No high performing, decent organisation still uses the bell curve. It is an out of date, subjective and vindictive process. BNYM is still in the dark ages as far as employee relations despite its platitudes and virtue signalling.
I really hope the bank decides to leave the middle ages when it comes to performance rating. Maybe then we'll feel like what we do matters more when being graded.
OK, we’ve heard from the coddled jobs for life point of view from the pampered U.K.
Wish that we could work remotely for the U.K. where the tasks are light, the working hours short, the pay great and the pensions cannot be cut.
Talk about lack of perspective.
First of all, the bell curve prevents managers from taking action against underperforming employees.
Why? (And this is pervasive.)
It is difficult for managers to come up with the 10% rated Below. In some cases, there are people who, yes, are underperforming, but it’s a blip or they seem salvageable. And once you tag an employee with BE, in most of the company they are done. They will be gone soon (occasionally slightly delayed to space out departures). So you desperately don’t want to be in the position of being forced to give a BE to anyone who deserves a future.
So if, say, a manager decides early in the year that a certain employee needs to be let go, they won’t take action (or will be stopped from doing so) because they need that employee in their numbers at year end. Do not ask me how I know this.
So they carry the problem employee all year… spending a disproportionate percentage of their management time on the bad employee when they should be spending it on their best people, while others on the team pick up the bad employee’s work.
A good system would incentivize managers to take swift action to weed out bad employees.
@2ikh, actually, it doesn't make sense that we would have any employees who don't meet expectations. We specifically look to hire people we think will meet expectations and fire people who don't.
Wrong on both counts… I liked the Bell Curve forced ratings for over two decades as an independent contributor and also for 15 years as a manager.
It’s a great system if quality managers and employees are hired and engaged.
Touché… you nailed it and this is exactly why we went to a forced ranking system. We may not like it but It’s the only reason why we still have a viable employer in BNYM.
Couldn’t have said it better myself. If ever an organization needed an overhaul with a true forced ranking system it is BNYM. The HR performance and rating processes aren’t even followed by any management. End of year rankings due at yearend with goals given in October LOL
It’s total cr-p! We all know that a-s kissers get the top rankings. Sign up to all the ERGs, go to all the sad events, comment on every pathetic posting on LinkedIn by RV and kiss up. It’s a sham!
I agree. Its corrosive and cuts against the need for retention of good employees. I hate it with a passion. But, the bell curve began here because almost nobody was rated below achieved, which signals to the top that managers were not doing a good, honest job with performance reviews. In a company as large as ours, a certain distribution should be expected…I mean, almost everyone achieved? That signals something’s wrong with the process. It’s sucks and it is LARGELY unfair, but that’s where it came from.
You’re right, but why work at BNYM when you can make way more somewhere else
Politics has trumped performance and productivity in every single large organization in the history of mankind. Please let us all know if you find an organization where that isn’t so…
“Competition works”
Lol no it doesn’t. At least not here where politics trumps performance and productivity. And even if that was false, you’re still fighting for table scraps and the worst prize is your position being eliminated.
There’s no upside to helping my colleagues in a way that could make them surpass me. I’d rather keep a few tricks up my sleeve.
Ironic, TG said in a town hall we were mediocre. Well, how does he think we got there? Lol
Competition works. That’s why the Bell Curve approach works. I know that it’s always made me focus.
Except the system:
Honestly, I know I’m not an HR/performance management genius.
But this system is indefensible. And most companies learned this long ago.
@1zap, except it's expensive to hire and fire people.
If an employee is meeting expectations, there is no reason to say they aren't just because all their co-workers are meeting and exceeding them. Not to that statistics don't work when numbers are a small as the average group at BK.
This “manager” clearly never understood or worked with the Bell Curve or forced rankings. If he had then he would understand that it is he who is generating the forced rankings and ultimately the results.
There is nothing mysterious about forced rankings and the Gaussian distributions. 80% of all normal curves are average or below, just as 80% of all normal curves are average or above. Having the manager rank employees is a fundamental job for any manager. It will yield an ordered list. The top 20% are stars who should be rewarded and the bottom 20% likely really ought to should be leaving in their own, but often wind up as layoff cat
Nothing in this system precludes training, working with and coaching employees. It’s a beautiful system
Would you want your doctor to be
The commenter who likes the bell curve has likely not functioned as a manager under the system.
As a performer, I was long frustrated with how poorly managers differentiated performance. So I could bust my backside and deliver great work and, while my reviews were strong, others who did a lot less often received overly generous reviews. Accordingly, the comp differential wasn’t what it should have been.
So I was for any system that compelled managers to better differentiate performance.
This system is not it.
It can be incredibly hard for managers. First of all, you are usually forced to limit Exceeds to 10-15% of your team, so on a team of 10, you’re lucky if you can award it to two people. Then almost all of the rest of your team (65-75% of the co) is dumped in a huge middle bucket and there is such a broad range of performance within that, including some who really deserved Exceeds and some who narrowly escaped Below. So it includes some of your best, some okay performers and some barely acceptable ones. It’s nuts. The best performers who get Achieved are leaps and bounds above others who receive that rating. Fair? Not even close.
And if you’re good at managing up your poor performers, or managing them out when all else fails (or the system forces you to), the next year you have to find someone else to to award the silver anvil of job death.
The system makes most managers despise the whole performance management process.
And again, I am someone who believes strongly in differentiating performance, because that produces the best results for the company and properly rewards strong performers.
@1ueg is probably part of management. Only someone part of management would write an answer like that.
I like the Bell Curve approach towards forced rankings. Those who work hardest reap the rewards and those that mail it in receive the worst.
There was a time in America when every participant competed with effort. There were winners and losers and solid contributors who filled out the teams. There were no “Participation Trophies”, whether in grade store, High School, college or in the workplace.
The Bell Curve approach restores competition in the workplace. It rewards the hard workers, supports the solid workers and highlights and eliminates the workers at aren’t cutting it.
It’s a good thing and if you don’t care for it it’s likely that you’re not working very hard.
This!!!^^^^
Amen. It’s corrosive.
It means that people don’t want to join high-performing teams because they know someone will have to be thrown overboard (via a BE rating, usually quickly followed by walking papers).
And it causes people to undermine their teammates because, hey, don’t want the BE to be me!