employee transfers

Assessing External and Internal
candidates,

Internal Assessment Purposes
 - Evaluating employees fit with other jobs
 - Enhancing the firms strategic capabilities
 - Gathering info downsizing decisions

Internal Assessment Methods
- Skills inventories
- Mentoring programs
- Performance Reviews
- Multisource assessments
- Job Knowledge Tests
- Assessment Center Methods

Yoder and others (1958) define transfer as
“a lateral shift causing movement of individuals from
one position to another usually without involving
marked change in duties, responsibilities, skills needed
or compensation”. Transfer may be initiated either by
the company or the employee. It also can be temporary
or permanen

Transfers are generally affected to build up a more satisfactory
work team and to achieve the following purposes;
 To increase the effectiveness of the organization.
 To increase versatility and competence of key positions.
 To deal with fluctuations in work requirements.
 To correct incompatibilities in employee relations.
 To correct erroneous placement.
 To relieve monotony.
 To adjust workforce.
 To punish employees. (Generally in government
organisations, employees who commits mistakes
or malfeasance will be treated with transfer to other place
where he cannot act according to his wish or misuse his job
position. )

Reasons for employee transfers
 To avoid favoritism and nepotism.
 To avoid gaining capacity of influencing and egocentrism.
 To avoid monotony in the work of an employee.
 Makes an employee accountable to his seat, so as not to find
mistake by his successor.
 So as to avoid excess dependency on particular employee, otherwise
may affect the purpose of hierarchy and lose control over
subordinates.
 To create transparency among the employees and their work.
 It limits taking advantage and sole control over the seat or section.
 To avoid unnecessary influence on others for their own advantage.
 To make conversant of different seats work.
 To maintain healthy relationship in between all the staff members
to retain harmonious environment to avoid unnecessary disputes

Importance of employee transfers
 Transfer of employees is must and essential in an organisation for the purpose of
minimising politics between employees, to ensure cordial relationship between
employees, to increase transparency in work, to obviate syndicate of employees for
unethical purpose and to obviate nepotism in organisation.
 Employee transfers is considerable, as most essential when a position of employee is
a top-level in hierarchy. Especially in the governmental organisations employees
holding top-level positions are affected with frequent transfers for the reason, to
obviate nepotism into increase transparency in the work.
 Organisations having no transfers for their employees may create their own
informal groups for their common interest and their own benefit. Subsequently, this
may leads to secrecy in the flow of work, eventually, no transparency in
work. Employee transfers less organisation may definitely see organisational politics
among employees, that which leads to fall in coordination in between employees,
eventually may lead to drop in overall organisational performance.

Drawbacks from employee transfers
 Employees who are having attachment with the
organisation and their morale maybe disturbed due to
transfer to some other location.
 Family members of employee who got transferred maybe
psychologically disturbed because they have to shift their
entire family to new location for which it may take time
to get accustomed to new place.
 Definitely, employee transfer will financially cost to him
by way of shifting of his households and furniture in
transportation.
 In case of your employees, employee transfer may lead to
resignation for the reason he may not willing to leave
current location if that location is his native place.

Types of Transfers
a) Production transfers: Such transfers are made to meet the company
requirements. The surplus employees in one department/section who are
efficient might be absorbed in other place where there is a requirement. Such
transfers help to stabilise employment.
b) Replacement transfers: This takes place to replace a new employee
who has been in the organization for a long time and thereby giving some
relief to an old employee from the heavy pressure of work.
c) Versality transfers: It is also known as rotation. It is made to develop all
round employees by moving them from one job to another. It also helps to
reduce boredom and monotony.
d) Personnel or remedial transfers: Such a transfer is made to rectify
mistakes in selection and placement. As a follow up, the wrongly placed
employee is transferred to a more suitable job.
e) Shift transfers: This is pretty common where there is more than one
shift and when there is regularised rotation.

Ericsson lays off 22 executives in India,
Feb, 2012. The Indian arm of the world's largest
telecoms gearmaker, Ericsson, is trimming and
redeploying staff as it faces lukewarm operator spends
in a fiercely competitive market.
Nearly 22 executives across categories have been fired
on performance grounds and another 100 are likely to
be transferred to sister organisations like Ericsson
India Global Services, Ericsson Supply Site Jaipur,
R&D centres and the regional technical centres (RTCs)
to boost efficiencies, a top company executive aware of
the development .

Transfer Policy
Every organization should have a fair and impartial transfer policy which should be
known to each employee. The responsibility for effecting transfers is usually entrusted
to an executive with power to prescribe the conditions under which requests for
transfers are approved. Care should be taken to ensure that frequent or large-scale
transfers are avoided by laying down adequate selection and placement procedures for
the purpose. A good transfer policy should:
 Specifically clarify the types of transfers and the conditions under which these will
be made;
 Locate the authority in some officer who may initiate and implement transfers;
 Indicate whether transfers can be made only within a sub-unit or also between
departments, divisions/plants;
 Indicate the basis for transfer, i.e., whether it will be based on seniority or on skill
and competence or any other factor;
 Decide the rate of pay to be given to the transferee;
 Intimate the fact of transfer to the person concerned well in advance;
 Be in writing and duly communicated to all concerned;
 Not be made frequently and not for the sake of transfer only

 Promotion refers to upward movement in
present job leading to greater responsibilities,
higher status and better salary. Promotion may
be temporary or permanent depending upon the
organizational requirement.
 According to Clothier and Spriegel,“promotion is
the transfer of an employee to a job which pays
more money or one that carries some preferred
status.”

In the corporate sector employee promotions doesn't
make much difference as that of in government sector.
In the government the word promotion is the ultimate
desire for an employee for the service rendered by him in
the organisation and this is the only way for an employee
career development in the government sector. Promotion
is the ultimate motivating factor for any employee
because moves employee forward in hierarchy of concern
organisation added with additional responsibility, higher
respect, honour, with increase in grade pay and
allowances

In countries like India, employee promotions are
withhold by employers if any enquiry is pending on
concerned employee due to his disobedience of
duties or misuse of his powers especially in
government departments. Until clearance of
enquiry pending before COMPETENT
AUTHORITY on concerned employee promotion
will not be given. It is the responsibility of
employee on whom enquiries pending should
prove his innocence before concerned competent
authority.

Purpose and Advantages of Promotion
 To recognize employee’s performance and commitment and
 Motivate him towards better performance;
 Develop competitive spirit among employees for acquiring
knowledge and skills for higher level jobs;
 Retain skilled and talented employees;
 Reduce discontent and unrest;
 To fill up job's vacant position that is created due to
retirement, resignation or demise of an employee. In this case
next senior employee will be promoted to the vacant job.
Utilize more effectively the knowledge and skills of
employees; and
 Attract suitable and competent employees.

Favoring family members leads to employee
disengagement: Study
In a study conducted by TJinsite, research and knowledge arm of
TimesJobs.com, a large proportion of employees expressed that
competency should be the most important criteria for employment or
promotion. And, they feel disengaged when relatives are given a key
position or promotion, bypassing talented employees. The study
highlighted that nepotism policies -favoritism towards family
members- degrade level of commitment, loyalty and the sense of
ownership amongst employees and leads to higher attrition rate.
"Nepotism is most commonly seen in family run businesses. And,
family run businesses (FRBs) constitute most businesses in India.
While favouring family members is very common in family businesses,
it runs the dual risks of demoralising non-family members and
increasing complacency among family members. The after effects of
favouring family members for a senior level position on the existing
employees are severe

Types of Promotions
a) Up or Out Promotion: In this case, an employee either earns a
promotion or seeks employment elsewhere. Out promotion usually
leads to termination of employee and joining some other organization
in a better position.
b) Dry Promotion: In this type, promotion is given in lieu of
increase in salary. For example, when an university professor is made
Head of the Department, there is no increase in salary.
c) Paper promotion: Paper promotion happens on seniority of
employee in government sector having different departments. Paper
promotion is an employee promotion given to the employee belonging
to the parent department, but indeed working in another department
on transfer, on request of employee or due to exigency of work. Paper
promoted employee draws salary pertaining to job in another
Department, but not according to promotion’s job in the parent
Department.

Promotion Program and Procedure
Every organization should make advance plans for
promotion programme. A carefully planned
promotion programme has four elements:
a) formulation of promotion policy,
b) identification of promotion channels,
c) promotion appraisal, and
d) centralized records. We shall discuss each element
in detail.

a) Formulation of Promotion Policy:
Each organization needs to maintain a balance between the internal sources of personnel promotion and
external sources by means of recruitment. Hence, promotion must be based on consistent, fair and clear cut
policy. The National Institute of Personnel Management (NIPM) has suggested a promotion policy on the
following lines:
Encouragement of promotion within the organization instead of looking outside to fill vacancies in higher
places.
 An understanding that ability as well as seniority will be taken into account in making promotions. Ability,
efficiency, attitude, job performance, physical fitness, leadership, experience, and length of service are some of
the factors considered in making promotions.
 Drawing up an organization chart to make clear to all the ladder of promotion. Where there is a job analysis
and a planned wage policy, such chart is quite easy to prepare.
 Making the promotion system clear to all concerned who may initiate and handle cases of promotion. Though
departmental heads may initiate promotion, the final approval must lie with the top management, after the
personnel department has been asked to check from its knowledge whether any repercussion is likely to result
from the proposed promotion.
 All promotions should be for a trial period to ascertain whether the promoted person is found capable of
handling the job or not. Normally, during this trial period, he draws the pay of the higher post, but it should be
clearly understood that if “he does not make the grade” he will be reverted to his former post and former pay
scale.
b) Promotion Channels:
Promotion channels should be identified and recorded on paper. This process is related with job analysis and
career planning of an organization.
c) Promotion Appraisals:
The promotion of an employee is entirely dependent upon his/her performance appraisal outcome.
d) Centralised Records:
The education, experience, skills, abilities and evaluation of all employees should be recorded and maintained in a
centralised manner by the department of the organization, because basing on these attributes, promotion is given
to an employee.

Bases of Promotion
Seniority as a basis: It implies relative length of service in the
same organization. The advantages of this are: relatively easy to
measure, simple to understand and operate, reduces labour
turnover and provides sense of satisfaction to senior employees.
It has also certain disadvantages: beyond a certain age a person
may not learn, performance and potential of an employee is not
recognized, it kills ambition and zeal to improve performance.
Merit as a basis: Merit implies the knowledge, skills and
performance record of an employee. The advantages are:
motivates competent employees to work hard, helps to maintain
efficiency by recognizing talent and performance. It also suffers
from certain disadvantages like: difficulty in judging merit,
merit indicates past achievement, may not denote future
potential and old employees feel insecure.

 Seniority-cum-Merit as basis: As both seniority
and merit as basis suffer from certain limitations,
therefore, a sound promotion policy should be based
on a combination of both seniority and merit. A
proper balance between the two can be maintained
by different ways: minimum length of service may be
prescribed, relative weightage may be assigned to
seniority and merit and employees with a minimum
performance record and qualifications are treated
eligible for promotion, seniority is used to choose
from the eligible candidates.

 INDIA: Insurance Regulatory and Development
Authority (IRDA) employees approached Andhra
Pradesh High Court on the irregularities in their
promotions. Aggrieved employees allege that their
promotions are not being done in accordance with
prescribed regulations, which prescribes merit,
suitability and seniority of employee should be
considered while promotions. In response to this, the
honourable High Court of Andhra Pradesh issued interim
stay on the promotion of employees.
The economic Times, 22-dec-12

DEMOTION
 Demotion refers to the lowering down of the status,
salary and responsibilites of an employee. Demotion
is used as a disciplinary measure in an organization.
The habitual patterns of behaviour such as violation
of the rules and conduct, poor attendance record,
insubordination where the individuals are demoted.
Beach (1975) defines demotion as “the assignment of
an individual to a job of lower rank and pay usually
involving lower level of difficulty and responsibility”.

Causes of Demotion
 Demotion may be caused by any of these factors:
 Adverse business conditions: Employees may be
demoted because of recession faced by company.
 Incompetency of the employee: It happens when an
employee finds it difficult to meet the required
standard.
 Technological changes: When employee is unable to
adjust with any technological change made by the
company.
 Disciplinary measure.

Yoder, Heneman, Turnbull and Stone (1958) have suggested a
fivefold policy with regard to demotion practice.
,
 A clear and reasonable list of rules should be framed
 violations of which would subject an employee to demotion;
 This information should be clearly communicated to
employees;
 There should be a competent investigation of any alleged
violation;
 If violations are discovered, there should be a consistent and
equitable application of the penalty, preferably by the
immediate supervisor;
 There should be a provision for review. (In a unionised case,
this will be automatic via the grievance procedure; in a non-
unionised case, the employer will need to make other
provisions for review).

employee transfers

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