Jeff,
I agree with the oter respondents that grading systems sap the life force
of creativity, learning, growth, etc. from organizations. In fact, a
large employer near here just developed an evaluation system that
basically tries to do away with such grading standards. While this sounds
great on the surface, there are some practical problems with this
approach.
Compensation issues are always very sticky points of corporate life.
Legally, employers are required to justify why this person is paid XX%
more that that person and why this person should get a larger percentage
raise that another. These have traditionally been tied to a performance
evaluation system.
In an organization where such issues are possible to be administered
arbitrarily, the lack of trust that inevitably results will keep the old
fashioned grading system firmly in place. This has long been a problem
for team-based reward systems, as well. Either they allow rewards
separate from compensation, or they try in vain to link individual effort
to team-based performance. In the face of this situation, efforts, such
as those described above, to rehabilitate evaluation systems are doomed to
certain failure.
To me, the question is how we can obtain true sponsorship for such changes
(non-performance-based compensation [in the traditional sense]) within an
organization such that these changes that should stimulate worker growth
and development stand a chance to survive and make a real difference.
--Clyde Howell orgpsych@augusta.net
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>