What Hongkongers need to do to get ahead

Creating a fair and transparent appraisal system is one of the top priorities of human resources departments across industries, but Hong Kong employees don't seem to believe management is being fair when it comes to deciding on promotions.

According to jobsDB's Job Promotions Report 2017, Hongkongers rank "supervisor liking you" as the most important factor in determining promotion (5.90 out of a 7-point scale).

"Luck" (5.29) and "good performance reviews" (5.19) come in second and third. The report polled over 10,000 respondents from seven Asian countries.

The survey shows big gaps between employees and employers on what they believe are the decision criteria for job promotions.

While employees believe they need to get the boss to like them to get ahead, employers listed "good performance reviews" (6.38), "leadership ability" (5.92) and "exceptional work" (5.79) as the top three criteria for employees to earn a promotion.

Additionally, employers consider "luck" (3.16) and "having friends or relatives higher up" (2.68) as the least important.

Despite employers seeing performance as the most important factor to promote staff members, Hong Kong employees feel the promotion decision-making process isn't fair in terms of consistency, objectivity and opportunity to appeal, the report states.

Justin Yiu, general manager of JobsDB Hong Kong, commented HR departments should certainly do more to make appraisals more transparent to employees to enhance motivation and job satisfaction.

"More needs to be done by HR departments to ensure that everyone fully understands what exactly hirers are looking for, such as having measurable key performance indicators, and objective criteria and a clear system for choosing candidates, instead of just supervisor recommendations," he said. "That way employees can do their best to impress and win that promotion."

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