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Fighting the Forced Ranking of Employees?
Allen asks: "The company I work for has a forced ranking system for performance reviews. Employees are ranked from 1 to 5, with 5 being the best, in a bell curve arrangement. Department managers are required to identify: 10% as 5s (excels), 20% as 4's (exceeds), 50% as 3s (fully meets), 15% as 2s (partially meets), and 5% as 1s (requires action). In an department of 100 employees, this means that 5 employees must be identified and labeled as ones, and at least 20 employees as below average. The net result is every employee in the department is competing against their peers to increase (or maintain) their ranking. We're supposed to work together as a team, and support each other to get the product out the door, but the forced ranking system encourages us to instead stomp on each other, and stab each other in the back, in order to secure a higher ranking. That and, after working our collective rears off to get a new product out the door, several of us were given below average rankings that we believe are undeserved. How would you fight a forced ranking system at your job? I enjoy the technology I work on, and I enjoy working with my peers, but this forced ranking system is very demoralizing."
1. Start looking for a new job. That type of ranking system just leads to misery
2. Let someone in HR know how you feel, and how you think it will negatively affect the performance of your group as a team. Do this officially, in person.
3. Obtain new job, as HR will ignore you, because it was their crummy idea in the first place.
4. Write well thought out letter, addressed to your boss, CC'ing the HR department head, your department head, and the CFO, letting them know why you are leaving. Won't help you, but may help some of the poor schmucks that are still there.
"The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground." - Thomas Jefferson
But in my opinion this is a terrible system. The bell curve has no true logical basis. And even if it did, this system would still be flawed: assume a company of 1000 people split into 10 divisions of 100 people each. Under this system each of those 10 divisions must utilize this ranking system. But what if one division has all 100 of the "superstar" employees, and another has all the worst employees? Under this system, a certain percentage of really bad employees must be ranked as above average or "superstars" while a certain percentage of true "superstars" must be ranked at below average or failing.
I think any person who would implement such a system is a true "1" It is just an obviously bad system. They should simply allow each division head to rank at will, then essentially "meta-moderate" that persons rankings somehow. Have someone come in an audit the department from either the outside or from another department to see how accurate those rankings are... That would be a much better system...
--Kobayashi--
This actually works for the first few rounds. The problem is, let's say you have 100 employees. You probably have 10% of them that you could fire and be better off. So the first year you do that. You hire 10 more people to replace them. Now you've got
+1 fireable person and +9 better than that. repeat.
Pretty soon, you get to the point where you've burned off the dead wood and are now burning your future forest. Otherwise, you are saying that people's performance automatically degrades and/or the HR department can't hire for sh*t (both of which may be true).
Anyway, I realize the parent might be joking, but seriously, these forced ranking things are only going to get more popular if for no other reason than lawsuit avoidance. You can't sue for a bad review if the hiring manager must give a certain percentage of "bad" reviews.
I've been on both sides of this issue. I don't understand how techies can argue against the fact that half of their team is below average *for the team*.
Many posters have claimed that management is not doing their job if there are people at the bottom. But relative to others, there are always people at the bottom. Forced ranking seems to be the only way for a middle manager to get a picture of who needs work and to get the line manager to acknowledge it.
This forced ranking was popularized by the GE management book a while back, where people were ranked A/B/C with a breakdown of 10/80/10 percent.
Being in the 10% of C's doesn't mean you get fired, it is a tool for management to decide who to focus on. The correct solution might simply be to move to a different group or position better suited to the persons skills or interests. Or it might mean more training. Or yes it might mean they will be put on a performance plan to make managements expectations clear, possibly leading to termination.
Such need not be public. The forced rankings can be divorced from annual review ranks, where someone could receive a meets expectations and still be a C. It could be managements job to figure out how to make this merely good employee be great.
For example, you might have a developer who writes good code, but who is very slow because they don't use tools to automate there work. I've seen this a lot. Getting a traditionally IDE oriented developer to learn to use command line tools, perl, or a decent editor with macros can increase their productivity. You wouldn't just fire them off the bat because they aren't as good as your other developers.
The only addendums I'd make are:
4. Projects - Don't over-extend yourself, though. When you step up, you need to be able to execute.
8. Do Things by the Book - Know what the whole "book" says, not just the parts written down. And know when/how to break/change the rules when they are broken. Each organization has a mechanism for change, written or unwritten. If you're stuck in an organization that does not, get out -- down that path lies madness.