On 10 Feb 98 at 16:09, JAMES_H_CARRINGTON@HP-Westfor wrote:
> One of the things I find very interesting concerning this debate
> regarding ranking and PA systems is that while proponents of such
> systems can point to specific systems that seem to work
> (Hewlett-Packard, L.L. Bean), opponents have not yet pointed to any
> specific examples of successful companies that have thrown out their
> old appraisal/ranking systems in favor of an alternative.
That's a good point. I know of clients who have stopped doing performance
appraisals completely, because under some circumstances, they didn't see a
point...but that's different. I have heard of organizations that don' t
use rankings at all (and use an MBO approach, which is probably the most
defensible approach). I have hard of organizations that scrapped the whole
thing (I would have to look to see if I could find them).
The real difficulty though is determining what constitutes "success".
Frankly, we would need to have some criterion for success before it there
was even a point in extending the discussion. Is the system at HP
successful? Or at LL Bean? I don't know, and I would guess that there is
no concrete information as to whether the approaches yielded more than
they cost.
The first step in my view, and one which I do not see happening, is
evaluating such "successful" systems to see if they add or suck value. If
they suck value, then doing nothing is better (with some legal issues
addressed).
MBO which doesn't use rankings or ratings has a long history. If you need
examples that don't use rankings or ratings, a search on the internet
would probably work for you.
...but if we don't know the criterion, and measure, we don't know
what is succeeding.
Robert Bacal, Inst.For Cooperative Communication, rbacal@escape.ca
Visit our Resource Centre for articles on mgmt.,training,communication, and defusing hostility
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