Be specific.
How would you decide on raises and promotions?
17 replies (most recent on top)
OP is a manager trying to justify the system. The current assessment system at XOM is flawed. It encourages backstabbing and does not drive results. Just look at our company performance.
More successful companies have assessment systems that recognize performance while encouraging collaboration and overall drive better results for the company.
Make it a lottery. Each year put everyone’s name in a big drum. Spin the drum a few times then announce, “The next x number of names will be NSI”, then pick names. Do the same for all other categories. Make it a big team building event with beer and mixed drinks, open bar. At the end, congratulate all the “winners” who were at the top and remind all those who were NSI that they just need to do better next year and the PIP will help them to not be NSI next year. At least employees will be able to understand this system and it’s not personal. Boot lickers will not have an advantage so it will seem fair as well.
I agree with your statement that people can’t seem to wrap their heads ainda it being a relative system. Even the low ranked people in an absolute basis are really good people.
The fundamental problem is that EM is using a relative ranking system, but most employees interpret the result as an absolute assessment of their performance. In this system most of the NSI employees are doing a very good job. Unfortunately, they are seen to be doing less than others. HR made this problem worse by giving the relative categories absolute labels like Very Good, or Excellent. If EM wants to use a relative system they need to find a way to acknowledge that in most parts of EM even the poorest performer is doing an excellent job.
The system, as currently structured, is disrespectful to the vast majority of the employees. There is no excuse for this. EM needs to find a respectful way to recognize peoples contributions, while at the same time identifying the top performers.
@1jms+1bwu7hYx Not justifying the system just saying the world is a dog eat dog place. If your parents didn’t teach you this they did you a disservice. Competition is real. You want to date and marry the best woman? You better be on top of your game. You want to get the promotion and raise? You have to beat out everyone else. If you don’t like the rules go to a different company where you do like the rules.
I have friends that work at Amazon, Tesla, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, BCG, McKinsey, small companies you have never heard of, etc etc and they all have a system to decide who gets the raise, who gets promoted, and who is shown the door. None of my friends live the system where they work but they all understand there has to be some way to decide who gets a bigger piece of the pie.
Some people on this board seem to believe we should all get participation trophies. Life isn’t fair. Life is hard. That’s the way it is. If you expect it to be different you are going to be disappointed. Suck it up and build yourself up. Find better opportunities for yourself. Don’t see yourself as a victim. Be somebody. Man up.
How about keeping management totally out of it? Let the employee "workers" rank the group. They would be better at differentiating those who do the real work from those who just proclaim they do. This system would be purer and reflect the true state of things.
OP - I will be specific. Are you a worthless manager trying to justify the system? Or are you a koolaid drinker that has never crawled from under the XOM rock?
You are asking a stupid question. Just do a quick search on the internet and you will see how successful companies do assessments. They give promotions and raises based on results and brown nosing. Such companies are building a collaborative workforce and climbing to new heights while XOM is breeding an army of backstabbers and the company is dying a slow death.
@1zpz+1bwu7hYx In spite of what HBR says the worker bees don’t sound very happy.
https://www.thelayoff.com/deloitte
https://www.thelayoff.com/deloitte-consulting
See Deloitte’s system which was recently highlighted in Harvard Business Review.
Current system is just a front to allow senior management subjectivity on who gets ahead. In principle, it's not a bad way to manage a company. If Company decides to go to an objectively fair system it would still use relative performance analysis, but, with multidimensional relative metrics. Employee development gaps are then clearly understood by both parties. HR could then process the data in to contours or surfaces of performance and apply salary treatment and potential. I think current culture would feel uncomfortable with loss of control.
First, get rid entirely of the hi-po system. Despite claims to the contrary for the “new” assessment system, hi-pos are ALWAYS highly ranked by supervisors who know who protects their hi-pos, plus clan solidarity. The upper third and the upper part of the middle third were always reserved for hi-pos, making a joke of the whole system.
Second, no more relative ranking. Set some standards for each ranking category and respect them. Note that today we have quintiles that actually have names, so it makes you think that if you call somebody “very good”, there are standards behind that. No, they explicitly rejected the idea of defined standards, because if needed they want to put a person who has a very good performance in NI, if that person has no connections or is at a CL where they compete directly with supervisors or managers.
If you have standards (absolute ranking), most likely we’ll discover that about 60% of employees fall in “very good”, with the rest distributed above and below that.
Also very important is to stop linking ranking with the role assigned. If you do technical work and you’re more experienced (therefore at a higher CL level), you’re told that at this point in your career you have to have a “company wide” impact. That makes sense, but in a highly hierarchical company you work the role you’re assigned, not what you know would have the higher impact. There are jobs specifically designed to have “company wide” impact, all kinds of advisors and such, but those are always given to people from the hi-po fraternity, so it’s a catch 22.
It’s not that difficult to build a much better system, you can already see a lot of good brainstorming ideas in this thread. But any real change to the system would eliminate the legitimacy of the entire “leadership”, so it’s never going to happen until a major crash. Remember how the president of Georgia cleaned up for good the corrupt traffic police ? He fired them all and hired completely different people.
OP, are you DW?
There isn’t a system that has zero flaws. I would utilize a quarterly 360 feedback system where you rank yourself 1-5 in different performance categories then entire team rates you in same way. The supervisor would rate the employee last and his/her score has 3x weighting for the employee. The sum of the scores would then be placed on the curve. Essentially the system looks like a 360 feedback system on a college type grading scale. Every 3 years an employee has present to an executive board that then rates the employee for future promotion potential.
Replace the ranking system with the exact same way we rank process operators / wage employees.
Great question.
The fact is, there is no perfect system. However, forcing management to put people in buckets of best to worst is fundamentally flawed, and is one of the worst systems.
It creates a "Hunger Games" mentality. Your coworkers are your competition. Discourages collaboration. Why help your competition (that is, your coworkers)?
If you have a great team, you should be able to give them ALL raises and find paths for promotion. If you have a stinker, you should be able to document the stink and act accordingly.
Forced ranking on one end creates supercharged arrogance when they are "with distinction," and it demoralizes a hard-working, value-adding employee who is now NI for no good reason. It's a good way to make a once good employee hate the company. Think they are going to go the extra mile for the company after you NI them? HA!
I mean, really, is it that hard to pick out the winners? You should still have assessments and feedback, get rid of the forced distribution.
Getting rid of forced ranking won't solve everything, but it's a better alternative than the current system, which is pretty much universally hated, from what I can tell.
I would definitely make it so it’s based one way according to HR, but in reality executed another way
The government should set the wages and how manys hours you work each day, excluding travel time. That way it wills be fair.