Upper management position roles and responsibilities

Upper Management Position

When a company faces the dilemma of having an upper management position open and has defined a policy of promotion from within, the policy does not exist in a vacuum but rather as part of a broader structure and strategy of how the company is operated (Gentry, Sosik, 2010). This extends beyond just the positions in the organization to the entire approach the company relies on for defining roles, responsibility and most importantly, development plans and programs for subordinates. For promotion from within to be an effective long-term motivator in any company there also needs to be a focus on how best to manage the requirements of positions by the innate skill sets in the organization as well (Kosteas, 2011). With these thoughts in mind, the following recommendations are made for the company facing the need for fill a position yet not having anyone internally who can fill it.

Recommendations

From an organizational design standpoint, the position needs to be re-aligned so that the requirements it has can be successfully accomplished by promoting those in line for the next level of management. This approach of job re-design is most often done to ensure that employees will continue to have a high level of motivation and morale will not be comprised by bringing someone in from the outside (Kosteas, 2011). The benefits of this approach is that through job re-design the skill sets of those most qualified for the job are going to be in a position to excel in their new roles, and they will know the internal company culture extremely well (Kosteas, 2011). This also allows those taking on the new, re-designed roles to also have a strong level of credibility as they take on these additional roles and responsibilities. Third and most important, these candidates for the higher positions will also have an extensive work in the company to be able to accomplish more.

Once a company chooses to go in the direction of promotion from within, countering or going against it is very difficult. Curtailing or ending promotion from within risks morale in the short run and will completely re-order a culture in the long-run (Gentry, Sosik, 2010). As a result, once a company begins to concentrate on this policy of promotion from within, structural and organizational factors must be taken into account to ensure that the fulfillment of expectations to employees can continually be fulfilled (Gentry, Sosik, 2010). Further, the factors that most affect new employee recruitment continue to be chances for advancement, which also needs to be integrated into the cultural mix of the company for it to sustain momentum (Kosteas, 2011).