How Should HR Handle Promotion Promises in Appointment Orders During Probation?

Dear HR paternities, Recently, we recruited a technical professional at the AGM cadre. At the time of the interview, he showed interest in joining at the DGM cadre. However, my CEO convinced and committed to him that during the probation period (i.e., the 1st year), he would be in the AGM cadre, and at the time of confirmation, he would be elevated to the DGM cadre. Now, the candidate wants to include this clause in his appointment order, and my CEO has also accepted the same.

HR Perspective Questions

1) If I declare the above clause in the appointment order, what is the need for declaring a probation period, as if I am confirming his promotion on day one?

2) What happens if his performance is not up to the expected level? Do I still need to promote him since we included the above clause in the appointment order?

3) Is there any company practicing such issues? What are the pros and cons?

Kindly revert with your valuable suggestions.

Regards,
B. Parbu

Dear Prabhu, you can add the clause, as it has been accepted by your CEO. He will be promoted to the DGM Cadre upon completion of the probation period, i.e., _____ (duration), subject to his satisfactory performance level.

Regards,

There is nothing wrong per se in including any special clause in the appointment letter. However, appointment letters are standard. Do not dilute this standardization because of one person.

You may issue to this person a supplementary letter. In the supplementary letter, you may state that "You will be elevated to the position of _____ after one year subject to the fulfillment of measures of performance." Assessment of these measures of performance as on ____ (date). Your measures of performance are as below:

- a)
- b)
- and so on.

While designing measures of performance, make sure that you include perfectly measurable results and do not include vague measures like "preparing policies," "bring systematic work culture," etc. It has to be SMART like "improve customer satisfaction level from ___% to ____%."

Another important thing to include in the letter is about "Managerial Code of Conduct." What if this person goes on rubbing everybody the wrong way? He may meet measures of performance but may vitiate the organization's culture.

P.S.: There are lots of typing and grammatical errors in your post. I recommend you write your post on MS Word and then copy and paste here. You will be able to reduce the mistakes if you do this.

Thanks,

Dinesh V Divekar