Promotion woes strain job-sector meritocracy

ALL OVER the world, the job market is changing profoundly.

According to the World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2025, technology-related roles are the fastest-growing, with big data specialists, fintech engineers, AI and machine learning experts far outstripping other jobs in expansion.

But while the global workplace is becoming more advanced, TT’s labour market is still dogged by trouble in rudimentary matters.

Within the public sector, which accounts for at least one-fifth of the total workforce, there have been serious problems with promotions.

In recent times, this has affected a wide range of workers, from teachers to members of the Defence Force.

A High Court judge on February 18 had to quash a promotions exercise in the police service, affecting 169 officers, because of a seriously defective and illegal system being used.

It was only the latest chapter in promotion travails in the public service going back decades, including within the police.

While the private and public sectors differ significantly, public sector barriers reduce the competitiveness of the state to a degree that hinders overall economic growth.

The government also sets the tone for the rest of the country in the long run.

Additionally, there’s a way in which poor promotion practices damage the sense of meritocracy, as opposed to seniority, within workplace cultures.

For decades, the public sector was defined by seniority – the idea that you rose through the ranks the longer you worked.

This approach, which has the benefit of certainty, had the clear drawback of leaving a gap between performance and promotion.

It was harder, in theory, to get and keep the best and the brightest in a field if their output would not make a difference in terms of their place within an organisation’s hierarchy.

Promotions based on merit give employers the flexibility to nurture, reward and acknowledge talent.

But the way promotions on merit have been working has opened a hornet’s nest of additional issues.

In place of certainty, there is an element of unpredictability and, sometimes, downright arbitrariness.

Instead of seeming fair, this renders processes liable to allegations of abuse and favouritism.

A poorly designed system, as exists now in the police service based on the facts of the case presided over by Justice Frank Seepersad, turns out to completely undermine the idea that merit matters. Instead, workers who "get through" do so at the cost of participation in systems that draw suspicion.

It is important, therefore, for the public sector to draw lessons from its mistakes and to seek inspiration from standards within the private sector.

The deeper issue is also the need for public service reform, with a pressing need for standardisation of workplace policies across commissions.

Such reform should not be limited to basic matters like work-from-home policies and anti-harassment procedures.

It should comprehensively revamp the way people are rewarded for their performance in a way that makes working for the government more competitive.

Doing so would serve as an engine for growth.