6 ms·

> One employee said that during a one-on-one performance review with a manager, he was told that his rating dropped from "Exceeds" to "Meets" because he didn't

by snomad 9y ago

> One employee said that during a one-on-one performance review with a manager, he was told that his rating dropped from "Exceeds" to "Meets" because he didn't get as much done while on paternity leave. If true, that is quite obviously legally actionable.

umanwizard 9y ago
Why? What law was violated?
refurb 9y ago
Is it? As long as the performance review was done based on the employee's performance over the entire year, it's fair game no? I'm not sure I agree with the logic that someone who takes time off during the year is given credit for the good work they would have done had they not taken time off.
- wcummings 9y ago
  The logic is that you aren't expected to work in your off time so it shouldn't factor in at all. If his work exceeded during the time he was working whether or not he took leave shouldn't effect that. Reviews should be about the quality of the work, not whether you take 0 vacations days or work until 10pm everyday because you're 22 and don't have a family.
- sidlls 9y ago
  Consider it as a ratio WQ:T where "WQ" is the Work x Quality product and T is the Time of employment. You're saying that T should be a constant and include time an employee isn't expected to be working, but WQ is fair to vary. Essentially you're adding to T even when the employee is expected explicitly to not add to WQ. So in my opinion it's not fair game.
nxc18 9y ago
I get why there should be protection for people on paternity leave. At the same time, if you're using an 'expectations' system appropriately and honestly (as opposed to just a renaming of some other scale) it may be dishonest to not change his rating. If there is an expectation about performance and it wasn't exceeded (how could you exceed your typical performance while on paternity leave?) then the employee shouldn't be given an exceeds. The big issues here (at least for me) are that a) there was a non-zero expectation for someone on paternity leave and b) someone was given a performance evaluation either while on or regarding work done during a paternity leave. I'm curious if this signals a larger issue at Google where they have paternity leave 'in name only' - similar to 'unlimited' vacation policies and the like.
- shidoshi 9y ago
  Yeah, no. You manage to expectations while the person is capable of performing their duties. Using your logic is exactly why women suffer the indignation of being paid $0.77 to every man's dollar of equal functional qualification level. We all assume Google is a very wise and smart corporation, so let's assume that bonus, RSUs, and all discretionary income is proportional to time worked. That's how you solve the "you weren't here for the entire period" problem.
  - anothercomment 9y ago
    "women suffer the indignation of being paid $0.77 to every man's dollar of equal functional qualification level." That is not the case, the gender pay gap does not compare salaries for equal job positions and qualifications.
    - shidoshi 9y ago
      Yes, the prevalence of studies that report averages are what you are referencing--though you don't provide any. But, there are plenty of anecdotes (e.g. the several Google Sheets pay experiments folks have run) showing disparity. I am a sample of one, but I have seen this disparity--and, worked to fix it--with folks I've managed over the years as well. So, I do not agree with absolutes like "that is not the case."
      - anothercomment 9y ago
        The 77% number is specifically from the "official gender pay gap", presumably published by your national ministry of statistics or whatever (I am not from the US, but here in Germany the official ministry for statistics does the same). And that explicitly does not show 77 Cent to the dollar, as it does not compare people in the same jobs. Anecdotes are also really misleading here: not everybody earns the same amount of money, so you can always find two people where one of the two earns more than the other. It doesn't mean anything. And as a male engineer I have also discovered before that somebody who seemed less qualified earned more than me. Renegotiate, or switch companies. As for the Google spreadsheet, it is interesting, but I doubt it captures sufficient detail. In fact, a often used trick with the gender pay gap (among other things) is to remove just enough detail to make it seem outrageous. For example lets say pediatricians earn less on average than neurosurgeons, but more women become pediatricians then neurosurgeons (why is another matter). Now if you want to give the impression of sexist salaries, you don't publish the average income of male and female pediatricians and male and female neurosurgeons. You go one step back and publish the average salaries of male and female physicians. Just omit the details that could explain the differences in salaries, and you have shown your desired sexist wage gap. (why pediatricians earn less than neurosurgeons: simple supply and demand).
occamrazor 9y ago
I'd agree that someone who is on leave, and doesn't work, indeed"meets" expectations. It would be a problem only if everybody is expected to exceed expectations, but then all the evaluation process becomes, almost by definition, nonsensical.
- jerrylives 9y ago
  The point is that you are on paternity leave, taking care of a child on a company sanctioned policy. It's like being told you didn't work hard enough on your vacation - it doesn't make sense to set "work" expectations for a period in which one is absent from work.
- Bartweiss 9y ago
  I mean, I think the problem is evaluating performance at all for time not spent at work. If someone was on leave for part of a review period, that time shouldn't be evaluated. If they were on leave for most/all of it, that review should probably be skipped as null. Doing otherwise creates a misleading conflation between "meeting the expectation of leave" and "meeting the expectations of the job".
- pflats 9y ago
  That's ridiculous. Leave is leave; it's an employee's right that's offered in law or in their contract, and they should not be punished in any way for taking advantage of it. If the employee would otherwise exceed expectations and took paternity leave, then they still exceed expectations. If they were hired in March and worked for 40 weeks, they would not be penalized for failing to work in January or February. Leave should be handled the same way. If the employee was not professional about taking leave (didn't give any notice, did not work with colleagues to organize coverage of his tasks, etc.) then things are different. Similarly, if they promised to do something while on leave and didn't, then that would be an issue.
  - zeveb 9y ago
    > Leave is leave; it's an employee's right that's offered in law or in their contract, and they should not be punished in any way for taking advantage of it. Being rated as someone who meets expectations is not a punishment. Certainly, one has the right to exercise one's rights, but one also has a duty to acknowledge that they impact others. Someone who takes paternity leave will, mutatis mutandis, achieve less than someone who does not; someone who is on leave for an entire review period and does nothing related to work cannot fairly be said to exceed expectations.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
diabeetusman 9y ago
At the company where I work, they temporarily disable accounts for both paternity and maternity leave to prevent that exact issue.
dominotw 9y ago
review should be done only for the time that employee was not on leave. makes sense.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
wcarron 9y ago
I'm not so sure. Wouldn't a person on paternity leave be expected to perform less, if not zero work? By doing that, didn't he "meet" expectations? That seems, technically speaking, the accurate description. Of course, if paternity leave really means "we expect you to work at a similar rate", then it's quite obviously not a "paternity leave" in anything other than name.
throwaway-1209 9y ago
How do you exceed expectations while not actually working? As a manager, I'd like to know.

by snomad 9y ago

umanwizard 9y ago

Why? What law was violated?

refurb 9y ago

Is it? As long as the performance review was done based on the employee's performance over the entire year, it's fair game no? I'm not sure I agree with the logic that someone who takes time off during the year is given credit for the good work they would have done had they not taken time off.

wcummings 9y ago
The logic is that you aren't expected to work in your off time so it shouldn't factor in at all. If his work exceeded during the time he was working whether or not he took leave shouldn't effect that. Reviews should be about the quality of the work, not whether you take 0 vacations days or work until 10pm everyday because you're 22 and don't have a family.
sidlls 9y ago
Consider it as a ratio WQ:T where "WQ" is the Work x Quality product and T is the Time of employment. You're saying that T should be a constant and include time an employee isn't expected to be working, but WQ is fair to vary. Essentially you're adding to T even when the employee is expected explicitly to not add to WQ. So in my opinion it's not fair game.

nxc18 9y ago

I get why there should be protection for people on paternity leave. At the same time, if you're using an 'expectations' system appropriately and honestly (as opposed to just a renaming of some other scale) it may be dishonest to not change his rating. If there is an expectation about performance and it wasn't exceeded (how could you exceed your typical performance while on paternity leave?) then the employee shouldn't be given an exceeds. The big issues here (at least for me) are that a) there was a non-zero expectation for someone on paternity leave and b) someone was given a performance evaluation either while on or regarding work done during a paternity leave. I'm curious if this signals a larger issue at Google where they have paternity leave 'in name only' - similar to 'unlimited' vacation policies and the like.

shidoshi 9y ago
Yeah, no. You manage to expectations while the person is capable of performing their duties. Using your logic is exactly why women suffer the indignation of being paid $0.77 to every man's dollar of equal functional qualification level. We all assume Google is a very wise and smart corporation, so let's assume that bonus, RSUs, and all discretionary income is proportional to time worked. That's how you solve the "you weren't here for the entire period" problem.
- anothercomment 9y ago
  "women suffer the indignation of being paid $0.77 to every man's dollar of equal functional qualification level." That is not the case, the gender pay gap does not compare salaries for equal job positions and qualifications.
  - shidoshi 9y ago
    Yes, the prevalence of studies that report averages are what you are referencing--though you don't provide any. But, there are plenty of anecdotes (e.g. the several Google Sheets pay experiments folks have run) showing disparity. I am a sample of one, but I have seen this disparity--and, worked to fix it--with folks I've managed over the years as well. So, I do not agree with absolutes like "that is not the case."
    - anothercomment 9y ago
      The 77% number is specifically from the "official gender pay gap", presumably published by your national ministry of statistics or whatever (I am not from the US, but here in Germany the official ministry for statistics does the same). And that explicitly does not show 77 Cent to the dollar, as it does not compare people in the same jobs. Anecdotes are also really misleading here: not everybody earns the same amount of money, so you can always find two people where one of the two earns more than the other. It doesn't mean anything. And as a male engineer I have also discovered before that somebody who seemed less qualified earned more than me. Renegotiate, or switch companies. As for the Google spreadsheet, it is interesting, but I doubt it captures sufficient detail. In fact, a often used trick with the gender pay gap (among other things) is to remove just enough detail to make it seem outrageous. For example lets say pediatricians earn less on average than neurosurgeons, but more women become pediatricians then neurosurgeons (why is another matter). Now if you want to give the impression of sexist salaries, you don't publish the average income of male and female pediatricians and male and female neurosurgeons. You go one step back and publish the average salaries of male and female physicians. Just omit the details that could explain the differences in salaries, and you have shown your desired sexist wage gap. (why pediatricians earn less than neurosurgeons: simple supply and demand).

occamrazor 9y ago

I'd agree that someone who is on leave, and doesn't work, indeed"meets" expectations. It would be a problem only if everybody is expected to exceed expectations, but then all the evaluation process becomes, almost by definition, nonsensical.

jerrylives 9y ago
The point is that you are on paternity leave, taking care of a child on a company sanctioned policy. It's like being told you didn't work hard enough on your vacation - it doesn't make sense to set "work" expectations for a period in which one is absent from work.
Bartweiss 9y ago
I mean, I think the problem is evaluating performance at all for time not spent at work. If someone was on leave for part of a review period, that time shouldn't be evaluated. If they were on leave for most/all of it, that review should probably be skipped as null. Doing otherwise creates a misleading conflation between "meeting the expectation of leave" and "meeting the expectations of the job".
pflats 9y ago
That's ridiculous. Leave is leave; it's an employee's right that's offered in law or in their contract, and they should not be punished in any way for taking advantage of it. If the employee would otherwise exceed expectations and took paternity leave, then they still exceed expectations. If they were hired in March and worked for 40 weeks, they would not be penalized for failing to work in January or February. Leave should be handled the same way. If the employee was not professional about taking leave (didn't give any notice, did not work with colleagues to organize coverage of his tasks, etc.) then things are different. Similarly, if they promised to do something while on leave and didn't, then that would be an issue.
- zeveb 9y ago
  > Leave is leave; it's an employee's right that's offered in law or in their contract, and they should not be punished in any way for taking advantage of it. Being rated as someone who meets expectations is not a punishment. Certainly, one has the right to exercise one's rights, but one also has a duty to acknowledge that they impact others. Someone who takes paternity leave will, mutatis mutandis, achieve less than someone who does not; someone who is on leave for an entire review period and does nothing related to work cannot fairly be said to exceed expectations.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

diabeetusman 9y ago

At the company where I work, they temporarily disable accounts for both paternity and maternity leave to prevent that exact issue.

dominotw 9y ago

review should be done only for the time that employee was not on leave. makes sense.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

wcarron 9y ago

I'm not so sure. Wouldn't a person on paternity leave be expected to perform less, if not zero work? By doing that, didn't he "meet" expectations? That seems, technically speaking, the accurate description. Of course, if paternity leave really means "we expect you to work at a similar rate", then it's quite obviously not a "paternity leave" in anything other than name.

throwaway-1209 9y ago

How do you exceed expectations while not actually working? As a manager, I'd like to know.