Meritocracies? Be careful what you wish for

OK, so your organisation has a reward strategy and philosophy that emphasises paying for performance and progression based wholly on merit, a key objective of the reward agenda in most organisations, according to the CIPD's latest reward management survey. And the Coalition Government echoes its Labour predecessors in aiming to build the right context for such policies. It wants to create a fairer and more meritocractic society, in which opportunities and income are driven wholly by ability, rather than class or background, employing former Labour minister Alan Milburn as its social mobility adviser.