Does meritocracy exist in your workplace?

[kxingstar]

While having a chat with a close colleague a while ago, we basically agreed how our current office is probably the most meritocratic one we've both worked in. 

It seems like anyone—no matter your education background, race, or nationality, is able to get promoted or raises as long as you do your job very well. I think it helps that it's a small company so the boss has good personal oversight on everyone's performance. Unfortunately, it's a small company (less than 15 people) so there aren't a lot of high positions or salaries to go around.

But even then, I feel like this is better than some of the much bigger companies I worked at before because working life seems more fair. At the same time, I should also mention that I'm a mom now and my combined salaries with my husband's feel enough for us to give our kids a decent upbringing. So I will understand if some readers prefer bigger companies with a higher wage ceiling.

At one of my ex-companies (300 people in Singapore office), there's a lot more talk from senior management about how good work will be rewarded but that didn't seem like the case. There were quite a number of high-performing colleagues who were somehow stuck in junior to middle positions. 

And there were a couple of people who didn't really seem like the best performers, to put it politely, but were promoted every year or so. Through the grapevine, I learned that they were really well connected. Like, born into rich and powerful families kind of well connected.

What about your experiences? I think it's important to share because like what the description of this forum says, we should make ourselves smarter employees.