The problem with these systems is that it isn’t always excellence that is rewarded, more political skill, as is noted in the article. Managers can successfully use these systems to harm employees they don’t like, whether the employee is a performer or not. And in the case where I work, there is great pressure to classify at least 10% of staff who as underperforming, whether they are or not. It ends up resulting in someone being screwed every so often because it is “their” turn.
Other staff notice that on years when they really go all out, they get a nominal review. The next year, doing the normal day to day work, they get promoted.
Oh Indeed!
Office Politics is POISONOUS.
I was relating my own experience.
“The problem with these systems is that it isn’t always excellence that is rewarded, more political skill”
There was a show “the weakest link” where a group of contestants filled a pot with money by answering the right questions. After each round , they voted off the weakest link. At the end, one person took home the pot of money.
In the early rounds, they did vote off the weaker players to get more money in later rounds.
But in the last few rounds, they started voting off the strongest player to eliminate competition.
Very wise comments. These systems might work if performance was unambiguous, such as in a track and field 100 yard dash competition. You can definitely rank the participants in that race, provided they were all in good health that day. However, can you compare the sprinters to the distance runners? If you cut the slowest in each group, did you really cut the lowest two performers for the team as a whole? If you include enough small groups in the overall cutting process, you will make several wrong cuts and keep some performers who werent’ as good.
When you start ranking people who do tasks that are difficult to measure, such as design or innovation work, you start falling into decisions made on the basis of liking someone. Someone might not be an extrovert, but could be an excellent, innovative engineer. Then there are people who work on pharmaceutical development and who may take many years to identify a successful drug. How are you going to clearly assess their performance over the early years?
These types of systems are for managers who want simple systems for making tough decisions, thus absolving the managers of personal responsibility for making the decision. HR managers like these systems ‘cause they are simple, quantitative systems and require no real thought. HR managers don’t even work alongside the employees being evaluated.
true,
I’ve personally seen this happen to several very good employees,
they just wanted to keep their head down, work hard, be diligent, get the job done, now that’s not enough, they have to play office politics or fall behind,
its poison,
Yep, especially if the rating standards are subjective so the manager can play favorites and take care of his butt kissers.