I recently went out to dinner with a former colleague who now works at another company. I was, of course, very interested to hear what he had to say about his new work environment. He is employed by another Fortune 500 and has only worked for them for a couple of months.
I should also mention that this colleague is very ambitious, although I don’t really know very many people who would turn down a promotion. He is definitely working to make as much money as possible. One of the more interesting points of our conversation centered around his belief that many of his new co-workers were fairly complacent with their position within the company, thereby creating more opportunity for a go-getter like himself.
In my past experience, promotions are not necessarily handed out because of merit. Sometimes they’re given out based on how long you’ve been employed by the company, in addition to about a hundred other factors that have nothing to do with job performance. His new company is very conservative in my opinion—more old-school based than cutting edge. Because of this work environment, I believe that he is quite possibly misreading the situation (I didn’t mention this to him in the conversation).
I believe that many of his colleagues are complacent because they know that taking initiative and working hard won’t necessarily yield a promotion. It’s more about just putting time in the office and being promoted when someone is fired, retires, or quits. I used to work for a company that had this exact same mentality. People didn’t display a go-getter attitude because they knew there was no place to go. When a position did open up, it was usually given to an employee who had a significant amount of time with the company.
Most of the people in his department, that are of a comparable level or higher, are Baby Boomers that have been with the company for quite some time. My own experience has taught me that this group is more concerned about paying dues than any other personal attribute. If I were to stereotype, Boomers believe that promotions should be given to those people who have demonstrated loyalty to the corporation. Adding value and generating new ideas aren’t as important as just completing tasks and executing procedures the way they’ve always been done. Boomers just want to get things done, and they’re not interested in learning new ways of doing things.
I hope I am wrong in my analysis of the situation, and I hope he gets that promotion he is looking for. I’ll keep you posted on how things work out. I should also point out that my own upward mobility seems to be limited at my current employer. I’ve decided to wait it out for awhile to let the economy pick back up. Once things are a little more stable in the markets, I might be looking to make a change myself.