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> A Blizzard spokesperson told Bloomberg that the evaluation process is designed to [...] "ensure employees who don't meet performance expectations receive [...

> A Blizzard spokesperson told Bloomberg that the evaluation process is designed to [...] "ensure employees who don't meet performance expectations receive [...] differentiated compensation. Most of the response is the usual PR speak, but "differentiated compensation" seems like a new level of back-bending to avoid saying "less pay."

scient 4y ago
If your compensation consists of base pay plus a bonus, that is usually tied to performance, then why should you get the bonus payout if you don't meet expectations?
- crooked-v 4y ago
  Stack ranking guarantees that the process isn't actually measuring if people are meeting expectations or not.
- 6177c40f 4y ago
  Because I doubt that the ranking system will be objective or even closely tied to any real measure of skill, performance, merit.
- the_af 4y ago
  Who says they didn't meet expectations? As long as you define these expectations as "no other employee performs better than you".
- Lazare 4y ago
  There are employee evaluation tools that try to measure if employees are meeting expectations. The entire point of stack ranking is that it does not do this. The article is about a lead who resigned/got fired because the system wanted to penalise someone who was meetings expectations.
- fishtoaster 4y ago
  There's nothing wrong with getting paid less if you don't meet performance expectations. I'm just impressed with the term they made up ("differentiated compensation") to try to make that sound nicer.
cipheredStones 4y ago
It's also funny how they try to wrap it so that it almost sounds like they're doing it for the benefit of the employee: > "ensure employees who don't meet performance expectations receive more honest feedback, differentiated compensation, and a plan on how best to improve their own performance." Honest feedback? Great! A plan for how to improve my performance? Sure, sounds good [if you don't know what the social realities of a PIP are]. Differentiated compensation? Wait a second...
- IMTDb 4y ago
  I don’t know about you but far before I showed up for the very first day of my career my expectations were that if I performed better than my peers I would be paid more and if I underperformed I would be paid less. And generally that has proven to be roughly true, with the occasional weird stuff here and there. The only place I know were this does not seem to be the case are government employees were everybody is paid according to a fixed grid and were salary increases are purely time gated. My experience with working with people compensated on a such a model has been… interesting.
  - kayodelycaon 4y ago
    It really depends what company you work in. There are a lot of places where how much people like you determines how you are compensated. You can appear productive while you’re the one who is constantly creating the problems that you swoop in and fix to save the day. Half of my jobs didn’t rewarded people on performance. Hell, I got demoted during a reorganization and was told my current performance merited my previous title but because I didn’t perform at that level 9 months ago, I was demoted. And they promoted someone older than me into my previous position purely because of his age. He did not meet any of the requirements for it.
    - Aeolun 4y ago
      > There are a lot of places where how much people like you determines how you are compensated. I think this is true literally everywhere. Another factor may be competence, but of similar people, the one whom is liked will probably earn more than the other.
ataylor284_ 4y ago
This blurs the real issue. You can still have different compensation and PIPs and everything else without stack rankings. The real issue is that stack rankings compel managers to meet a quota for low performers. Even if the team is full of top tier engineers, one or more get dealt the short straw every review period.
- at-fates-hands 4y ago
  I work at a company that has stack ranking. While I'm just a developer, my wife is a director at the same company. I multiple years, she's turned in her evaluations and had the director and VP above her tell her to lower several employees ranking. One example was an engineer who didn't get along with the people on his team for a pretty high profile project. They know the guy's brilliant and don't want to fire him, so they move him to a lower profile project to decommission several server farms they had been struggling to get done. Dude goes in and absolutely kills it. They estimate he saved the company hundreds of millions of dollars by the tens of thousands of servers he decommissioned and renegotiated several large contracts the company was on the hook for. My wife ranked him in the upper tier. He wrinkled a few feathers, but once they reallocated him, he absolutely thrived and saved the company literally a ton of money. Nope. He pissed too many people off, her boss and bosses boss mandated she give him a low ranking with a miniscule pay increase and minimum bonus in order to punish him for his behavior early in the year. Nothing he did after that mattered to them. Nothing. When your work is a popularity contest and not measured on actual performance, its a toxic mix.
  - ngc248 4y ago
    At the beginning of my career, I had faced the same issue. This was at a casino gaming company. During the first year I was the top performer, but due to the GFC (2008) i got peanuts. The next year, the director got his old report as a manager for us. This manager created interference between me and the director, i got multiple people coming and telling me to listen to the manager and submit to him. I was entirely sidelined, given miniscule raises and bonuses. other people who deferred to the manager and followed his words were promoted. Fortunately for me a director from another group who knew my work, took me under his wing and I was finally able to thrive. Does not matter the exceptional work you do, its always about listening to your "superiors". Ofc this depends on the organization. Not every place will be like this

scient 4y ago

If your compensation consists of base pay plus a bonus, that is usually tied to performance, then why should you get the bonus payout if you don't meet expectations?

crooked-v 4y ago
Stack ranking guarantees that the process isn't actually measuring if people are meeting expectations or not.
6177c40f 4y ago
Because I doubt that the ranking system will be objective or even closely tied to any real measure of skill, performance, merit.
the_af 4y ago
Who says they didn't meet expectations? As long as you define these expectations as "no other employee performs better than you".
Lazare 4y ago
There are employee evaluation tools that try to measure if employees are meeting expectations. The entire point of stack ranking is that it does not do this. The article is about a lead who resigned/got fired because the system wanted to penalise someone who was meetings expectations.
fishtoaster 4y ago
There's nothing wrong with getting paid less if you don't meet performance expectations. I'm just impressed with the term they made up ("differentiated compensation") to try to make that sound nicer.

cipheredStones 4y ago

It's also funny how they try to wrap it so that it almost sounds like they're doing it for the benefit of the employee: > "ensure employees who don't meet performance expectations receive more honest feedback, differentiated compensation, and a plan on how best to improve their own performance." Honest feedback? Great! A plan for how to improve my performance? Sure, sounds good [if you don't know what the social realities of a PIP are]. Differentiated compensation? Wait a second...

IMTDb 4y ago
I don’t know about you but far before I showed up for the very first day of my career my expectations were that if I performed better than my peers I would be paid more and if I underperformed I would be paid less. And generally that has proven to be roughly true, with the occasional weird stuff here and there. The only place I know were this does not seem to be the case are government employees were everybody is paid according to a fixed grid and were salary increases are purely time gated. My experience with working with people compensated on a such a model has been… interesting.
- kayodelycaon 4y ago
  It really depends what company you work in. There are a lot of places where how much people like you determines how you are compensated. You can appear productive while you’re the one who is constantly creating the problems that you swoop in and fix to save the day. Half of my jobs didn’t rewarded people on performance. Hell, I got demoted during a reorganization and was told my current performance merited my previous title but because I didn’t perform at that level 9 months ago, I was demoted. And they promoted someone older than me into my previous position purely because of his age. He did not meet any of the requirements for it.
  - Aeolun 4y ago
    > There are a lot of places where how much people like you determines how you are compensated. I think this is true literally everywhere. Another factor may be competence, but of similar people, the one whom is liked will probably earn more than the other.

ataylor284_ 4y ago

This blurs the real issue. You can still have different compensation and PIPs and everything else without stack rankings. The real issue is that stack rankings compel managers to meet a quota for low performers. Even if the team is full of top tier engineers, one or more get dealt the short straw every review period.

at-fates-hands 4y ago
I work at a company that has stack ranking. While I'm just a developer, my wife is a director at the same company. I multiple years, she's turned in her evaluations and had the director and VP above her tell her to lower several employees ranking. One example was an engineer who didn't get along with the people on his team for a pretty high profile project. They know the guy's brilliant and don't want to fire him, so they move him to a lower profile project to decommission several server farms they had been struggling to get done. Dude goes in and absolutely kills it. They estimate he saved the company hundreds of millions of dollars by the tens of thousands of servers he decommissioned and renegotiated several large contracts the company was on the hook for. My wife ranked him in the upper tier. He wrinkled a few feathers, but once they reallocated him, he absolutely thrived and saved the company literally a ton of money. Nope. He pissed too many people off, her boss and bosses boss mandated she give him a low ranking with a miniscule pay increase and minimum bonus in order to punish him for his behavior early in the year. Nothing he did after that mattered to them. Nothing. When your work is a popularity contest and not measured on actual performance, its a toxic mix.
- ngc248 4y ago
  At the beginning of my career, I had faced the same issue. This was at a casino gaming company. During the first year I was the top performer, but due to the GFC (2008) i got peanuts. The next year, the director got his old report as a manager for us. This manager created interference between me and the director, i got multiple people coming and telling me to listen to the manager and submit to him. I was entirely sidelined, given miniscule raises and bonuses. other people who deferred to the manager and followed his words were promoted. Fortunately for me a director from another group who knew my work, took me under his wing and I was finally able to thrive. Does not matter the exceptional work you do, its always about listening to your "superiors". Ofc this depends on the organization. Not every place will be like this