MS Does Away With Stacked Ranking

ptilsen

Microsoft Scraps Curved Ranking System

This is big news, in my opinion. Not only do I think this has held MS back from innovating, but it greatly increases any chances I'd ever work there, personally.

RouteMyPacket

No clue what that is? Something internal i'm gathering from the article?

ptilsen

Vitality curve - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

JoJoCal19

RouteMyPacket wrote: »

No clue what that is? Something internal i'm gathering from the article?

out of 10 employees the manager has to give 2 employees an exceeds expectations, 6 employees a meets, and 2 employees a do not meets. An oversimplification but close. Also in that environment the 2 who do not meet expectations are dead men walking.

elderkai

That would seem worthless if there aren't any "do not meet" people and having to rank a members of a good team bad and fire them.

ajs1976

Enron used an approach like that and we know how that worked out.

ptilsen

The wiki article pretty effectively captures the issue with it. It might have made sense for saving GE, but it makes absolutely no sense at a software company.

CCNTrainee

RouteMyPacket wrote: »

No clue what that is? Something internal i'm gathering from the article?

Pretty much where a company ranks all their employees on a scale (i.e.1-5) based on overall performance. What makes the system a problem is how companies enforce "Quotas" for the "ranked numbers" they can give out. X amount only can be 5s, most being 3s, and may even put some people to have 1s... This is the way the Air Force is trying to rate people in the near future since we are becoming a peacetime service again and don't need the amount of people we have now...

stryder144

USAF has used that type of scale for a long, long time. I never worried about quotas. I would always use the job description, plus the rank description to figure out where a troop stood. If they far exceeded the requirements, they got a 5 (equivalent to working at a level one grade higher than they were). If they exceeded most of the requirements, they got a 4 (equivalent to working at a level one grade higher some of the time). I never had a boss question me about my ratings, as they knew I would rate true. Unfortunately, few would rate true, so you had a lot of 3s with 5s for ratings.

Unfortunately, a lot of commanders are going to require the 5 rating to be only a certain percentage. I feel that it does a disservice to the troops because you could have two or three who are 5s but only one would likely get it. That kills morale and makes people work only hard enough to not get yelled at. I am glad I retired before that happened.

zxbane

Stryder,

Being prior Air Force myself, I can say that there were definitely a lot of 5's given out. It seemed like everyone essentially got a 5, or the highest rating. Makes it hard to stand out when everyone is being rated as being top tier.

stryder144

zxbane...too true. I fought a few times when giving out less than 5s. Took about two minutes to correct leadership, which shouldn't have been necessary. I think that is one of the reasons so many 5s were given out. Who wants to constantly fight leadership?

CCNTrainee

Well I agree with you guys that too many "5"s are given out and A LOT of people don't deserve it... but anyways there have been announcements coming way higher ups in fixing the inflation. They are now deciding to change the EPR form and enforcing Quotas with each rate number, which is suppose to start showing face sometime in the next fiscal year. Also TIG+TIS no longer will play a factor in Promotion and it will be purely on the weight of EPRs + Test Scores . Now that ALL services are making their transitions back to a Peacetime service by enforcing some BS regulations, I'm guessing this is another way for the AF to cut the fat.

I could see the quotas being a necessary change, but for it to be a proper working system is should be quoted down to the element/shop level and everyone is reviewed annual at the same time. IMO there should be special exceptions for Servicemembers that are "deployed" and members that are in a special high speed secret squirrel assignment where only the best and brightest are picked. Also Servicemembers that serve in truly integrated joint assignments, since I know many that have a Civilian boss or a Supervisor from a different branch. I hope this change would cut the CRAP of fluffing up Bullets for EPRs, or fluff in general... but since we are a very Political Correct branch I don't see the fluff going away.

ptilsen

stryder144 wrote: »

Unfortunately, a lot of commanders are going to require the 5 rating to be only a certain percentage.

This —when a certain percentage are required to be at the bottom — is a stack ranking system. The rest is just a scoring system.

The problem with stack ranking is it will ensure employees compete rather than collaborate, and at that they will try to position themselves in teams where the competition is easier. Instead of getting the best working with the best, you get them competing with the worst.

tjh87

ptilsen wrote: »

Instead of getting the best working with the best, you get them competing with the worst.

Exactly. No longer will I be willing to give credit to fellow employees for catching that last error or their input on an issue. If my job is on the line, I am taking credit for everything and giving credit for nothing. I'm not sharing my projects with anyone or letting anyone know how I fixed problem X. It all becomes about job security. I can't see how this improves ANY business model. It may weed out some poor performers in the beginning, but in the long run, you'll be hurting your own business by removing decent performers just because SOMEONE had to be ranked at the bottom.