Employers failure to adhere to its promotional policy and procedure: Implications for fair labour practices

摘要

This paper highlights the importance of an employee adhering to its policy and procedure for promotion should there be need for any employee to be elevated in a workplace. The paper points that although it is desirable for an employee to adhere to its policy and procedure on promotion, where this was not done, this will not render any decision taken by the employee in this regard null and void provided there are cogent and convincing reasons for doing so. The bottom line is that there must be fairness in the exercise; defect in the procedure can therefore be cured by a fresh procedure. If this is lacking, automatically it will be tantamount to unfair labour practice and a competent adjudicating body will definitely declare it null and void. The paper also accentuates that the members of the selection panel need not be an experts neither do they need to be qualified in the particular position that is under consideration. What is required is that the panel members should have reasonable knowledge, that is, they should be in a position to make a reasonably informed decision or as is commonly said, they should apply their minds. This will suffice to make the interview worth the while of any decision. In support of the principles on promotion, the paper considers substantially numerous decided cases in order to establish whether a particular promotional exercise was fair or not.