My take on these claims is that there is some truth (not the whole truth) to it and it is not entirely baseless. Not a day goes by without me wondering about why the entire process is so secretive. I have my concerns about the review process and want some openness and fairness. If the performance review process is objective, why such a secrecy? I go even farther and suggest the following:
- Make the performance ratings public. What is wrong with knowing who performed better and why they are better? Maybe someone could learn a thing or two by following the super performer.
- Make the employee's commitents public. I would be very happy to learn about what everyone plans to achieve and see if I could colloborate with others. Otherwise, there is guaranteed to be duplication of efforts.
- Banish the stack ranking. It is a subjective process mostly and is not a documented process by HR. Since there is no guidence from HR about this (which is crucial to your rating), either formalize the process or make it transparent
UPDATE: After this mail got sent out, I asked one of the manager in my team on what he thought. To my surprise, he thought stack ranking is the way to go and even mentioned that holding one before the employee gets a chance to write a review and make his case is perfectly alright!!!!!!!
Here is the e-mail that got sent out to many employees:
From: A DREAM [mailto:dreamsft07@yahoo.com] Sent: Tuesday, June 28, 2005 10:27 AMTo: keep_his_dream_alive@yahoo.comSubject: Your rating, salary, and bonus may have all been decided by the time you read this email ...
Make your performance review count – stop stack ranking abuse!
That’s right - your review rating, salary, and bonus may have already been decided by the time you read this email. How? Through a process known as stack ranking, your managers may have already met and decided it before ever reading your performance review. Without objective performance data and feedback, your managers rely on gut instincts to decide your fate. Unfortunately, these instincts are often wrong and highly subjective. After stack rankings have been established, review ratings, salary, bonus, and stock grants are assigned accordingly. Even though stack rankings can have the single most impact on determining an employee’s rating and compensation, the process is not documented in the employee handbook, nor are employees allowed to know their stack ranking or appeal them.
If stack rankings are so unfair and subjective, why do managers continue to rely on them? For one, it is a very convenient way for managers to bypass the performance review process and determine the all important numbers in a short meeting. No waiting for employees to write their reviews, read them, provide comments, and talk to them to make sure they are in mutual agreement. Instead, managers simply assign employee a rank and see how they fair with the rest of the team. In cases of disagreement, higher ranking managers, who may have no knowledge of your performance, have veto power and can favor the employees they like best. Keep in mind each 4.0/4.5 rating requires a 2.5 to balance out the curve even if the difference in performance is negligible. One employee is given lavish rewards while the other gets nothing but a warning that their job is in jeopardy. All this without the inconvenience of having to read the employee’s performance review to ascertain if their performance is unacceptable.
The other reason stack rankings are popular is the fact that they are remarkably effective in maintaining the status quo. Minorities groups are significantly underrepresented in the ranks of management at Microsoft. By allowing managers to make performance management decisions based primarily on personal preference and not actual documented performance, managers will tend to favor those who they are most familiar and comfortable with. Since there are far fewer minority managers participating in stack ranking meetings they are out voted than their Caucasian peers, This unfortunately makes stack ranking an effective self perpetuating method for preserving a status quo imbalance that ultimately denies minority employees with equal pay and promotional opportunity in the company.
So what can you do to stop stack ranking abuse? Plenty:
· Talk to your manager and find out if and how they use stack ranking. Don’t take “no” or “that’s confidential” as an answer. If stack ranking is used, ask when they are done. In most cases they are done weeks before performance reviews are turned in so that managers can submit numbers to HR on schedule. If so, tell your manager that you consider this practice unfair and insist that they adhere to Microsoft’s performance management policy by using performance reviews as the basis for making decisions. Also find out your rank and if you can appeal it.
· Write to your business unit VP and the VP of HR and tell them you want stack ranking abuse to halted once and for all. Tell them that the stack ranking process cannot be secretive and must be standardized across the company and documented in the employee handbook. Also, stack rankings, if used, must be done following the completion of employee performance reviews and not before so that managers have access to the most objective and current information on individual employee performance.
· If you receive a poor performance review or are denied a promotion that you deserve as a result of stack ranking, don’t accept it – fight it. If your manager is not willing to do anything about it, you can file a complaint directly with the HR Employee Relations Investigation Team. Better yet, if you believe there are possible grounds for discrimination against you, contact state or federal agencies such as the WA State Human Rights Commission or EEOC who can ensure your civil rights are protected.
This message is brought to you by DREAM, employees for Diversity & Racial Equality At Microsoft. If you would like more information on stack ranking abuse or any other topics related to protecting civil rights, diversity, and fighting discrimination at Microsoft, please visit our web site at http://www.groups.yahoo.com/groups/dreamsft
2 comments:
Kudos on your suggestions regarding performance management at Microsoft - I couldn't agree more. I have worked at Microsoft since the early 90's and have seen the injustice of stack ranking first hand. There is nothing beneficial or objective about stack ranking and in many cases ends up being Microsoft's equivalent of ethnic cleansing. Countless times I've seen good, hard working, highly competent minority employees get screwed at the hands of so called managers who I swear are lifted directly out of the pages of a Dilbert cartoon. I don't know why SteveB tolerates this and allows managers to make a mockery of the entire performance review process. On the the other hand, it does help explain why so many incompetent idiots are promoted and the stock price has been stuck on $25 the past 4 years.
I'm glad you took the time to write about this in your blog but I hope you'll do more by taking an active stance against this abuse. Unfortunately the manager you mention is probably representative of most managers at Microsoft who would rather rely on stack rankings rather than do their real job - namely manage their employees fairly and make sure they are rewarded properly.
I also applaud the employees behind DREAM. Although one can question their methods, you can't question the moral courage they've shown by taking a stand on diversity issues that really matter including this and the shameful and blantant under representation of PacAsians in management. If Microsoft's executive management team showed just a small fraction of integrity, it would be a whole different company.
...I'm glad you took the time to write about this in your blog but I hope you'll do more by taking an active stance against this abuse...
I have raised my share of concerns in the past many times only to be advised back that it is best to learn the system and learn to use the system!@#$*. It is kind of like saying if the system is corrupt, learn to use the system which doesn't fly well with me. I stopped raising my concerns since it went into deaf ears.
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