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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."
Unionize and adopt a more preferable performance review structure as part of your bargained contract. It'll work wonders.
OTOH, the "forced" rankings are, in my opinion, a good thing. It requires managers to not take the easy way out and just rank (relatively) poor performers as "average" and avoid confrontation. Also, it allows people to know where they stand within the company. The company I work for uses a system somewhat like the OP's, and though initially I was against it, after giving it some thought I think it's a good thing.
As for the backstabbing, etc. -- that is a problem that management needs to address. That sort of thing usually becomes pretty obvious after a short time and it shouldn't be tolerated. If those who are ranked lower than they want to be are given the support of management to address their areas of weakness, they can (and will) move up in ranking, unless everyone else does a better job of improving.
The company I currently work for has a rating system similar to the one you described. Recently, they started to enforce a quota for each of the rating categories because the vast majority of employees were being ranked as exceeding or far exceeding their manager's expectations. Now, I work with a stellar group of engineers, but if all of us are always exceeding our managers expectations, maybe they should raise their expectations.
When the quota system was introduced, we all bristled at the idea of being forced to participate. We have to get ranked on our teams (with anywhere from 3 to 10 people), ranked within our projects (10 to 100 people), and ranked within our department (~1000 people), although the department rankings are broken down into seniority groups. Frankly, its frightening because as the groups get larger and the managers further from the cube farm, its harder and harder to make decisions about who is doing good work, and who isn't. It also brings into question how it is that we demonstrate value to our management.
But after all of our moaning, we realized that what our managers were trying to do is establish some objective framework in which they could measure us against objective metrics. I would much rather have a manager be forced to rank me with my peers with a policy document in hand to help decide which of us is the most productive, rather than have him pick people to promote and give raises to without ANY objective metric or policy. I don't go out to bars with my boss, but I don't want that to effect my performance review.
My point is this - ranking systems are an attempt at objectively gauging the performance of individuals. Quota systems are in place so that managers don't opt out of the hard part of telling people that they aren't as productive as their peers. Its harsh, and it isn't flawless, but compared with the alternative of an entirely subjective promotions/raises process, I'll take the ranking.
Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside a dog, its too dark to read.
If the employees also got to rate each other on trustworthiness or teamwork, then the backstabbing would drop. It sound liek the current system rewards backstabbing. If you change the ranking mechanism so that screwing someone gets you a low rank, then you won't do it.
Ranking systems are not neccessarily bad, they just need to be designed to provide incentives for desirable behavior. If a company wants teamwork, then make that part of the ranking .
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
In my experience, managers begin to keep people around specifically because they're bad (although not unacceptable) performers. You need them to assign them their low ratings. Juggle their rankings each evaluation so that they don't get fired, and occasionally trade them from department to department. When layoffs appear, shed them first... but don't shed them before then, because, just as there are quotas for evaluations, there are quotas for layoffs.
It's a stupid game.
- Attitude - This is very important. You must have a positive attitude about the company and your work. Let everyone know that you are excited about the company and moving up the ladder within the company. Never be satisfied with what you have, always want more.
- Your Boss - You have to find out from your boss what it takes to get a top rating. Have a one on one meeting with your boss and let your boss know that you really want a top rating. Get them to tell you what steps you need to take. Follow up and make sure you are on the right track throughout the year.
- Documentation - You can't count on your boss to document your progress so do it yourself. Keep track of every project you are on and every class you take that can help you in your job.
- Projects - Get involved in projects any way you can. Your company probably has Six Sigma or BPI. Take advantage of these opportunities. If you see something that needs improvement, write up a proposal and sumbit it to you boss or whoever is in charge of such things.
- Flexibility - This not only means being willing to work overtime, but it means working out of your area as well. Look for opportunities to cross-train in other areas. Be willing to take on additional responsibility for no additional pay. Be eager to learn.
- Be an Expert - Become an expert in your job. Even if your job is nothing but cleaning toilets, know everything about it.
- Be a Team Player - Customers aren't just the poeple at home using your product, your teammates are also your customers. Find out what you can do to make other people's jobs easier down the line. Never say "That's not my job." Be willing to help anyone.
- Do Things by the Book - Always try to follow company policies and processes.
- Accept Responsibility - If you mess up, don't be afraid to admit responsibility. Apologize for messing up and ask what you can do to fix the problem to make sure it doesn't happen again.
You don't have to stab people in the back to get a good rating, but remember that no one else is going to help you. You are the one who is ultimately responsible for your rating. Don't let others discourage you either. If someone calls you a "company man" or brown noser, just smile and shrug. Also remember that showing up every day and doing your job well is what they expect you to do. While this is admirable it will only get you and average rating. You have to go above and beyond to get that top rating. I know you can do it so get after it!Smeghead every day of the week.
Many years ago, exactly this type of situation was one of the principle reasons that I decided to quit being a manager. As part of a corporate reorganization, we had assembled a team that was truly excellent -- everyone had been in the top third of the performance "ladder" in their previous organization. The next department over had not done nearly so well in the reorg and had a lot of dead wood. During a budget crisis, each department was required to put together a 5% list of the people that they would let go (fortunately, the crisis was more imagined than real and no cuts were made). One of the last chores I did before I went back to just being on the technical staff was to discuss everyone in my group's career plan with them. For two of them, I had to suggest that they might want to look for a position in a different department so that they could be "stars" rather than "duds".
At that time, there were only a handful of places where I could do the work that I wanted to do, and all of them used a system like this. I could live with it as a worker, but not as a manager. Still not sure, despite many years, if retreating from management rather than staying on and trying to change the system was the right thing to do or not.
Bell curve does have a logical basis.
Take engineering stats and learn about it.
Random process => normal distribution = bell curve.
Yes, you could get all the good people in one group, but that would be very unlikely. Possilbe, but unlikely, just like walking (tunneling) through a wall.
I once TAd a class with 200 students. Amazingly bell curve performance.
If you have to cut someone, wouldn't you rather it be based on a defensible metric of some sort rather than some arbitrary "suzie is cute, so I cut john". Yeah, it promotes backstabin and my for myself attittude.
I agree, some times burning bridges is necessary.
Many moons ago, I was leaving a job which still needed my skills. They weren't able to find someone to replace me and I agreed to stay on as "on-call" working 10-20 hours a week until a replacement was found. On my last "official" work-day as a full time employee, my final pay-check was supposed to be provided to me (arrangements had already been made). In stead, the payroll department insisted that I wasn't to get my final check until the last day of the month (as was the practice with all "on-call" personnel -- by the way, my last day happened to fall on the first of the month.
I spent two days argueing against the corporate buracracy. I gave up, filed an official "resignation letter" and demanded my final paycheck within 48 hours (as required by california law) and stated that failure would result in a complaint to the labor board and applicable fines.
I had my check the same day, I refuesed to work "on-call" and the company lost about 30% of their clients (averaging about $800k/month) due to their inflexability.
End result: my old employeer bacame more "employee friendly". It had been once, when privately owned -- during my time there, they were sold to Corning and became bottom-line-zombies. The loss of a few million in revenue tought them that happy employees == better bottom line.