“Ugh, just finished communicating with a colleague about why his promotion was rejected.”
“Oh? Why?”
“Because his position hasn’t reached that level.”
(I)
It’s been over three years since Mia joined Kraft Heinz.
She’s basically rotated through various jobs through the internal management trainee path.
For the past year Mia has been doing CB (Compensation & Benefit),
one of whose responsibilities is reviewing employee hiring, raises, and promotion matters.
“What was up with your colleague’s promotion being rejected? Tell me more?”
Lirian is very curious, playing the straight man.
“Essentially his understanding diverged from the company.
He thought working hard would definitely lead to promotion,
but actually his position has already maxed out.”
“Oh oh oh, so this position only needs P6,
but even if he has P7 capability it can’t be used,
so no promotion?”
“Yes, that’s roughly the idea.
But P6/P7 is the Alibaba terminology.
Our company uses B14/B13.”
Yeah, often everyone’s understanding is “hard work always brings rewards,”
but at work it seems to be very position-related.
Lirian thought, then asked:
“So at work, different positions really do have different ceilings?”
(II)
“Definitely!” Mia continued,
“Even though a company has thousands of people,
some positions are more capable of standing out,
with higher ceilings.”
“True, all positions in a company are equal, but some positions are more equal.”
Mia continued lamenting, not yet satisfied:
“Excluding professional skills,
the closer a position is to the business, or the more irreplaceable,
the more important it generally is.
For example within HR, CB definitely has a positional advantage over SSC.”
“That’s the principle!
No wonder so many people think HRBP has more career development room than other positions.”
“Even the same position has different ceilings at different companies.”
Saying this, Mia made an analogy:
“Suppose your company’s recruiting was,
’look at how much Pinduoduo offers,
our position needs to offer the same,'
then your HR would be coughing blood…
The same career has different setups at different companies.”
Indeed clear-headed observation, Lirian nodded.
“That’s the principle, but a lot of people don’t get it.”
Suddenly Mia had a flash of insight, asking Lirian:
“Some positions are close to the business but also highly replaceable.
Test you, what kind of position fits this description?”
(III)
“Customer service? Counter staff?”
After a moment’s thought, the first image popping into Lirian’s mind was Indian call centers.
“They’re close to the frontline business, but the position ceiling is visible to the naked eye.”
“Yes, you’re right. There are also frontline regular salespeople.”
“Huh, how come?”
“For example our company’s sales sell soy sauce.
Frontline sales just do execution,
getting soy sauce onto certain shelves at certain locations.”
“Scientific, that really doesn’t seem to need a high level.”
……
After a moment of silence, Lirian curiously asked:
“Then why are people still willing to do such work?”
“Sales has a high ceiling!
Plus only frontline sales are easily replaceable.
Once you move up in the position and have the capability, you’re scarce.”
“What about customer service?”
“Uhh…” Mia hesitated,
“Forget it, I’m not them anyway, I don’t know their thoughts.”
(IV)
“So actually every position in a company has a corresponding grade.
Your colleague thought he could get promoted but was rejected, right?
This logic isn’t hard to understand. If he doesn’t get it, forget it, but his supervisor doesn’t get it either?”
“Each person’s starting point is different.
The business team might only see their own team’s situation,
but HRBP can see the whole business line,
we can see the whole company,
and even headquarters can see each country’s situation,
making comparison easier.”
“Mmm, maintaining relative fairness is important.
So it sounds like if you take a bird’s-eye view,
you can naturally generate the grade evaluation for each position across the company and the talent demand?”
“Right, that’s what OD does.”
Hearing another unfamiliar term, Lirian got curious again:
“OD? What does OD mean? On Demand?”
“OD is Organization Development.”
“Oh oh oh, this is strategic-level work.
Then your work sounds promising. Young man, keep at it!”
Lirian patted Mia’s shoulder, painting a beautiful future on her behalf.
(V)
“But for many big companies, eventually
the boss will ask consulting firms to do this part of the work.
We’re on the buyer side; in these situations a vendor is more appropriate.
The so-called ’the visiting monk chants the sutras better.'”
“Yes, when I was looking at SAP business analysis before, it was the same principle.
What Yonyou and Kingdee bring is just the module-level work style.
SAP directly handles the boss,
doing the company reforms the boss has wanted to do for a long time,
blowing up your entire organization chart,
and incidentally earning the software fee and implementation fee.”
“As long as you can handle the boss, anything is easy to do.”
“True… so the boss is also miserable, always being ‘handled.’”
(VI)
We just walked across from Feizhou International,
Lirian and Mia were preparing to turn right and cross the street,
and the topic turned to leaders’ attitudes.
“The boss often doesn’t want to be the bad guy.
At that point HR has to step up.”
“Can’t be helped, that’s how positions are divided in a limited liability company.”
Mia recalled the situation when the company’s business performance fluctuated, and continued:
“Like before when business was poor, the company first paused external hiring positions.
The boss also can’t publicly say the company has no money, but finance and HR know clearly.
Finance just cares about money. Don’t talk about other things, just save the money for me.
But HR has to be the bad guy at that point.
Around that time our HR head required all hiring, promotions, and raises to go through him, and tried his best to delay them…”
I imagined that work scene and sighed:
“Imaginably many people would have grievances against him,
and not necessarily of lower rank,
the boss probably got plenty of complaints.
HR really needs the boss’s strong support at these times.”
“Of course, after all it’s the position of taking the blame.”
(VII)
Almost at Feizhou International,
the evening walk to aid digestion was nearing its end.
“I just thought of another position:
far from the frontline, highly replaceable, but possibly very important.
Guess what position? It’s EA.”
“What’s EA? That game studio?”
“Executive Assistant.
A bad one just pours tea and prints files,
a good one really is the department’s number two.”
Lirian immediately shouted:
“Wow! I also want an EA!
That way I’d be the number one!”
Mia: “In! Your! Dreams!”