Ask Slashdot: How Does Your Company Evaluate Your Performance? 525
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?"
How to survive (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.
Tell 'em where to stick it (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.
Re:How to survive (Score:2, Insightful)
This. A hundred times this. So many times I hear people complain about their situation and how they can survive it. When the easiest and most powerful option is to just walk away from it. What's the point of just surviving it. If you want a better work environment. Look for one or create one. It's possible, people do it all the time. You just have to want it. If you don't then suck it up and live with the crap.
Re:obvious answer (Score:2, Insightful)
Only it doesn't work, because this type of system ensures that only the top percentile remain in the team in the long run, meaning that last year's top performances become this year's average target.
In short, if you're an overachiever, you'll raise the bar for everyone else, including yourself. It's a self-defeating system.
Change job, you cant win. (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.
Grand poobah (Score:3, Insightful)
What's the best way to survive this type of system?
Set up your own religion like L. Ron Hubbard.You could also found your own Fortune 500 corporation but that's more work. Which ever path you choose it boils down to the same truth, if you are the grand poobah you don't have to perform, only punish your underlings for not doing so.
Re:obvious answer (Score:5, Insightful)
Overachieving isn't guaranteed to get you a high ranking. It's a political game, much like popularity in a high school. It's not about how well you perform, it's about who you know.
Gamify (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:
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.
Re:Gamify (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).
Re:Like nuclear war. (Score:2, Insightful)
The story is not a dupe, the original story was about Microsoft and it's staff ranking policy. This story is about someone who went through that experience and is asking slashdot readers what their experience was of surviving similar situations.
It is an system well adapted to microsoft (Score:3, Insightful)
This ensure that the company only keeps burnt our overachiever and political sharks.
With a little bit of luck it'll drive them into the ground.
And anyway anybody working for microsoft deserves "advanced corporate management techniques" being applied to him or her.
Re:Easy answer for non-americans (Score:3, Insightful)
From what I've seen, unions only ensure than people end up not being fired even if they *are* completely useless, while paying them the same regardless of ability. It's not a solution, just a different problem. A sane company would just evaluate their employees and keep them (or not) based on their individual merits.
Re:How to survive (Score:4, Insightful)
Ever seen zebras (or other animals, but I like zebras ^^) cross a river in Africa? They pile up, the alligators wait, then some zebras start crossing, at which point all zebras try to cross as quickly as possible, while alligators pick a few off (like eating zebras in a river). End result? A few dead Zebras; instead of all of them dead, because they were stuck on the wrong side of the river. If each zebra did what you consider the smart thing to do, they'd all die.
And guess how even the pitiful rights employees have today were achieved for the most part? By people taking risks for what is right, instead of being part of the pressure against others by not doing so. That's right; because if NOBODY would take shit, employers would have no choice but respect their workers, or they would have none. But as it is now, they can choose from a huge pool of spineless, shortsighted people. (shortsighted because the trouble with selling your soul is that it doesn't end up making anything easier or better)
"To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all."
-- George Orwell
"Freedom is what we do with what is done to us."
&
"Whenever a man chooses his purpose and his commitment in all clearness and in all sincerity, whatever that purpose may be, it is impossible for him to prefer another. It is true in the sense that we do not believe in progress. Progress implies amelioration; but man is always the same, facing a situation which is always changing, and choice remains always a choice in the situation. The moral problem has not changed since the time when it was a choice between slavery and anti-slavery."
-- Jean-Paul Sartre
Yet that, family businesses if you will, is how everything started out. Seemed to work just fine when we though the moon was something to eat, and sacrificed virgins to placate volcanoes and whatnot. I can totally see why it wouldn't work today though! No, wait...
The system is designed broken and creates shortage, so change the system. But don't you fucking dare say the natural order of things is slavery, and that man can only exploit man. Speak for your fucking self.
Re:obvious answer (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.
Re:Easy answer for non-americans (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.
Re:Easy answer for non-americans (Score:5, Insightful)
Get involved in the Union.
Seriously. Any powerbase will be abused.
Unions are democratic (or at least are supposed to be) representatives of their members. You don't get to stand back and do nothing, and pretend the unions doing silly things aren't you're fault or you're problem.
Re:Easy answer for non-americans (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Easy answer for non-americans (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree, unions are awesome. I allows mediocre employees to receive the same compensation as the excellent employees.
Re:Easy answer for non-americans (Score:4, Insightful)
There also has to be some strong blame pointed at HR as well. HR budgets for certain amounts of raises (rises) and firings. They do not care what it does for productivity and employee morale so long as they stay within their budget.
I don't know (Score:4, Insightful)
I have no idea how my current employer does performance review. I haven't had to deal with performance reviews in over 15 years. This is one of the benefits of working as a consultant on a contract, and one of the things I don't miss about working as an employee.
I personally find consulting to be a more civilized, sane way to earn a living. My total compensation gets negotiated up front, for some prescribed period of time. Then, when the time is up, we just negotiate again(1). Simple. No fuss, no mess. You know how much you're making, and you don't feel shortchanged when the bean counters decide to cut down on some fringe benefit.
I guess that periodic contract extensions would count as a periodic performance review, of some sort. But there's no bureaucracy involved, and I don't need to dance like a pony, in front of someone. It's purely a business transaction, and nothing more.
The oft heard suggestion of unionizing is a joke. It's never going to happen. If you want to unionize, sure, but good luck to you. On the other hand, if you want to become a consultant, that can happen today. Your choice.
(1) Yes, I've went through an occasion of an 800lb corporate gorilla deciding, by fiat, to cut all their consultants' rates, for budgetary reasons, assuming that everyone is going to accept it and that they have no choice in the matter. As my then-managers discovered, that assumption was wrong. One of the other benefits of consulting, you see, is far fewer questions of what happened at your last job. Naturally, contracts come to an end all the time, and one's services are no longer required. Nothing wrong with that. Perfectly understandable, and expected.
Re:How to survive (Score:4, Insightful)
Game theory and logic suggest that you are correct. Sabotage your fellow workers whenever the opportunity presents itself. Whisper slanderous lies to your boss about fellow workers, give the impression that you think they are pedophiles, spouse beaters and communist druggies. Play their game and destroy their company.
Re:Easy answer for non-americans (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Easy answer for non-americans (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.
Re:obvious answer (Score:2, Insightful)
Dont forget to back stab those around you. You are competing against them, not working with them for the greater good.
That might explain some of the M$ bugs we have seen.
Re:Network. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Easy answer for non-americans (Score:4, Insightful)
Nobody wants a union.
You are either from the USA or bizarrely uninformed - possibly both.
Re:Easy answer for non-americans (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.
Re:Easy answer for non-americans (Score:5, Insightful)
The point, which you appear to have missed my several thousand feet, is that if you have decent management (or at least a set of laws which compel them to act in a decent way) there'd simply be no need for unions.
Re:Easy answer for non-americans (Score:5, Insightful)
Nobody wants a union.
You are either from the USA or bizarrely uninformed - possibly both.
1. Tell that to the UAW.
2. How long have you been waiting for an opportunity to say that?
If existing labor laws protect me sufficiently, why would I want to join a union? Yes, unions have their place (in particular where labor laws have been defficient), but their place is not universal (and in our recent history, they have proved to be detrimental, degenerating themselves from worker unions down to self-perpetuating cartels of nepotism.) I have no problems with unions in, say, Brazil. But here (the way many unions act), you bet I do have a problem.
Don't just look from the POV of your country's conditions. Look at it from our current conditions. We Americans typically get accused of looking at the world strictly from our biased eyes, but you don't seem capable of acting differently (at least in this particular topic.)
Re:Easy answer for non-americans (Score:5, Insightful)
Unions become a problem when they start to see companies as being the enemy, rather than something they're in partnership with.
If you study the history of the labor movement and management/labor relations in the U.S., you'd realize how absurd that statement is. Owners, management, and labor are all eating from the same plate. It's the job of owners and management to keep the workers' share as small as possible, and this is best done by keeping them afraid of losing what little they've got.
This is true (and originally identified by Adam Smith in his "Wealth of Nations"). However, the point of unions wasn't just simply to increase wages (and in many cases, it was not at all). It was first and foremost, about better working conditions (.ie. not being required to work on a coal mine 7 days a week) and protection from unreasonable termination (.ie. because you refused to or physically couldn't work another sunday after working 7 days a week for months.)
It doesn't matter what the genesis of the unions was. What matter is the role of unions with respect to the private enterprise once reasonable labor laws are in effect TODAY. At that point, stewbacca's statement is right: a union's place is to be in partnership with companies, not to act as enemies. After all, it is companies who supply their jobs, and labor laws ensure abuses do not take place. So absent of corner cases and violations, a union's insistence in seeing a company as its enemy is simply not acceptable.
Just look at how unions operate in Germany for example. They work in excellent synergy with the private sector. The rhetoric of companies being the enemy does not do any services in these modern times.
Re:Easy answer for non-americans (Score:4, Insightful)
Let me get this straight. There are non union members that want to work for a company and the company wants to hire them. This is a two way voluntarily exchange. You somehow claim you have a superior right to a job with that company so you initiate the use of force to prevent those workers from working and prevent the company from hiring. And you claim this is good?
Re:Easy answer for non-americans (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Fine. Do it without the use of force.
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.
I am against "right to work" laws as well, I had a typo in my original post. You are right as to their purpose. They are a violation of the employers rights to hire who they want to. If an employer wants to only hire union members they should be free to do so. If the employees in a company organize a voluntarily union and negotiate a contract with an employer that states they will only hire union members that is a voluntary contract and should be upheld. But in that negotiation an employer should not be forced to bargain with the union. If they want to fire everyone and start over with new hires that is their right as well unless it violates an existing contract.
Re:Easy answer for non-americans (Score:4, Insightful)
Well stated. I've always thought, if government did its job properly, there'd be no need for unions.
Business have lobbyists to influence government to pass legislation favouring them. They form associations specifically to do this. How are individual workers supposed to have their voice heard, let alone taken notice of if they don't form a collective to speak for them to both government and employers? Without unions continually exerting pressure, workers will lose more and more rights.
Re:Easy answer for non-americans (Score:2, Insightful)
I have as much power as the drunken beggar or the store detective, but I don't have as much as the officer. If you want to dig a little deeper, the constitution lays it out pretty clearly. "Congress shall make no law" or similar language is found throughout the bill of rights (and the same concept is implied to the infinite other implicit rights not enumerated). It doesn't say that your mom or your priest or boss will keep you from saying certain things, just that congress won't keep you from saying certain things.
Start your own business (Score:3, Insightful)
When it comes down to it EVERYONE has their own business. When you are traditionally employed, your business has one customer, and if you lose that customer by quitting or getting fired, you're out of business. Start your own business and remember each customer is an income stream. Multiple income streams mean more money and more security, and also give you the ability to fire customers you don't want to do business with.
This doesn't mean it's easy or even possible for everyone. My business was much harder to start than I ever thought it would be, but the challenges have been worthwhile both in income and in getting out of corporate BS like the stacked ranking game.
Middle managers who have no skills beyond playing office politics and self-promotion are pretty much stuck in the corporate rat race, but people with real skills that translate to marketable goods or services can make it on their own if they can learn how to build business structures and processes to run their business and a marketing plan to get customers.
The Slashdotter who said the best way to win is not to play the game was right. This post suggests one way HOW get out of the game.
Re:How to survive (Score:5, Insightful)
Umm... Can you stop protesting stupid here...
1. You don't like your job, look for a new one... 99% of the time people can do that while keeping their existing job. They leave their job when they get hired. You look for a new job and then Quit. that way you can pay your bills.
2. Not to sound like a right wing nut. But surviving is the easy part, america already has a Social Security infrastructure to help people survive. We have 10% unemployment however we don't see 10% of the population dying off in the streets. Even in a tough economy you don't need feel like you are getting abused, you still have the right to grow.
3. The Parent also said "Look for one" which doesn't mean you need to start your own company... On the same vain you can Create a better work environment without having to leave your existing company. Most of the time the company wants to change its own environment but no one is willing to stand up and help push it. It may be just as easy as being a little more supportive to the new guy, do the little more extra, help the other guy out more. Try to encourage more team work in your environment
4. As the company owner, you don't have to be the bad guy. Being the boss isn't always about giving orders and punishing people. It is about supporting your workers giving them direction.
Re:Blame Management (Score:4, Insightful)
> To survive in an environment with a forced bell curve, let me paraphrase Shakespeare: "Kill all MBAs."
The people who do nonsense like this are often not MBAs. MBAs should be telling them why this is a bad idea. In my experience, MBAs are taught that this is a bad idea.
> if the company did its job correctly in the first place (hiring great people and not hiring bozos)
Unfortunately, this is hard. Sometimes you make a mistake and hire a bozo. Sometimes you hire a star, and he becomes a bozo. Personally, I like the motto "Hire slow, fire fast." which I think goes to your doing "its job correctly in the first place." Take the time to hire the right people. When you end up with a bad apple, don't take a year to get rid of them, especially if you have a 90 day probationary period.
Actually, that might be one thing that leads to systems like this. It's hard for a big company to fire just one person. They tie themselves in HR knots. But if it's standard operating procedure to fire X% every year, well that's easy! I'm not saying I approve, merely that I may see why this particular pathology develops.
Worst System Except for all the Others (Score:5, Insightful)
The first thing is that, as a manager of a small team, you do NOT have to meet a curve. That's only required at high levels with hundreds or thousands of employees in the pool. You DO have to rank your people in order and argue for them at a meeting with your peers. If you have a team of 6 or 8 people, I'll be very surprised if you don't know who your best person is--and who the worst one is. As a general rule, you ought to be able to rank your whole team in order from best to worst, with perhaps a few ties. (Generally, though, I didn't end up with ties.)
So together with your peers, you now try to slot 50 or so people into three rankings: 4.0 for the best 25%, 3.5 for the bulk of the people and 3.0 for the bottom 20%. (There is special handling for superstars at 4.5 and total losers at 2.5, but that's a post-process with no quotas.) The argument always revolves around strong 3.5 people who "ought" to be 4.0 and weak 3.5 people who "don't deserve" to be 3.0. Not a surprise; every manager overrates his/her own people. The pressure to meet a quota forces people to have hard arguments about how valuable each person's work really was. It can even help a manager see the importance of putting people on the highest-value tasks. At the end of it, there are typically two or three borderline individuals, but everyone else pretty much has the rating they actually earned. The General Manager takes the result up to the stack ranking at the next level, armed with appropriate arguments for the borderline folks.
One time, I worked on a project with high-visibility and lots of pressure. At review time, we told management we wanted to give about 50% 4.0 (instead of the usual 25%) and only one or two 3.0 reviews (out of a team of ~100). They pushed that up, and it was granted. We did exceptional work, so they let us blow out the curve. But it only happened once in 14 years.
What are the alternatives? Have a Union that gives everyone the same rewards regardless of the work he/she did? Doesn't seem like a winner to me.
So to answer the OP's question, how do you succeed in such a system, the answer is: work hard, do good work, help others who get stuck, and BE SEEN DOING IT. When your manager says "Jane is my best worker," you want all his/her peers to nod and say "yeah, Jane is great! She helps us out all the time!" When your manager says "Jack deserves a better rating," you don't want his/her peers to say "that lazy bum? He couldn't find his ass with both hands!" But most important of all is for your manager to actually see you as someone who gets stuff done. Whatever anyone tries to claim, most teams only have a few such people on them. They rarely go unrewarded.
--Greg
Re:Easy answer for non-americans (Score:2, Insightful)
I can convince you in five minutes that it's "worth it".
Do you have weekends? Sick days? Paid vacation? Employee health insurance? A safe workplace?
Are you paid fairly for your work?
If so, it's because of unions.
If you don't like weekends, sick days, paid vacation, health insurance and safety in the workplace, then a union is not for you. If you don't want to be fairly paid for your work, then by all means, you should never join a union and don't go to work for a shop that has taken a vote and decided that they would be unionized. Nobody is forced to join a union.
Now, some people want all those things without having to be a member of a union. They don't want to pay the $14.50 a month in union dues, but they still want weekends, sick days, health insurance, paid vacation, fair pay and safety in the work place. Such people are known as "freeloaders" or "moochers" who want someone else to do the work but still want the benefit of that work.