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Employee performance reviews that enforce an arbitrary curve-based ranking or grading system often to do more harm than good. I have seen employees who have pe
by cscott 17y ago
Employee performance reviews that enforce an arbitrary curve-based ranking or grading system often to do more harm than good.
I have seen employees who have performed well all year get demolished by a performance review where they were rated a "3" or "4" out of "5" because HR required only one "5" per department and two or three "4"s, and expect the majority of employees to be a "3". (Thankfully, they didn't require that each department designate a "1" goat.)
That being said, I have found that performance reviews that focus on how the employee has improved the business and seized opportunities (or not) and focus less on artificial competition are extremely beneficial.
- tom_b 17y ago+1 for mentioning the arbitrary curve-based ranking common in big companies. Tightly coupling salary/bonuses to performance reviews with this type of system is a disaster. Unfortunately, my experience is that most managers in such a system lack the insight to minimize the effect on employees. Maybe when you're talking about minimizing the effect of telling an employee they are (non-deservedly) one of the "3" performers, you've already lost the battle . . . Add in the inevitable weird corporate culture stuff "you are a '3' because you got promoted this year, it's just your turn in the box" and you have a perfect recipe for draining motivation away from employees.