Employee Ranking Systems LO16781

Roxanne Abbas (rabbas@comp-web.com)
Sat, 31 Jan 1998 08:35:10 -0600

Hello to all and thank you to everyone who has posted ideas, opinions and
experience on this and off-shoot topics. Initially I was surprised to
find anyone defending the practice of employee ranking, but I believe I'm
beginning to understand. First, our postings have shown that many of us
are defining this term differently. Second, it appears that some of us
have found ranking to be useful and may not have had exposure to other
tools that might be more effective.

What is employee ranking?

Employee ranking is the simplest form of employee performance evaluation.
It is a comparison of the total performance of each employee relative to
the total performance of each other employee. The process results in an
ordering of employees into a hierarchy from highest to lowest. My
original post referenced an ACA News article about the ranking system at
Sylvania that ranked all employees in the company from 1 to 3700.

Rol described LL Bean's system of performance rating in which employees
were assigned to one of three categories. Performance rating systems
generally compare the individual employee's behaviors and results relative
to the requirements of their own job rather than relative to other
employees. Although performance rating systems have many critics, they
are certainly more sophisticated and useful for improving individual and
company performance.

Where might a true employee ranking system be useful?

I've tried to think of situations where ranking could be a good tool to
use. If a manager were faced with the directive that she had to lay off x
employees, ranking might help in the decision-making process. Likewise,
when deciding which candidate to hire for an open position, ranking could
be useful. Sylvania used their ranking process to determine pay
increases. I feel that this is a poor application of the tool.

One of the tests I use to determine how a proposed system design might
affect the health of an organization, is to ask myself whether they would
use this method at home. Do you think that it's a good practice to rank
the overall performance of your children from high to low? Surely you
care as much or more about the performance of your children.

Is ranking of companies less offensive than the ranking of people?

Probably, but I think that we have proven that this process for companies
has some of the same inherent flaws as it does with people. The Halo
Effect is a term used to describe the human tendency to think of a good
performer as good in all respects. Some of us assumed that a highly
ranked company would have good tools for employee performance appraisal
and that if highly ranked companies use employee ranking, then employee
ranking must be okay. HP is a wonderful company, but I suspect that those
who work there can see many processes that could be enhanced. And if they
can't, I recommend that you sell your HP stock today!

Best regards,

Roxanne

Roxanne Abbas
Rabbas@comp-web.com
http://www.comp-web.com

-- 

Roxanne Abbas <rabbas@comp-web.com>

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