Employee Ranking Systems LO16715

Rol Fessenden (76234.3636@compuserve.com)
Tue, 27 Jan 1998 12:23:51 -0500

Replying to LO16691 --

Dick,

LL Bean was, I believe, number 36 on the list of 100 best. We do rank
performance.

My experience with people who don't like ranking is that they make it too
complicated. It is not an effort to define miniscule differences between
individuals. Those differences are not practical to distinguish. It is
closer to a triage in my experience. There are superb performers who
deserve recognition. They are a somewhat small percentage of the whole.
There are a very large group of people who are in the mid-range, or
average performance range. There is another small group that is
performing below expectations.

Many people dislike the identification of sub-par performers. There are
two reasons why it is important. First, the people who actually suffer
the most from sub-par performers are their direct peers. Their peers, if
they are motivated, will take on extra work to make up for the below
average performance of someone in their workgroup. So in a very real and
measurable way, below average performance directly impacts the nearest
neighbors on the work team.

The second reason to identify sub-par performers is that most of the time,
those people are not getting any fulfillment out of their work. They know
they are doing poorly, it does not feel good, they go home at the end of
the day disappointed in themselves, they probably dislike the work and
would rather do something else, and as a consequence of all these factors,
their own and their peers' morale declines. It is management's
responsibility to do something in these situations. It may be, as Robert
suggests, that we need to move these people out of those positions. It
may be that other action is required. However it is done, the situation
_must_ be rectified.

Jo Hamill suggests that ranking leads to all-out war. Nonsense. The
dimensions of ranking include an ability to work with others effectively.
I have seen people who are poor in their ability to work with others, but
it has never been caused by ranking, but was there from the beginning.
Even when their poor interpersonal abilities were pointed out as potential
causes for loss of job, their behavior did not substantially change. The
is a personality issue, not a ranking issue.

you know, no one seems to mind ranking of organizations, but we object to
ranking individuals. What is the source of this distinction? Would it be
ok to work for a lousy boss (who did not get identified as lousy) in a
first rank company? I doubt it. My experience is the contrary. The boss
is much more important than the company in my overall work experience. So
I hope I get a good one, and I hope the company is paying attention to
these issues when they promote.

Rol Fessenden

-- 

Rol Fessenden <76234.3636@compuserve.com>

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