Anyone have any insights into the changes of the review process this year? I’ve heard people say it’s now a “relative” ranking whereas prior years were “absolute”.
What is the difference between the two? It seems like it’s the same, and just semantics.
@1fnw+16uGqwgO I have seen this before and the reality was they got away with it.
Dude at CSR in Clinton, NJ my incompetent project lead sabotaged my novel contribution and findings by telling me that we cannot present to anyone specially management as it needs more wetting internally within the team
while
he used the information to claim significant findings and presented to management at URC and in Houston. This helped his otherwise dying career.
I don't have regrets and I don't care but one thing that we are sure is that this behavior is supported and fueled by bad CSR management examples -it's managers to VP level.
Unbelievable a company behaved in such unethical behaviour disguise retrenchment and lay off employee using such immoral performance yardstick.
@kqa+16uGqwgO - in addition to your post (which is detailed and correct), I would also add that one of my concerns is what happens when your boss is in the same rank group as you (e.g. CL 26 and CL 27) and claims everything you did as his own achievement ? I have a strong suspicion that this has happened to me in the last 2 rank cycles, but there is no way to find out for sure. Of course, no-one cared enough until they started rigging the system to shove 8-10% of the US workforce out of the door ....
Wow... @kqa+16uGqwgO nailed that 💯! Good job Sir/Madam/other.
The only thing left to do is put the folks that were relatively labeled as absolute non-performers on a PIP that focuses on soft-skill goals attached to moving targets! 😒
Not necessarily against your peers, just the same CL
It has always been a relative ranking, even in the 1980s and 1990s the old 1.0, 2.0 bucket system had to meet a forced distribution. Usually the lowest performers are easiest to Identify. They do poor quality work and have attitudes. They are high maintenance or working on marginal projects. The best performers go t the best projects and that guarantees they generate positive results.
It’s always been relative ranking, against your peers.
At the end of the day, it’s simply forced ranking, period. Before there were quintiles (5 buckets), now there are still 5 buckets but they get a fluffy new name like “Needs Significant Improvement “ or “Excellent”. Each bucket has to have a certain number of people. So how do they determine how many go in each? Let’s see, we need to get rid of 8% to meet our target opex reduction, so let’s put 8% into NSI. Bingo! HR always has a computer program to do the math during a ranking session and they determine the math. And someone in a glass office decides the numbers.
I was a manager for the last 10 years of my career and I can tell you that those half day Ranking sessions are usually pretty brutal....that is if a manager really does their job. Remember the rank groups typically involve employees across several different departments so a manager has to compete against their peers to keep their group employees ranked higher (if they deserve it). So a manager either finds an ally with a peer beforehand, or they better be ready to take off the gloves and go toe to toe with the manager that sits at the weekly leadership table with them. Let me translate: if you want to represent your people well and fight for their bucket, you have to be a prick and not care about hurting someone’s feelings. Good managers will fight for you and won’t back down from other managers. And the knuckles always get bloody when fighting over the bottom bucket!
If you work in Texas, snap....there is no union and you can be let go because someone got a wild hair in the wrong place.
A Corporation in Texas can hire/fire without cause.
Same is true for contractors.
This verbiage has been used for years. When XOM formed the Russia company EVCIS back in the 90s they formed with a number of employees whom when it came time to rank that first year, averaged above the Gaussian 50%. Once ranked, the numbers were moved absolutely to fit a Gaussian curve, effectively dropping almost everyone. HOWEVER, during the feedback sessions, supervisors were coached to use specific language. Everyone was told they remained the same, moved up or dropped with respect to their peers. My supervisor, who was a friend after being pushed, admitted privately to me that I had dropped along with everyone else, but that they were coached to say what was RELATIVELY true to everyone. After 3 years in that company of remaining the same with respect to my peers, I was transferred back to Exploration and found that I had ABSOLUTELY dropped over 20%.
Absolute is like saying to an apple, "you are a good apple, you taste like an apple, you're crisp, and you have a good red hue with no blemishes."
Relative is like saying to an apple, "you are a bad fruit because you aren't cool like the exotic passion fruit, you're not as compact as the banana, and you don't k–l bacteria like the citruses."
Relative ranking is against your peers or those in your ranking group - it’s relative and comparative. Absolute is against your own goals. In theory all this makes perfect sense - we want to be the best we can be on an absolute basis, and when compared to peers we want to stand out on a relative basis. The new system or even the old one perhaps doesn’t care about the absolute basis - it doesn’t matter if you exceeded your goals and perhaps you think you had a great year. Your manager or their leader can think that on a relative basis you didn’t do so great, provide no specific feedback why and label you a needs significant improvement. The system makes it very easy to do that since managers are not able or capable of providing the comparative feedback for employees to understand how they can improve. It’s almost like making decisions without properly justifying them and then normalizing the subjectivity as a “meritocracy “.
Pretty much. It used to be rank them 1-100 (if 100 in the group)
Everyone got a number now it’s put 8-10% in the NSI, x% in the good and so on. People still get ranked they just don’t fight over the number someone is placed at anymore.
Don’t worry about it. You’ll get pip’ed eventually