Ask Slashdot: How Does Your Company Evaluate Your Performance?

jmcbain writes "I'm a former Microsoftie, and one thing I really despised about the company is the 'stack ranking' employee evaluation system that was succinctly captured in a recent Vanity Fair article on the company. Stack ranking is basically applying a forced curve distribution on all employees at the same level, so management must place some percentage of employees into categories of overperforming, performing on average, and underperforming. Even if it's an all-star team doing great work, some folks will be marked as underperforming. Frankly, this really sucked. I know this practice gained popularity with GE in the 1980s and is being used by some (many?) Fortune 500 companies. Does your company do this? What's the best way to survive this type of system?"

Comments

Like nuclear war.

[Anonymous Coward]

The best way to survive is not to play the game.

Re:Like nuclear war.

[hal2814]

Indeed. I survive just fine using the Ty Webb method:

Judge Smails: Ty, how was your evaluation?
Ty Webb: Oh, Judge, I don't keep score.
Judge Smails: Then how do you measure yourself with other workers?
Ty Webb: By height.

Get even

[BSAtHome]

1. quit job
2. build start-up
3. ???
4. Profit!
5. hire jerks that gave you bad stack result
6. treat them stack performance game
7. Revenge!

Re:Easy answer for non-americans

[Thanshin]

Or bombing the car of the guy who proposed it.

But a union is better.

And if it comes to it, a union can hire the bomb guy.

That's easy.

[marcello_dl]

1. create dummy identities in your team
2. make those dummies look underperforming compared to you (I know, this is the hard part)
3. next stack ranking comes, they get in the pool, so you are above average.
4. profit!!!

I believe this technique is called "stack overflow" and I bet it will work for microsoft for another 30 years at least.

Re:Yes, and it sucked!

[Thanshin]

After that I didn't work so hard....

This should be a lesson to you: next time don't work so hard from the beginning.

Exactly. Make it impossible to underpay you; achieve negative productivity.

Re:Easy answer for non-americans

[Arancaytar]

But... but... socialism!

Re:Gamify

[antifoidulus]

Come on, you made this list and didnt include George Costanza's accidental discovery of just leaving your car parked in the parking lot 24/7? Your boss will always think you are at work

Re:Easy answer for non-americans

[mwvdlee]

What's the best way to survive this type of system?

A race for the bottom.
If everybody performs badly, they still have to label some as overperformers.