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Ask Slashdot: How Does Your Company Evaluate Your Performance?

Posted by samzenpus on from the score-me dept.

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?"

21 of 525 comments (clear)

  1. Like nuclear war. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

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

  2. Easy answer for non-americans by Rosco+P.+Coltrane · · Score: 5, Informative

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

    It's called a union.

    --
    "A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
    1. Re:Easy answer for non-americans by Thanshin · · Score: 5, Funny

      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.

    2. Re:Easy answer for non-americans by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Unions grow in power where employee rights legislation falls short of what people expect. Unions become a problem when they start to see companies as being the enemy, rather than something they're in partnership with.

      They are the solution of last resort, that people turn to when there is no other way to protect themselves.

      The correct way to deal with problematic unions is to have reasonable employee rights legislation and maintain it for long enough that nobody cares about joining unions anymore.

    3. Re:Easy answer for non-americans by mwvdlee · · Score: 5, Funny

      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.

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    4. Re:Easy answer for non-americans by TimeOut42 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I agree, unions are awesome. I allows mediocre employees to receive the same compensation as the excellent employees.

    5. Re:Easy answer for non-americans by trout007 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      As with almost every problem the answer comes down to liberty. Unions are great IF they don't have laws written to give them special rights. A union should exist as a group of people freely associating to promote their self interests. But when laws are written to force people to join if they want to work in an industry that leads to corruption. This goes the other way too. There are some laws which prohibit employers from basing hiring on union status. That violates the employees rights as well. If there is a free union of electricians and they provide member training and other benefits and their members have a reputation of excellence an employer should be allowed to require employees join that union.

      Problems always arise when you take something that is good when it's done voulentarily and use force.

      --
      I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
    6. Re:Easy answer for non-americans by Kookus · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Just like with healthcare, unless you're forced, you don't want to join. Who wants to spend 70 bucks of their paycheck every month for something they perceive as doing nothing for them? The power of the union comes from the collective. If your collective is only 25 to 30% of the working force, guess what? You're expendable.

    7. Re:Easy answer for non-americans by drooling-dog · · Score: 5, Informative

      A union should exist as a group of people freely associating to promote their self interests

      Unions aren't social clubs; they exist so that labor can deal with management on a level playing field in the process of collective bargaining. The purpose of "right to work" laws is not to promote "freedom" from association for workers, as the name suggests. Those laws exist to destroy unions by permitting workers to benefit from collective bargaining without contributing to the process. If you look at who promotes them, you'll find precious little evidence that they were motivated by any concern for the rights, welfare, or safety of working people.

    8. Re:Easy answer for non-americans by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

      We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

      That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

    9. Re:Easy answer for non-americans by radtea · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Unions are great IF they don't have laws written to give them special rights.

      Unlike corporations, then.

      Unions exist with special legal status precisely because corporations exist with special legal status.

      A corporation is not a "a group of people freely associating to promote their self-interests": it is an inherently coercive organization protected by the full legal muscle of the various Companies Acts around the world. When a person employed by a corporation interacts with someone outside the corporation they are protected by a shield of laws that completely over-rides the ordinary operations of free behaviour.

      So, if you really want unions to not have special legal protections, you need to eliminate the special legal protections given to corporations, which means you need to eliminate corporations as such, and go back to the situation before 1850 or so when the first modern Companies Act was passed in Britain. That system was unwieldy and inefficient, as no single entity with quasi-individual legal status (the corporation) could do anything like sign contracts, etc.

      Yet for some reason I have never heard anyone who makes the kind of arguments you do against unions point any of this out. Why is that?

      --
      Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
  3. How to survive by BSAtHome · · Score: 5, Insightful

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

    Find another job where they treat you as a human being.

  4. Tell 'em where to stick it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If you've got some serious skills, tell them to stick it and go work for a smaller company that's been around a while. Right now it's an employee's market so to speak with respect to certain technology skills (I've been off the market over a year and still get 10+ recruiters calling me a week, and I'm not all that great at all!). My thinking is that you've got more choice than they do, and that after you and hopefully everybody reading this reply, and then some, tell their HR departments that this kind of performance review bullshit is why you're leaving, things may eventually change.

    If employers start seeing their very-hard-to-replace talent walk out the door because of draconian, 30+ year old management paradigms, they may be forced to change.

  5. Get even by BSAtHome · · Score: 5, Funny

    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!

  6. Change job, you cant win. by miffo.swe · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The only solution is to get another job because you cant win. You can get higher up but by then all you really do is internal politics, stabbing your friends in the back and running around PR-campaigning for yourself. Work, not so much. If you really like politics, lies, distortion and stuff, get a job in politics instead of masquerading as a coder when you in reality is doing politics full time.

    --
    HTTP/1.1 400
  7. Benner Model by pvt_medic · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I work in healthcare and the model often used is Brenners Novice to Expert. This looks at the development of an individual in their practice. While a great model since it allows one to compare themselves to themselves and looking for improvement, it also promotes team work. Of course this is a little difficult to apply many software firms. Another model is using a 1-5 scale, where 5 is exceptional, 1 is unsatistifactory, 3 meets criteria, 4 is exceeds criteria, and then they tally these for whatever metrics used and divide to get an average. Comparing staff to each other does not develop team work and only works in competitive environments like sales where you want people to outdo each other.

    --
    30% Troll, 50% Underrated, 10% Interesting
    Score:5, Troll
  8. Yes, and it sucked! by Madman · · Score: 5, Informative

    At a former employer I joined a team that was under-performing. I worked hard to get things back on track and I did my absolute best. At my bonus meeting my boss told me that I had done a great job and I was the best performer on the team by far, but he had to give a certain number of people a good review, some a fair review, and one an under-performing review. He didn't do this by job performance but by length of service, and since I was a new guy he gave me the poor review so I got almost no bonus! After that I didn't work so hard....

    1. Re:Yes, and it sucked! by Thanshin · · Score: 5, Funny

      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.

  9. Gamify by eennaarbrak · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Does your company do this?

    Yes.

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

    Gamify. At my company, what makes things even worse is that to be considered in the top 20%, you have to show initiative and contribution *outside* of your core responsibility. This involves:

    • - Attend all social events. Even better if you can get yourself onto the organizing committee, because you will inevitably get to talk to various team members. Also, it is a really good excuse if you fail to deliver on your core responsibilities (which is inevitable if you want to maintain your "extra-team" influence.
    • - Start supporting a football (or whatever applies to your region) team, regardless of how dull and pointless you think sports is. Choose one that is doing well (you must look like a winner!), but not the same as the boss - you need to engage with him and show him how "independent" your thinking is. It is incredibly satisfying to have the boss, or the boss's boss, stand at your desk to discuss the weekend's results - and you are magically remembered later as a person that "contributes outside of your team".
    • - Always mention in the hallways to managers and developers from other teams how incredibly difficult your team's deliverables are, and how smart your team members (i.e. you yourself) have to be in order to simply be in it.
    • - Yeah, do get involved in other teams, but don't overdo it. Try to sit in on design sessions - then it looks as if you are part of the "solution", but you don't actually have to do the actual work. Leave those for the guys in the trenches who will get the "middle of the road" rating, because they are not involved outside of their teams. If the project goes badly, tactfully remind the boss that you did mention these risks during design, but the development team must have screwed it up somehow.

    Whatever you do, absolutely never, ever get your head down for long periods and just get things done. That is the road to, at best, an "average" rating. You see, by doing your job well, you are simply doing what is expected of you. It does not matter how complex or easy your job is - no one knows or cares. All they see is someone doing their work.

    1. Re:Gamify by captainpanic · · Score: 5, Insightful

      A 10 minute talk during your coffee break with your boss can influence your rating just as much as that report you've been working on for 4 months. Your boss will spend about the same time on both (10 minutes).

  10. Re:obvious answer by wisty · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Also, MS hires good people. If you are competing against other good people (not useless dolts), then it's hard to win on ability alone. It's far more effective to do a reasonable job, and suck up to your boss / make your boss look good / advertise your "achievements" to your boss's peers, etc.

    Eventually, the people who are good at the game get promoted, and forget that the game is actually a bad thing. They start consciously rewarding people for playing the game (not getting fooled by it, but actually expecting their workers to game the system), and madness prevails.