4 ms·

Can anyone steelman the case for employee metrics and if so what are the best ones?

• rgbrgb 2y ago
  idk if this is steel, but I think the basic counterpoint is that humans are biased. No matter what, you are going to be compared against your co-workers sometimes (think layoffs or raises). Say your manager has 10% of budget to allocate to raises. How do they allocate? What is fair? OP seems to advocate for the manager to just know who is high impact and be fair. But even if the manager is good and their team is happy and productive, there's probably not consensus on what this should look like. So it's attractive to codify this process and try to remove human bias.
• jlund-molfese 2y ago
  The straw man is usually that employee metrics should be used as the primary factor in performance reviews. Well, I guess it's hard to call it a straw man because some companies, allegedly, really do operate like that. The steel man argument would be that employee metrics can provide a couple data points that a manager doesn't take action on by themselves, but can help a manager know where to look. Metrics can flag unusual situations. Sometimes there's a great explanation behind employee X making 80% fewer commits than the average employee. Like less rework, making more impactful changes, or simply bundling more changes together. Other times, it can be a sign that someone is having trouble onboarding or simply not performing at the necessary level. When you see that a metric is different than what you expect, it's your responsibility as a manager to figure out why.