Employee Ranking Systems LO16535

Fred Nickols (nickols@worldnet.att.net)
Wed, 14 Jan 1998 12:01:06 +0000

Responding to Roxanne Abbas in LO16503 --

>Please help!
>
>The January issue of ACA (American Compensation Association) News includes
>an article about Osram Sylvania^Rs 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.

...snip...

>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?

No, Roxanne, I don't think you're missing anything. The supposed benefits
of performance appraisal systems simply don't exist. I believe you know I
wrote an article urging that such systems be scrapped, which appeared in
Corporate University Review. It is also out on the web:

http://home.att.net/~nickols/articles.htm

At least one company I know did indeed scrap its performance appraisal
system in response to that article. They declared that day "Independence
Day."

Hold firm, Roxanne. A Dallas-based consultant, in a letter to Training
magazine a few years back, characterized performance appraisal systems as
"egg-sucking dogs." Farm boys know what to do with those critters.

Regards,

Fred Nickols
The Distance Consulting Company
nickols@worldnet.att.net
http://home.att.net/~nickols/distance.html

-- 

Fred Nickols <nickols@worldnet.att.net>

Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>