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Promotions are always going to be subjective because they're a judgement call about how well the person will perform in a more senior role. Firing someone is d
by psunavy03 2y ago
Promotions are always going to be subjective because they're a judgement call about how well the person will perform in a more senior role. Firing someone is different; the bar for that is that they are squarely underperforming relative to what is reasonably expectable.
The idea that some fixed percentage of people always underperform is possibly Jack Welch's most toxic contribution to management, and with all the BS he spewed over the years, that's saying something. It makes people compete against each other Hunger Games-style as opposed to working as a team.
- jaredklewis 2y agoWell I guess I don't see how a manager can determine if someone is "underperforming relative to what is reasonably expectable" without the issues I mentioned in my first post, namely that there is no objective way to make that determination. Managers will mostly be incentivized to determine that no one is ever underperforming relative to a firing standard. And maybe it wasn’t clear, but at my previous company, those evaluations were not just used for promotions, but also who to PIP. There is also the more philosophical question of where that standard would come from in the first place. And what if the business finds that the average applicant meets a much higher standard than the current firing standard of the company? It would seem to then make sense to raise the company's own firing standard.
- xigency 2y agoOf course you can always make things so entirely vague as to be completely meaningless while still asserting that you are constantly improving by adopting a slogan like "raising the bar."