Thread regarding Nike Inc. layoffs

With the way things stand, other than being put on a performance plan if your rating is sub-standard, what is the benefit of getting Exceptional or Highly Successful rating anymore? I mean, other than perhaps an almost insignificant percentage bump on merit pay increase, your PSP is now based on company performance. It used to have a 'personal accomplishment' component, but that's gone away. All Nike has done by doing this has removed carrots that used to be helpful in getting employees to strive for better performance. When you run yourself ragged just to get a successful review anyway, people have come to the conclusion that you can NOT run yourself ragged and get the same review, and it affects your bonus and pay increase negligibly if at all.
CFEs have been a joke since they grade on a curve, and it's usually a political choice, and not every department even uses them thoughtfully or consistently. So one Exceptional in one department is likely the political darling who contributed less than a Successful employee in another department who was graded on a curve and got stuck in the middle. It's a sham.

@2qet+1aLTcWAr - is the most informed person here. FYI. DEFINITELY including the last bullet point.

Supposedly HR try to change it or ki-l the CFE process back in 2018 but didn't move forward with it due to the fact people want to be able to rate "something".

It's all stupid, if you get excited for the CFE, you must enjoy getting paper trophies. Its a popularity contest with other managers, since they need to vouch for you to get exceptional.

On more fact about CFE’s: ALL ratings are determined prior to year end. That’s right, our CFE rating is calibrated on and confirmed well before we have reached June 1. So for those of you working on self assessments and filling out 360’s for others to be completed end of this month don’t waste too much time on this exercise as it won’t make a different in the rating. The rating has been set and like the previous posted stated many of you deserving an HS will get an S because the bell curve doesn’t allow it.

Bonus fact: The higher in band you are, specifically S and VP, the less your rating has to do with any actual business results and more to do with the personal bias of your manager, their manager, and the VPs calibrating you.

Some CFE facts:

• CFE’s don’t matter. They aren’t submitted to HR and nobody keeps track of them.

• The only thing submitted to HR is your annual performance rating.

• Your annual rating may or may not have any relationship to your actual performance. Nike has a quota system for ratings and this quota comes into play often. As a manager on multiple occasions I’ve had to deny people a richly deserved HS rating because the quota for my team wouldn’t allow it. It has been demoralizing every time.

• Annual performance ratings are also highly variable depending on who your manager is. Some managers take the process seriously, some don’t. For most it’s just a necessary paperwork exercise.

• The CFE system at Nike has not substantially changed in nearly 20 years. Nike still uses it only because as a large company Nike has to have SOME kind of annual review system.

If anyone denies any of the above that person is either clueless or lying.

for most managers the cfe is just a formality. a few care about idp but most wouldn't want to see you progress because it means losing a head. the cfe can be a detriment because why go above and beyond for something when it's not in your cfe? just like when hr posts a job opening and they already have a short list ready, your cfe rating was determined before you even hit mid year review, and if you offend someone important in the 11th hour the great work you did in the other 364 days of the year means nothing. the cfe has and will always be an arbitrary, emotion based method

You do realize that your year-end rating is determined well before you submit / receive your year-end CFE right?

Feedback received from your manager are written well after the fact your rating is established and written in such a way as to justify the rating you receive.

360 feedback is cherry picked and/or ignored for the same reason.

It’s really only a nice charade set up to make HR feel good about themselves.

CFE as a process / document has lost all its credibility on my opinion.
I used to feel like it meant something, but I don't anymore. It has been diluted to the point where it feels as if we are going through the motions.
CDA has shown that nobody looks at them, other wise why were all these people moved into places/jobs that they didn't ask to be?

With what everyone has been through this year everyone should get a HS rating. They deserve it after everything we have been through.

CFE is useless waste of time.
Why don’t you ask around and see who actually benefited from CFE with a promotion?

I’m a manager and can say that I personally put a lot of time and effort into my teams CFE. I’ve had other people join my team halfway through the year but made sure to have a calibration session with their former managers to understand their strengths/opportunities and goals so I can further them in their career. Unfortunately I’ve also been on the other end where my managers have varied. I think sometimes Nike places great individual contributors into people management roles and could do a better job requiring them to do the right training etc. I’d say when I was put as manager nobody told me what to do, I started searching for trainings etc on my own. I wish HR was more hands on, when people are promoted to people manager roles.

How many of us even have the same manager, and don't have our managers changing every 3-6 months?? So many of us have 2-3 different managers each year which means our managers have no context, are scrambling, and often just don't care. It's a joke and I don't give CFEs much credence.