Employee promotion positively impact employee engagement and motivation; however, only 16 percent of employers widely communicate this opportunity for recruitment and retention, according to the 2012 WorldatWork survey report Promotional Guidelines.
"WorldatWork has been studying promotional practices for several years and have found that organizations consistently under communicate promotional guidelines and policies to the general employee population," says Kerry Chou, a Certified Compensation Professional and practice leader at WorldatWork. "Employers may be missing out on an opportunity to enhance its ability to attract, motivate and retain employees by not sharing general information about the guidelines or processes associated with promotions."
The survey also finds that respondents do not share promotional guidelines with employees, but they still budget for employee advancement programs and promote 8 percent of employees on average in a year. The typical promotional increase given to salaried employees this year is 8.7 percent, an increase from 8.3 percent in 2010. Meanwhile, officers and executives see an average promotional pay gain of 10.2 percent, a jump from 9.5 percent in 2010.
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Respondents most commonly fund promotional increases by creating a budget apart from other pay-increase budgets. According to 81 percent of respondents, a promotion is defined by the increase in pay, band, grade or level while 76 percent of respondents also say a promotion includes more responsibilities.
Fifty-seven percent of respondents report that employees are not eligible for promotional increases if the move to a new job is lateral while approximately one out of five respondents promote employees without offering more pay.
"While a bigger title and recognition from peers are nice, employees will usually not feel completely satisfied with a promotion unless there is a meaningful increase in base pay," Chou says.
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