Here is some research sure to rankle every employee who has applied for an internal promotion and been passed over in favor of someone brought in from the outside。
According to Wharton management professor Matthew Bidwell, "external hires" get significantly lower performance evaluations for their first two years on the job than do internal workers who are promoted into similar jobs. They also have higher exit rates, and they are paid "substantially more." About 18% to 20% more. On the plus side for these external hires, if they stay beyond two years, they get promoted faster than do those who are promoted internally。
"Most jobs are entered into through a variety of different routes, sometimes by being hired from the outside and sometimes by moving up from inside the firm," says Bidwell. "I was curious as to what the effect of these different routes would be" on an individual's job performance. His research is presented in a paper titled, "Paying More to Get Less: The Effects of External Hiring versus Internal Mobility."
The issue has significance for organizations, Bidwell says, as they think about where they source their employees, especially higher-level ones. Do they "grow their own" or do they go out into the job market and hire outsiders? "My research documents some quite substantial costs to external hires and some substantial benefits to internal mobility," he notes。
Getting Up to Speed
The context for Bidwell's research lies in the increased mobility of workers over the past three decades as companies have turned away from offering lifetime employment in favor of relying on the external labor market to find experienced workers at all levels of the organization。
By comparing internal mobility and external hiring processes -- looking specifically at performance and pay -- Bidwell's research can help employees learn more about "the consequences of their career decisions," including the tradeoffs that characterize internal and external mobility, Bidwell writes in his paper。
Some of those tradeoffs are easily identified. In noting that external hires need about two years "to get up to speed" in their new jobs, Bidwell suggests it is because outsiders need that amount of time to learn how to be effective in their new organization -- specifically, how to build relationships. Meanwhile, the risk of failure is substantial. Although external hires are paid quite a bit more than employees promoted into similar jobs, "this is not a free lunch for the external hires," he says. "There is a much greater risk of being let go during those first few years, mainly because they may not develop the necessary skills and thus will not perform as well as expected. Then, too, they might decide to leave voluntarily."
While doing his research, Bidwell noted one particular difference between the external hires and those already in the company who are being promoted. "People hired into the job from the outside often have more education and experience [than internal candidates], which is probably some of the reason they are being paid more," he says. "When you know less about the person you are hiring, you tend to be more rigorous about the things you can see" -- such as education and experience levels listed on a person's CV, or what Bidwell calls "externally observable attributes." And yet "education and experience are reasonably weak signals of how good somebody will be on the job, he notes。
Those tradeoffs might help explain why external hires earn so much more than internal employees promoted into the same jobs. If these hires have better resumes and are perceived as able to get a job more easily outside the company, then they can demand higher pay than internal people. Hires may also want higher pay to reflect the unfamiliar environment that they face on coming into a new position. Hiring managers confirm that they typically pay 10% or 20% more to pull people out of positions "where they already have some security and where people know them and know they are doing a good job," Bidwell says。
He acknowledges that his research may frustrate an organization's in-house workforce. "It is sadly the case that being more marketable, as external candidates are, is always going to be valuable and will generally lead to higher compensation. So the question is, should internal people threaten to quit to raise their pay?" It's well known in academia, for example, that the only way to get a significant pay raise is to nail down an outside offer, Bidwell notes. "But in some organizations, that's an easy way to get fired. People will take it as a signal that you are disloyal."
Bidwell offers this career advice: "If you like where you are, stay there. Or at least understand how hard it can be to take your skills with you. You think you can go to another job and perform well, but it takes a long time to build up to the same effectiveness that you had in your previous organization. You need to be aware that often your skills are much less portable than you think they are." Bidwell is clearly a fan of internal mobility. "While the pay may be less, your performance is better, and there is more security."
'Let's Make a Deal'
For his research, Bidwell analyzed personnel data from a US investment banking division from 2003 to 2009. In that study, he documented twice as many internal promotions as external hires. Investment banking, Bidwell writes, represents "an interesting context in which to study the effects of internal versus external mobility [because] organizational performance often depends on the skills of the workforce, [thereby] increasing the importance of personnel decisions." In addition, workers in banking are "notoriously mobile, making this a context in which organizations regularly engage in external hiring at all levels."
One important feature of investment banking jobs is that promotions tend to involve some measure of continuity with the prior job. Promotions often involve getting a higher title, such as vice president or director, while continuing to do similar work. In fact, as Bidwell notes, promotions in many organizations do not instantly lead into a very different job. Instead, responsibilities increase gradually, being recognized over time by a promotion. When considering their future staffing needs, though, organizations still must think about how they will acquire the workers capable of operating at the higher levels: Will it be by hiring or promotion?
Bidwell found similar patterns for different kinds of jobs and within different organizations. He analyzed separately the investment professionals (traders, salespeople, research analysts and investment bankers) and the support staff at the research site. His findings about pay and performance were consistent across those groups. He also looked at another investment bank and a publishing company, and found the same results of "paying more for external hires while giving them lower performance ratings."
He concludes, however, that the nature of the promotion mattered. Unlike other promoted workers, those who were simultaneously promoted and transferred to another group did not perform any better than external hires. Bidwell speculates that "the skills that are important to our jobs may be very specific to the positions that we are in. Even large changes in the nature of jobs within the organization were associated with performance declines."
Yet overall, Bidwell says, external hiring has grown much more frequent since the early 1980s, especially for experienced high level positions and especially in larger organizations. "It used to be that smaller organizations always did a lot of outside hiring while big ones focused more on internal mobility. But now the pendulum has shifted toward external hiring and away from internal mobility for large organizations as well。
"Companies should understand that it can often be harder than it seems to bring in people who look good on paper," says Bidwell. "In addition, there is a suspicion that 'the grass is always greener' attitude plays a role in some companies' desire to hire from the outside. Managers see a great CV and get excited about playing 'Let's Make a Deal,' even when it's hard to know what weaknesses the external hires bring with them."
On the other hand, "to promote more people internally also means that companies need to have a long-term perspective and know how big a pipeline of people will be needed in the future," notes Bidwell. It also requires managers to ensure that internal people are aware of the opportunities open to them. "Finally, there are clearly some costs to internal mobility -- for example, the cost of training people in-house versus piggybacking on someone else's training."
Another variable in the mobility equation, he adds, concerns non-compete clauses which tend to complicate the movement of employees between competing firms. "Although these have not always been so salient in investment banking, non-compete agreements have become increasingly important in many states and many jobs, particularly in areas like technology where employers can plausibly claim that employees will take critical competitive knowledge with them."
'Involuntary Exits'
In his paper, Bidwell argues that the differences between internal and external mobility all ultimately stem from two factors: the skills workers bring from their prior jobs, and the amount of information that firms and workers have about each other。
He comments on the significant amount of new knowledge that external hires are required to learn, even in those jobs that demand "high levels of general skills, such as securities research, scientific research and surgery... Although such work depends on individual workers' skills and knowledge, it can also require intense coordination with others in the organization." Because internal movers have longer experience within the firm, "they are likely to have already acquired important firm-specific skills that new hires will lack," Bidwell writes。
In terms of the process that takes place when firms and external employees are eyeing each other for a possible matchup, Bidwell writes that the task can be difficult because each side often has "highly incomplete information about each other. Firms struggle to evaluate the true qualities of applications, and workers struggle to know which of the jobs available will best suit their preferences and abilities." But, as Bidwell notes, companies obviously have more information about internal job candidates, including how well they have performed in prior roles and how well they fit in with the current organization。
Bidwell suggests that his paper "provides unique evidence on the value to firms of internal labor market structures. Results show that internal mobility allows the firm to staff higher-level jobs with workers who have better performance but are paid less." By detailing the strong advantage of internal mobility over external hires, he adds, "these findings help to explain the continued resilience of internal labor markets in the face of pressures for worker mobility."
企業(yè)有時(shí)候會(huì)為了從外部引進(jìn)人才而忽略了內(nèi)部員工的升職訴求，相信有過(guò)類(lèi)似遭遇的人在看了這份調(diào)查后會(huì)更為惱火。
沃頓學(xué)院管理學(xué)教授馬修·比德維爾(Matthew Bidwell)表示，相對(duì)于內(nèi)部提拔的員工而言，相同崗位上的外部招聘人員在享受較高的薪金待遇(大約要高出18%到20%還多)的情況下，頭兩年的表現(xiàn)卻普遍較差，且更容易辭職跳槽。不過(guò)倘若這些人能撐過(guò)頭兩年的話(huà)，他們的升職速度會(huì)遠(yuǎn)超過(guò)內(nèi)部提拔的員工。
“大部分崗位選擇候選人的方式都不是單一的，有時(shí)候會(huì)選擇從外部招聘，有時(shí)候也會(huì)從公司內(nèi)部進(jìn)行提拔。”比德維爾說(shuō)，“我很想知道這兩種不同的方式會(huì)怎樣影響最終入職人員的工作表現(xiàn)。”他將自己的研究結(jié)果寫(xiě)入了一篇題為《投入大收益小：外部招聘與內(nèi)部提拔的效果比較》(Paying More to Get Less: The Effects of External Hiring versus Internal Mobility)的論文中。
比德維爾表示，對(duì)于組織而言，這個(gè)問(wèn)題很重要。畢竟這關(guān)系到它們的員工，尤其是高級(jí)員工的來(lái)源構(gòu)成問(wèn)題：究竟應(yīng)當(dāng)“從內(nèi)部培養(yǎng)”還是去勞動(dòng)市場(chǎng)進(jìn)行外部招聘呢?他說(shuō)：“我的研究結(jié)果顯示，外部招聘的成本比較高，選擇內(nèi)部人員流動(dòng)反而有著較高的收益。”
磨合期
在過(guò)去的三十年中，企業(yè)拋棄了終身雇傭制，并開(kāi)始尋求依靠外部勞動(dòng)市場(chǎng)來(lái)發(fā)掘有經(jīng)驗(yàn)的工人。比德維爾的研究正是在這一員工流動(dòng)性大增的背景下展開(kāi)的。
比德維爾通過(guò)對(duì)工作表現(xiàn)和工資收入的比較分析，揭示了內(nèi)部提拔和外部招聘的特點(diǎn)，從而使得員工可以更好的了解“在職業(yè)生涯中的不同決策會(huì)導(dǎo)致的不同結(jié)果，”他在自己的論文中寫(xiě)道。
一般而言，外部招聘人員需要兩年的“磨合期”才能適應(yīng)新的崗位。比德維爾表示這是因?yàn)橥獠空衅溉藛T需要時(shí)間來(lái)適應(yīng)新的環(huán)境，主要是需要在這段時(shí)間里建立新的人脈關(guān)系。盡管外部招聘人員比起內(nèi)部提拔的員工的工資要高很多，但“這絕不是天上掉餡餅的好事”，他說(shuō)，“頭幾年很多人會(huì)選擇辭職。這多半是因?yàn)樗麄儧](méi)有培養(yǎng)出必要的工作技巧，就使得工作表現(xiàn)大大低于預(yù)期。這時(shí)候就會(huì)有人選擇自動(dòng)辭職。”
在研究的過(guò)程中，比德維爾注意到外部招聘和內(nèi)部提拔之間有一處很明顯的差異。“外部招聘來(lái)的人員(比起內(nèi)部提拔的員工)教育程度更高，也更有經(jīng)驗(yàn)。這應(yīng)該就是他們能得到高薪的原因。”他說(shuō)，“如果你不是很了解你想要雇傭的員工，你就會(huì)傾向于只依賴(lài)能外部觀(guān)察到的東西。”就包括個(gè)人簡(jiǎn)歷上的教育程度和經(jīng)驗(yàn)水平，比德維爾稱(chēng)之為“外部觀(guān)察屬性”。但他指出，“教育程度和經(jīng)驗(yàn)水平并非衡量一個(gè)人是否能勝任某個(gè)職位的指標(biāo)。”
這就可以解釋為什么相同的職位上，外部聘用人員比內(nèi)部提拔上來(lái)的員工的工資要高這么多了。如果這些人簡(jiǎn)歷很出色，又公認(rèn)可以很輕易的找到新工作，他們自然可以要求得到更高的薪水。與此同時(shí)，高薪也有可被視為一種補(bǔ)償，畢竟新的崗位就意味著要面對(duì)一個(gè)陌生的工作環(huán)境。比德維爾說(shuō)，他從許多招聘經(jīng)理那里得到了證實(shí)，就是要將人們從“有安全感也有成就感”的崗位上挖走，通常要加付10%到20%的工資才行。
他承認(rèn)，這一研究成果也許會(huì)讓組織內(nèi)部員工感到沮喪。“盡管很可悲，但是跳槽確實(shí)會(huì)提升個(gè)人價(jià)值，也會(huì)提高工資水準(zhǔn)�，F(xiàn)在的問(wèn)題是，內(nèi)部員工是否應(yīng)當(dāng)以辭職作威脅來(lái)要求漲工資呢?”舉例來(lái)說(shuō)，在學(xué)術(shù)界，要想漲工資，一個(gè)新的工作邀請(qǐng)是必須的，比德維爾表示，“但在某些組織中，這很有可能會(huì)被視為不忠誠(chéng)而導(dǎo)致被炒魷魚(yú)。”
比德維爾建議說(shuō)：“如果你喜歡自己的工作，就老老實(shí)實(shí)的工作。雖然你會(huì)認(rèn)為跳槽不會(huì)影響個(gè)人工作表現(xiàn)，但事實(shí)上，工作水準(zhǔn)一般需要很長(zhǎng)時(shí)間的適應(yīng)后才能恢復(fù)。要知道，工作技巧可不是那么容易能帶走的。”很明顯，比德維爾更支持內(nèi)部提拔的方式，“雖然這樣工資會(huì)少一點(diǎn)，但能夠工作的更加自如，這也就意味著你的工作更有保障”
“就這么定了”
在研究過(guò)程中，比德維爾對(duì)2003年到2009年美國(guó)投資銀行人事部門(mén)的數(shù)據(jù)進(jìn)行了分析。記錄顯示，這里外部招聘的人員數(shù)目是內(nèi)部提拔的兩倍。他在論文中寫(xiě)道，投行是“研究?jī)?nèi)外人事流動(dòng)的一個(gè)絕好的范例，(因?yàn)?投行的表現(xiàn)更多的取決于員工自身的技能，(因而)提高了人事選擇的重要程度。”此外，投行的員工“在跳槽方面的名聲也是眾所周知的，這就使得投行各個(gè)層次都有著定期的外部招聘行為。”
同時(shí)，投行的工作還有一個(gè)重要特點(diǎn)，那就是升職往往與個(gè)人此前的工作表現(xiàn)密切相關(guān)。升職往往意味頭銜的提升，例如升為副總裁或是主管，但工作內(nèi)容往往沒(méi)有太大的變化。事實(shí)上，正如比德維爾指出的那樣，在許多組織中，升職并不意味著工作內(nèi)容的變動(dòng)。相反，職責(zé)的增加是緩慢演進(jìn)的，升職只是對(duì)前段工作的一個(gè)認(rèn)可。當(dāng)考慮到未來(lái)的員工需求時(shí)，組織仍要考慮高端員工的來(lái)源問(wèn)題：究竟是招聘還是提拔呢?
比德維爾發(fā)現(xiàn)不同的組織中的不同的職位卻存在著相似的模式。他在分析一家投行專(zhuān)業(yè)投資人士(貿(mào)易商，銷(xiāo)售人員，研究分析師和投資銀行家)和后勤行政人員之后，發(fā)現(xiàn)薪酬和績(jī)效的關(guān)系是一致的。此外對(duì)另外一家投行和一家出版公司的研究結(jié)果也是一樣，都是“外部招聘人員的薪水較高，但績(jī)效不佳。”
他得出的一個(gè)結(jié)論是，升職之后的工作內(nèi)容很重要。與其他升職的情況不同，倘若提拔后被調(diào)到新的團(tuán)隊(duì)中的，被提拔員工往往就不會(huì)比外部招聘人員干的更好。比德維爾認(rèn)為，“良好的工作水準(zhǔn)是與工作內(nèi)容密切相關(guān)的。因此即使是組織內(nèi)部的人事變動(dòng)，工作內(nèi)容變動(dòng)過(guò)大也會(huì)影響工作發(fā)揮。”
比德維爾表示，總體來(lái)看，自20世紀(jì)80年代初以來(lái)外部招聘開(kāi)始變得頻繁起來(lái)，尤其是大型組織和經(jīng)驗(yàn)需求較高的高級(jí)職位更是如此。“以前是小公司經(jīng)常進(jìn)行外部招聘，而大公司則傾向于內(nèi)部提拔。但現(xiàn)在情況變了，大公司也開(kāi)始放棄內(nèi)部人員流動(dòng)，開(kāi)始采用外部招聘的方式了。”
“企業(yè)要明白，簡(jiǎn)歷出色的員工引進(jìn)起來(lái)并不容易。”比德維爾說(shuō)，“與此同時(shí)，企業(yè)選擇外部招聘有時(shí)是出于這么一個(gè)觀(guān)念，那就是‘外來(lái)的和尚會(huì)念經(jīng)’�？吹揭环莺馨舻暮�(jiǎn)歷時(shí)，管理者往往就會(huì)忽略外部招聘的各種缺點(diǎn)，腦袋一熱就叫道：‘就這么定了。’”
而另一方面，“從內(nèi)部提拔員工就意味著公司必須有著長(zhǎng)遠(yuǎn)的眼光，能夠知道將來(lái)需要多少人才。”比德維爾說(shuō)。這就需要管理者保證內(nèi)部人員都知道自己有這么個(gè)升職的機(jī)會(huì)。“內(nèi)部提拔自然有著自身的成本。舉例來(lái)說(shuō)，內(nèi)部提拔就意味著要支付培訓(xùn)員工的費(fèi)用，而不是想外部招聘那樣等于有別人幫自己培訓(xùn)員工。”
他補(bǔ)充道，非競(jìng)爭(zhēng)條款也使得處于競(jìng)爭(zhēng)狀態(tài)的企業(yè)間的員工流動(dòng)變得復(fù)雜起來(lái)。“盡管這點(diǎn)在投行中并不明顯，但非競(jìng)爭(zhēng)條款正變得越來(lái)越重要。對(duì)于性崗位技能具有排他的職位更是如此。”
非自愿退出
比德維爾在論文中提出，外部招聘和內(nèi)部提拔之間的區(qū)別是基于如下兩個(gè)因素：第一是員工從前一個(gè)崗位上帶來(lái)的技能，第二是企業(yè)與員工之間相互了解的情況。
他表示，外部招聘人員需要學(xué)習(xí)很多知識(shí)。即使是需要“高水平的一般性技能，例如證券研究，科學(xué)研究和外科手術(shù)……盡管些工作依賴(lài)于個(gè)體勞動(dòng)者的‘知識(shí)和技能’，它也需要與組織內(nèi)部其他人員進(jìn)行廣泛協(xié)調(diào)。”而內(nèi)部提拔的員工因?yàn)閷?duì)企業(yè)有著較深的認(rèn)識(shí)，“他們很有可能已經(jīng)取得了與企業(yè)相適應(yīng)的技能，而這正是新招聘來(lái)的員工所欠缺的。”比德維爾在論文中寫(xiě)道。
比德維爾的論文也提到，公司和外部員工之間的雙向選擇是一個(gè)非常困難的過(guò)程。這是因?yàn)殡p方“持有的對(duì)方的信息都極度不完整。公司想要評(píng)估員工的真正實(shí)力，而員工則想要弄清楚這個(gè)崗位究竟是否既符合自己的愛(ài)好，也適合自己的能力。”與此同時(shí)，企業(yè)對(duì)于內(nèi)部員工的了解要更多一些，例如企業(yè)既可以了解到員工之前的崗位表現(xiàn)，也清楚該員工是否已經(jīng)能適應(yīng)自身的組織系統(tǒng)。
比德維爾表示，他的論文“顯示了企業(yè)保持內(nèi)部人員流動(dòng)的價(jià)值所在。因?yàn)閮?nèi)部人員流動(dòng)可以讓公司找到薪水要求較低而工作表現(xiàn)卻更好的員工。”在詳細(xì)描述內(nèi)部提拔相對(duì)于外部招聘的明顯優(yōu)勢(shì)上，他補(bǔ)充說(shuō)：“這些發(fā)現(xiàn)有助于解釋當(dāng)前員工流動(dòng)性提升的壓力下，企業(yè)內(nèi)部勞力市場(chǎng)又開(kāi)始恢復(fù)生命力的原因。”
