The
seniority-based promotion and wage system, coupled with
lifetime employment, implied that almost all regular
employees would receive higher positions and
responsibilities as they reached “appropriate” age
levels. This could be easily accomplished in a growing
company and expanding economy but now a slowing economy
that has forced companies to cut back it can no longer
absorb the expanding cadre of middle- and upper-level
managers. The bloated middle in the organization,
however, has the undesirable effect of slowing down an
already cumbersome
decision-making process. The system, thus, has a
demoralizing effect on younger people who are just
behind the
baby boom generation and foresees little opportunity
to be promoted to top management by the time they are
55. According to a study by the
Tokyo Chamber of Commerce, only 10 percent of
current employees are ever likely to get managerial
positions in their companies, down from 62 percent in
1965.
While
sidelining employees may help in promoting younger, more
qualified employees, it is also fraught with danger. And
this technique not particularly suited even to the
Japanese system. It creates friction between employees
of the same age, thereby weakening the bonds among
members of primary groups, and strains working
relationships between primary and secondary groups. It
also promotes favoritism, because in an ill-defined
group-oriented, where job responsibility is not specific
and performance is group-oriented, measurement of
individual performance is never totally objective and
contains a large element of personal judgment and
feeling. Some large companies are now developing
alternative career paths that increasingly incorporate
individual job description, individual goals, and
performance appraisal directly to an individual’s
compensation. This change signals a distinct departure
from traditional Japanese practices. |
