Introduction
It is of great concern that some employees feel belittled when they see junior officers getting promotions ahead of them because of their superior academic qualifications. Organizations are currently under pressure to come up with environmentally-sensitive policies that can make them remain relevant in the face of stiff market competition. They are forced to hire highly skilled and technologically knowledgeable individuals at the top management positions as a way of promoting the efficiency of the policymaking process.
However, this does not seem pleasant to employees who have been loyally serving the organizations for years. They tend to feel betrayed or even despised by the top management. This may affect their morale at work, something that may have a direct impact on their output in their respective places of work. The management faces a serious challenge trying to satisfy the needs of all these employees as they face the pressure of having only the individuals with the best skills and knowledge at the top management level. This research seeks to find ways through which this problem can be addressed in organizations.
Scope and Purpose
This action research is very important in addressing the current problem that is affecting many organizations in the country today. It is a valid complaint when an employee says that his or her many years of loyal service have not been rewarded through promotion. What loyal employees would expect is a promotion as a way of telling them that the top management appreciates what they are doing for the firm and that they have learned a lot in their practical work.
However, these organizations must also be realistic to the fact that superior strategies can only be developed if there are employees who are highly knowledgeable and talented in the relevant fields. Finding a way of harmonizing these two seemingly contradictory issues has proven to be one of the biggest challenges to many employers in the current society. The researcher will collect data and analyze it with the view of finding a solution to this problem. The scope of data collection will be limited to this country because of time and financial constraints.
Data Collection and Compilation
It was important to determine an effective way of collecting and compiling both primary and secondary sources of data. There were two key methods used to gather information in this research. The first one was through a questionnaire, which was physically delivered to the staff of the institutions that participated in the research.
The questionaire sought to capture various attitudes of the staff members about how they feel on the issue of promoting employees on the basis of their academic qualifications other than the period within which they have been with the firm. The second source of information used for the research was literature on various aspects of organizational management. The focus of the literature review was to find information on the application of motivation techniques within the workplace and also to determine the current state of research in relation to the topic.
The questionnaire was sent to respondents using the drop and pick method. The researcher arrived at this decision after considering time and reseources. The method is time-consuming but very effective. Furthermore, the method allows respondents to reflect on the questions and answer them accurately (Ozanne & Saatcioglu, 2008). Moreover, the method is not affected by the respondent’s level of literacy. One big advantage of the technique is that there is an interaction between the researcher and the researched. This means that respondent’s reactions are easily captured. Reactions are important because they give more information regarding the feelings of respondents.
The researcher had to sample a small group of employees to participate in this research. There are some factors that should be put into consideration when choosing the right method of sampling in any given research project. In this research, precision was needed. The best method that would lead to the desired results was stratified sampling (Stringer, 2007). This method is simple to use and it is appropriate when one intends to use data quantitatively.
The researcher settled on this method because the research population could be divided into subgroups for clarity purposes. The sample would then be divided into subgroups to ensure that each group gets equal representation. Having identified the two strata as junior employees and top management of the organization under the study, the employees were given more weight because of the significance of their answers to this research.
Confidentiality
The issue of confidentiality is very important when collecting information from the respondents. Most of the respondents always prefer to remain anonymous as a way of avoiding any victimization that may be directed to them because of their opinions. The researcher was aware of this ethical fact, and was highly interested in ensuring that the confidentiality of the respondents was respected. For this reason, the researcher used codes instead of names when identifying the respondents. None of the respondents used his or her real name. The use of codes eliminated any possibility of the respondents’ identity being revealed. The research was also used for academic purposes, which means that it was not exposed to the public for scrutiny of the participants.
Analysis of Outcomes
Data analysis refers to the process of transforming raw data into refined useful information that can be of use to people. According to Tomal (2010), before settling on a method of data analysis, it is important to determine the approach to be taken by the researcher. The research can take quantitative, qualitative or categorical approach. This research took a quantitative approach. Depending on the type and accuracy needed, data analysis can take a simple descriptive form or a more complex statistical approaches (Coghlan, 2007).
In analyzing the collected data, the researcher will use appropriate statistical data analysis tools such as descriptive and inferential statistics in analyzing quantitative data. The researcher used descriptive statistics to describe the properties of the target population. The outcome of the data from the field had to be analyzed to respond directly to the issue under investigation. The researcher used simply mathematical tools in order to find the frequency of some of the common response made by the participants of the research in order to make a generalization out of it. The result obtained was then compared with the information obtained from the literatures reviewed in the study. This information will be needed to make the final conclusion in the paper.
Results
It was determined that many organizations are currently preferring to promote employees with special skills and knowledge to higher managerial positions irrespective of their age or the years they have been serving the firm. In fact, most organization prefers the young managers who are more flexible than older employees because they are able to change their strategies with the changing environmental factors. However, this has raised issues with some of the employees who feel that this is unfair given the long period they have served in these organizations.
In order to address this problem, it was confirmed that the management can develop different approaches of promoting employees. Those who have served the organization for long periods and lack superior academic backgrounds can be promoted to supervisory or junior management levels as long as the management is convinced that they have the capacity to handle these positions. This strategy will allow the top management to promote the more skilled employees without creating a feeling that other long serving employees are ignored at the firm. There should be a clear policy that must be understood by all the employees on promotional issues.
It was also determined that when the top management engages the employees in a consultative forums to explain why they are promoting young individuals on the basis of their skills and academic backgrounds, the level of dissatisfaction reduces significantly because the employees will be made to appreciate the need for this action. In such consultative forums, the management should always ensure that employees interact freely with the top management in order to share their views on various issues. This way, some of the misconceptions that could have existed will be easily ironed out, and the employees will understand the relevance promotions on the basis of qualifications. This way, there will be harmony within the organizations as everyone will be satisfied with the directions taken by the management.
Conclusion
It is clear from the discussion above that the best way of handling this issue is to have two approaches of promoting employees. Long serving employees without superior skills or academic backgrounds should be promoted to supervisory and junior management levels, while highly skilled and knowledgeable individuals can be promoted to top positions. It is also clear that the best ways of eliminating complaints among long serving employees is to engage them in consultative forums and explain to them reasons why it is important to select a particular group of individuals to lead the firm.
Reflection
This research has effectively looked at the ways through which the top management can satisfy the needs of their long serving employees while still ensuring that they can promote highly qualified candidates to the top positions. However, the researcher realized that although this strategy taken in the research was effective, it would be equally important to determine how the long serving loyal employees could be made to have the right qualification that may allow them to hold top management positions.
The long serving employees are very desirable at the top management positions because of their loyalty. In future, the research feels that it would be important to determine how these loyal employees can have their academic qualification improved so that they can serve their firms in top management positions. This way, the top management will not have to face problem of hiring new employees to serve in the top managerial positions while there are employees within the firm who can hold the positions.
References
Coghlan, D. (2007). Insider Action Research Doctorates: Generating Actionable Knowledge. Higher Education, 54(2), 293-306.
Ozanne, J. & Saatcioglu, B. (2008). Participatory Action Research. Journal of Consumer Research, 35(3), 423-439.
Stringer, E. T. (2007). Action research (3rd ed.). Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publications.
Tomal, D. R. (2010). Action research for educators. Lanham, Md: Rowman & Littlefield Education.