Re: The Decline Of Moral Within The Rail Systems

[Peter Ware <pwware@ozemail.com.au>]

Mal Bigg wrote:

> State Rail, like many other government utilities is only now paying the
> price for adopting the promotion by merit system.
> During the early 90’s, many experienced campaigners with 20 years plus
> service were being beating to promotion by quick mind kids or
> unemployed semi professional students or fully qualified professionals
> needing stop gap employment.

I spent many years in a system based on promotion by seniority and could
only look forward to years "sitting on my backside" waiting for my name to
reach to top of the seniority list (or "stud book" as it was called). I
jumped with joy when they introduced promotion by merit - only to discover
that everything David has said is true!!! Those who had good interview
skills, who could put together a dazzling CV (never mind the BS - look at
the quantity) were getting the promotions - and I have say that most (with
far too few exceptions) were incapable of doing the job.

What's the solution - perhaps a combination of the two. You would have to
prove your worth at your current job as well as showing that you had the
ability, drive, ambition, skills, etc to be a success in a promoted
position.

At same time, it is easy to forget that many highly skilled individuals are
happy in their current positions and do not want to be promoted. Another
poor aspect of the meritocracy based system is the sense that you are a
failure if you do not seek promotion.

Peter Ware

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