As may be clear from other entries on this blog, I have worked in academia and in industry. At this point, I have spent a decade in both, roughly. There are numerous differences between the two worlds, many of which very much worth writing about. Perhaps I will do so, some day. Today, one such topics is what I feel especially pressed to write on.
The Recognition and Rewards movement in the academic world is very much needed, long overdue and finally getting some real traction. This is great! One of its main premises is that the way in which we have traditionally been valuing scientists is up for reform. No longer will we primarily look at citation counts, h-indices and the amount of grant money won (read: who rides the luck-ridden waves of the research-focused Matthew effect most successfully), but we expand our view to all that matters to universities and research facilities: education, leadership, teamwork, openness of the work, you name it. This should lead to a broader skilled workforce, more inclusive hiring and more diverse incentives for your everyday activities. This movement is great, and I happily try to support it where I can.
The name of the movement already tells you what it is about. We focus on recognizing and rewarding a broader set of things than we used to. That automatically leads to the discussion of the form of said recognition and rewards. In practice, compliments of your colleagues, satisfaction among students and being happy with and proud of what you’re doing are giving satisfaction and are rewarding. Here, though, it seems to make more sense to talk about ways in which academic institutions can give evidence of their gratitude towards their employees. In this regard, it would make sense if academic or industry employers are not so radically different. They all employ humans, after all.
Of the many and varied types of rewards I will focus here on, as the title already suggests, promotion. Promotion is a term that describes the growth of employees into new roles that typically require more experience and/or responsibility. In reality, this often comes with a new job title, and, typically, a shift upwards in pay grade as well. I will not comment here on the financial renumeration of work, nor on the pressure that employees feel on different levels to work for more hours than their contracts state (and than is good for them), as the complexity of that is just enormous. What I do want to comment on is one very simple, yet very noticeable difference between what I have experienced in academia vs industry:
How to get a promotion
In my years in industry, in which I have seen numerous companies (both as an employee, as well as in the role of consultant), one thing seemed consistent in promotions: your supervisor/boss/manager or whatever the role is called gives you a promotion when they see your potential and when they want to show you that you’re worth it. You may have to ask for it, but when they agree, they can get it done. It may require some bureaucracy and some time, but the burden is largely on your superior.
In the academic world, in my experience that spans five institutions in two rather different academic fields, this is rather different. If you want to climb the ladder, especially that of tenure track and up, you also need to get promotion. Instead of verbally convincing your superior who then sets this in motion, you will have to go beg for it. Even when you get told that you act on a level higher than your current academic position, by people who know and who have influence (over you), then still it is on you to go beg for it. This entails, typically, a very extensive portfolio to be coughed up, that shows that you indeed may be acting at the level above you (and have been for a while), that you are likely worth it and that your request to get that level-up is perhaps justified. The main focus of the portfolio? Lists of awesome achievements and one-offs, rather offset from how you perform on an average day at work. This will then be read by 1) people who already knew that you’re worth it because they are your everyday supervisors and 2) HR, who do not know you personally and hence can only rely on over-simplified metrics, rather than on what value you bring to the team every day. After a procedure of several months or more (!!), you may get that well-deserved promotion.
Remember that we were talking about rewards. Promotion is one of those things we see as a reward: something you get when you perform well. Recognition of your talents in its most concrete form, one might say. I would really urge academic institutes to take their industry colleagues as a good example here: when an employee deserves it, give them the recognition and reward in the form of a promotion. Don’t let them beg for it for months until your queue of requests has been cleared. Trust the supervisors’ (who you put in that position for a reason!) judgement and give recognition where it is due, when it is due. This, for one, might make your employees feel recognized and rewarded. You’ll see the results of that in satisfaction monitors and culture barometers!
