员工排名体系风光不再

    西雅图企业生产力研究所(Institute for Corporate Productivity)首席研究员克利福德•史蒂文森表示，根据2011年的一项调查，采用韦尔奇式评估体系的公司数量正在下降，尤其值得注意的是，一些业绩领先的公司已经放弃了这种做法。

    他说：“声称使用强制排名体系的公司占比已经从42％下降到了14％。”

    他说：“受访的大多数公司（大约57%）以整个组织的薪酬和绩效作为员工评价基准，还有一些所占比重较低的公司则采用分公司、部门、团队或区域水平作为标准。”

    就员工评级而言，这种灵活性给予了管理者更大的自由裁量权，但它也“增加了管理者的负担，因为他们需要对员工业绩做出主观判断。”

    强制排名体系因公司而异，但这种评价方式通常都要求管理者把员工划分为“三六九等”：一部分员工必须被作为表现不佳者，列入最底层的10%；一部分员工作为合格者，列入中间的50-60%；剩余的员工则属于业绩优秀者。明星员工将获得加薪、晋升、培训和教育机会。

    管理者被迫评估员工时，个人因素（比如最喜欢的员工类型和个性）会不可避免地发挥作用。有鉴于此，管理者和员工常常花费更多时间来营造关系网络，讨好上级，以彰显自己实际上可能并未获取的成就。但专家们表示，最不健康的结果是，工作团队的某位成员被评为失败者。

    批评者认为，微软公司近些年来竞争力的退化与员工之间缺乏创意分享有莫大的关系。这家公司的人力资源部主管丽萨•布鲁梅尔表示，微软将着重打造团队协作精神，同时开发员工的潜能。

    她说，微软公司将“不再绘制评级曲线”，管理者将获得奖励员工个人的酌情权。

    乔治敦大学(Georgetown University)麦克多诺商学院(McDonough School of Business)教授布鲁克斯•霍尔特姆声称，虽然强制评级体系存在相当大的缺点，但在工商界中，它或许还有一席之地。

    “这种评价方式或许带有武断的成分，也可能会对创造力和团队共享产生严重的负面影响，但它或许具有优胜劣汰的作用，”他说。“不过，通常来说，强制排名体系只能在头一两年发挥作用，所以说，它只是一项短期战略。”（财富中文网）

    译者：叶寒         

    Clifford Stevenson, lead management researcher for the Institute for Corporate Productivity, a Seattle research firm, said his organization's 2011 survey found a decline in the number of companies, especially those that are high-performing, using the approach.

    "The percentage of companies reporting that they used a forced-ranking system declined from 42% to 14%," he says.

    "The majority of organizations surveyed, about 57%, calibrate pay and performance outcomes for the entire organization, while smaller percentages calibrate at the division, department, team, or geographic level instead," he says.

    That flexibility allows managers, he says, to exercise more discretion in assigning ratings, but it also places "an increased burden on managers to make subjective decisions on employee performance."

    ”

    There are variations by company, but forced rankings typically require managers to divide their employees, sorting a fixed percentage of workers into the bottom 10% or so as underperforming, the middle 50-60% as passing, and the rest as superior or top-performing. The stars receive raises, promotions, training, and education opportunities.

    When managers are forced to rate their employees, personal factors come into play -- like favorites and personalities -- and managers and employees spend more time networking and currying favor to highlight their accomplishments than actually achieving them. But the unhealthiest result, experts say, is the fact that someone on the work team will be pigeonholed as a failure.

    Microsoft, whose competitive momentum, critics argue, has been hindered by lack of idea-sharing, is going to focus on teamwork and collaboration and developing its employees, according to an announcement by its human rights director Lisa Brummel.

    She has said there will be "no more curve" at Microsoft, and that managers will have the discretion to reward individual employees.

    While forced ratings systems have considerable downsides, there can be a place for them at companies, argues Brooks Holtom, a professor at Georgetown University's McDonough School of Business.

    "The ratings can be arbitrary, and they can have serious effects on creativity and team-sharing, but they can have the benefit of helping cut the deadwood," he says. "But, typically speaking, forced rankings can work in the first year or two, so it's only a short-term strategy."