The January issue of ACA (American Compensation Association) News includes
an article about Osram Sylvanias new Performance Management System. I
was surprised to learn that they had implemented two practices that I have
long considered archaic and counter-productive: company-wide employee
ranking (3700 employees) and forced distribution of performance ratings.
In the course of my twenty years experience in compensation and
performance management I have come to believe that these practices are
inherently ineffective for the following reasons:
-ranking implies that there is a valid means to measure relative
performance of employees in vastly different jobs.
-forced distribution implies that there is validity and utility in
assigning a predetermined percentage of employees to various performance
categories.
-ranking and forced distribution are mathematical techniques applied to
quantifiable measures which simply dont exist for most kinds of employee
performance.
-ranking diverts employees focus from customer satisfaction.
-ranking diverts managements focus from systems performance and company
results.
-ranking pits employee against employee, damages relationships and may
encourage attempts to brown-nose or defame or even sabotage other
employees.
-ranking causes management to see employees on a continuum from good to
bad instead of recognizing the unique gifts and skills of each individual
and seeking how best to best use each persons talents.
I an aware that I have a fixed mental model on the issue of ranking and
forced distribution? Please help me if any of you can see that I am
missing something. Have I closed my mind on this issue so that I'm unable
to see the positive benefits of these p ractices?
Best regards,
Roxanne
--Roxanne Abbas rabbas@comp-web.com http://www.comp-web.com
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