How Adobe Got Rid of Traditional Stack-Ranking Performance Reviews

Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Bob Sutton reports that in 2012 Adobe moved from yearly performance rankings to frequent "check-ins" where managers provide employees targeted coaching and advice. There is no prescribed format or frequency for these conversations, and managers don't complete any forms or use any technologies to guide or document what happens during such conversations. They are simply expected to have regular check-ins to convey what is expected of employees, give and get feedback, and help employees with their growth and development plans. 'The aim is to give people information when they need it rather than months after teachable moments have passed,' writes Sutton. Donna Morris, Adobe's senior vice president for People and Places, says her team calculated that annual reviews required 80,000 hours of time from the 2000 managers at Adobe each year, the equivalent of 40 full-time employees. After all that effort, internal surveys revealed that employees felt less inspired and motivated afterwards—and turnover increased. According to Sutton, Adobe's bold move seems to be working. Surveys indicates that most Adobe managers and employees find the new system to be less cumbersome and more effective than the old stack-ranking system where managers must divide employees into groups — for example, maybe 15 percent of people can be assigned the highest rating. 'That goes against our core value of being genuine,' says Ellie Gates, director of management effectiveness at Adobe. 'Our goal should be to inspire people to do their best work.' Since the new system was implemented, voluntary attrition has decreased substantially, while involuntary departures have increased by 50% because the new system requires executives and managers to have regular 'tough discussions' with employees who are struggling with performance issues—rather than putting them off until the next performance review cycle comes around. 'It is reducing unnecessary cognitive load, while at the same time, nudging managers to engage more often and more candidly with direct reports to help them develop their skills and plan their careers,' concludes Sutton. 'It also bolsters accountability because managers have far more responsibility for setting employee compensation than under the old system.'"

Comments

I'll keep saying

[BigDaveyL]

Stack Ranking only works on a short term basis where you want to trim the fat.

If you do it for too long, two things happen (a) you start cutting into good performers (b) people will not collaborate to make others look good

Re:I'll keep saying

[eulernet]

If you do it for too long, two things happen (a) you start cutting into good performers (b) people will not collaborate to make others look good

You are wrong.
As soon as stack-ranking is used (and not after "too long"), it shows that the individual performance is more important than the group's performance, so collaborating goes against your own interest.
Once everybody is focused on his own agenda, the best performers are getting tired by the competition and thus quit their job to a better living place.

Basically, stack-ranking encourages selfishness.

Immature

[The Cat]

Stack ranking is for managers who are not grown-ups.

Train your people. Teach them to improve. Defend them while they learn. Make them better and they will make the company better.

If you are in charge and something goes wrong, it's your responsibility. It's your fault. And if it isn't your fault, it's still your fault because you're the manager.

You are responsible. 100% of the time. No exceptions.

Take responsibility for your job and do your job. Train your people. Take care of your people. Grow up.

There is a lesson here for slashdot

[Arker]

" 'The aim is to give people information when they need it rather than months after teachable moments have passed,' "

This is a very important thing, and it's kind of sad that it IS something that people in business sometimes realize, rather than being something we could assume everyone capable of forming complete sentences understands.

And that's why it is really important that Timothy, who thinks we form a passive 'audience' here, who somehow imagines that occasionally pushing the button to publish a user submission under his name, without even fixing the obvious typos first, qualifies him as the creator of the site, really needs to feel some backlash today. Not in 6 months when the whole site goes, today.

It's also why each and every member of the staff that encouraged the delusion that this 'beta' was a reasonable, workable idea needs to be gone now. Not in 6 months when the whole site goes, today.

Because those teachable moments are short, and these are not minor little mistakes anyone could make. These are possibly the biggest mistakes anyone in their position could make, in regards to their work. They are mistakes that you would expect from someone who was just recruited from a business school last week and had spent no more than 20 minutes lurking before deciding to change everything.

Yep, that makes sense

[neminem]

Since one of the things that drives me the MOST crazy about my current job, and MOST makes me think about quitting, is in fact the near-constant requests for writing various self-assessments, goal documents, and other such things that are not actually related to my job, and which don't actually seem to be used for anything other than making the people responsible for requiring all of those documents look like they're doing useful things. Drives me crazy. After all that, our performance reviews tend to basically say "yep, you're doing fine. Have a raise that is exactly in line with inflation, just like everyone else is getting."

Re:Yep, that makes sense

[sydbarrett74]

That self-assessment stuff is mostly wankery. I want my boss to be candid about what I'm doing right, and what I'm doing wrong. And tell me then and there, not six months later.

Re:Yep, that makes sense

[swb]

This.

I hate the annual kabuki theater of the performance review, with it's empty and meaningless self-assessments and the usual empty criticism ladled on top to make sure the review is 'balanced' (and mostly to be just intimidating enough to dampen any expectation of a salary increase).

The once a year part is annoying as well, since anything good you've done that wasn't last week has been pushed off the stack. It'd be much better to have more often candid discussions, whether they were regular or based around projects or project milestones where some good could come of them.

Re:For great justice!

[DickBreath]

Calling us the Audience is like the Bee Keeper calling the Bees the audience.

Bees make honey. You can set up bee boxes and have bees live in the boxes and make honey that you can harvest. But the bees are free to leave at any time. The only reason the bees stay is because the boxes are less trouble than building a beehive. Try making the bee box unusable and the bees will just go build a beehive elsewhere. Don't believe it? They've been building beehives for a lot longer (*cough* Usenet *cough*) than bee boxes (*cough* Slashdot *cough*) have been around.