Data Mining Moves To Human Resources

theodp writes "Just when you thought annual reviews couldn't get worse, BusinessWeek reports that HR departments at companies like Microsoft and IBM are starting to use mathematical analysis to determine the value of each employee. At an undisclosed Internet company, analysis of (non-verbal) communications was used to produce a circle to represent each employee — those determined to generate or pass along valuable info were portrayed as large and dark-colored circles ('thought leaders' and 'networked curators'), while those with small and pale circles were written off as not adding a hell of a lot. 'You have to bring the same rigor you bring to operations and finance to the analysis of people,' explains Microsoft's Rupert Bader. Hey, who could argue with what Quants did for finance?"

Comments

We'll all be gaming this before too long.

[tjstork]

I would joke that this could be a good thing, in that, we'll just game the review system to get raises.

The reality is, though, that the more corporations seek to control and monitor their employees, the more they will crush the entrepreneur in them. Corporations work best when they motivate people and you do that by creating a positive, team culture that gives its participants a sense of mission. Take that away, reduce people to cogs, and you are going to get cogs as a result, and you'll get an inevitable decline. What enterprising person would want to work as an anonymous cog, coming out of college with a degree and history that says they are anything but, when they could make a real difference at a startup.

Actions like this doom large corporations, and frankly, this sort of thinking was what alienated the big 3 for a lot of people, and now they want to do this to the computer industry?

Stupid, stupid, stupid.