiency but everyone atleast is required to fulfill their alloted stuff.Some bad playing managers have developed a strategem of playing on the patience of the employee working under them.The strategy is to find the happy go lucky or never complaining but working people of the team and not giving them good hikes or promotions to them until they get frustrated with it and make a foul cry to their manager.Frankly, speaking this is the worst play in industry despite performing and performing consistently, is not assuring success or promotions.The effects of this are only bad for the manager and the firm.
--Vivek Nanda