As a manager in Corp Risk, after our initial ratings calibration meeting, we were told to downgrade even more of our people to "inconsistently meets" even if they don't deserve it. The goal is 20% below "meets" this year. We've been given talking points (not in writing, of course) on what to say or write in reviews to avoid HR claims. Everyone is disgusted. They don't care how we do it, they just want the bodies. What an awful place to work.
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None of the comments surprise me. I was a victim of the Inconsistently Meets performance rating for 2020.... in which I was a new team member joining the team in May. Like, why would you do that to the new person and why would there be an expectation for me to perform Adu the same level of tenured managers in the role. There were 6. The two least tenured to the team received the lowest ratings. When asked what justified the rating, she mentioned one instance that was questionable. And I'm like, you mean to tell me, I worked hard for 6 months for ONE incident to tarnish EVERYTHING else? Like what!! Crazy.
I hope Wells takes its physical security of their buildings seriously. One of these days soon someone is going to snap and it won’t be pretty.
I can say the same about this group. A small number of people can get ‘exceeds’ yet it’s very likely that a newly promoted employee in the group will be the only one that gets this.
Makes me want to shut my IM off and check out for the day. We’ll see how this develops.
Clown show sounds right. I'm in the same org. My manager covers a bunch of small teams of 5-7 employees and told each manager to pick one person to rate IM or NI. No thought behind it at all. Each team treated the same regardless of actual overall talent. So lazy. Plus my team wasn't permitted to backfill a vacancy so everyone on the team has been asked to do more. What a reward for building a high performing team.
The next logical step in that system is full WFH. After all, employees that meet face to face and know each other well might (gasp) start to like each other, which means they'll be less likely to crush their internal competition. Better to prevent such bonding by keeping employees geographically separate.
Good idea, let's do that. FRTO.
Per @1sbx: How could one potentially monetize this unethical behavior and poor treatment?
The only thing that hurts is to take your $$ from WF. And tell friends and relatives to do the same, including moving your mortgage to a different institution. That's all they really care about. Vote with your actions. Do not do business with this corrupt company. They are not to be trusted under any circumstance.
The calibration or stacked ranking has been around since the 80s. WF is very late to the game. It’s in most Fortune 500 companies.
“Pioneered by General Electric's CEO Jack Welch in the 1980s, stack ranking, also known as forced distribution, is an approach to talent management where employees are ranked on a bell curve as exemplary, meeting expectations, or in need of improvement.”
Overview
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/the-20-70-10-rule-122717420.html
“For Welch, the essence of being a good leader means taking people who are already great at their roles and pushing them to become “unbelievable.”
“For “the middle 70,” leaders must offer training and other support systems to push them to reach the top 20%. As for the bottom-tier employees, the goal would be to eliminate them to make room for others who might have better potential.”
General philosophy: “By using this system, Welch made sure that the performance bar will constantly rise. In turn, the competitiveness of the company will never cease to escalate. That is, the organization will just keep improving day by day.”
“Welch based this rule on his belief that “the organization’s job is winning.” For him, the products and services of a company must be able to create value all the time.”
Bigger. Better. More.
If this is true, they should fire the head of HR for overseeing the hiring of poor quality employees. Shouldn’t the hiring people get their bonus downgraded too if the reviews show so many “failure to meets”?
Saving WF HR department some work as I found out today from someone "quietly quitting" in HR they use AI on the contents of this board. chatGPT Prompt: please identify the common issues in this blog post:
============================================
Common issues in this blog post include:
- Forced downgrading of ratings: Several posts mention that employees are being unfairly downgraded to lower performance ratings, even if they do not deserve it. This suggests a manipulative and biased ratings system.
- Lack of transparency: The talking points and instructions for writing reviews are not provided in writing, creating a lack of transparency and accountability in the process.
- Negative work environment: The posts indicate that employees are disgusted, demoralized, and find the workplace to be an awful place to work. This suggests a toxic work environment.
- Outsourcing of jobs: The mention of moving jobs to India and other countries creates concerns about the quality of the workforce and job security for employees.
- Unethical behavior: There are allegations of unethical practices, such as giving fake reviews, manipulating ratings, and favoritism by managers.
- Potential legal issues: Some posts discuss the possibility of fighting the ratings through HR, hiring a lawyer, or filing complaints with regulators, suggesting potential legal implications of the situation.
- Employee dissatisfaction and attrition: The posts express frustration, disillusionment, and a belief that hard-working employees will become discouraged and leave the organization.
- Lack of objective performance evaluation: The ratings system is criticized for being subjective, arbitrary, and ineffective in accurately evaluating employee performance.
- Potential impact on company reputation: The unethical practices and negative work environment described in the posts may have detrimental effects on the company's reputation and its ability to attract and retain talent.
It's important to note that these issues are based on the content provided in the blog post and may not represent the complete or accurate picture of the situation.
Probably because they're moving Corporate Risk jobs to India en mass. Regulators don't care about the quality of the workforce, just the "head-count". Once you've moved your team successfully, you'll be rewarded with a layoff of your own. Time to jump ship my friend.
Let's see... is our risk org meeting expectations overall? Who here has worked with our corp risk team and said "wow, that group is just a shining example of effectiveness"?
I'd say 20% less than meets is probably generous.
What options does one have of they are given a sham "inconsistently meets" on the mid-year review?
Fight the rating via HR? Hire a good lawyer? Complain to regulators? Walk out the door?
How could one potentially monetize this unethical behavior and poor treatment?
Seriously, if you know what one should do - please share.
Yes. This is how they will fire people next instead of axing and paying out severance. That is over. Charlie is now going to fire for fake reviews and non compliance on RTO. He wants to get rid of another 60 percent and ship more jobs to India. Corruption at its best. Get ready for the next massacre
Yes, the ratings system is a complete Fing joke and it's 100% designed to demoralize employees. That's it's entire and only purpose. F Hudson Yards.
I'll believe this load of horse S when 20% of the OC is inconsistently meets and 5% is needs improvement. Until then these ivory tower POSs can F right off.
WF is playing a dangerous game with employees at a time when the ONLY focus should be getting out from under the asset cap and regulator issues.
So they are going to scr€w over 20% of employees by forcing them down in performance ratings and meanwhile push the goal of 30% jobs (minimum) to India and Philippines.
That is a lot of pi$$ed off people. People who have nothing to lose are a
risk. A risk for fraud, reputation and much more. I’m not a union person but I can see that picking up steam if even half of this is all true.
Quite the gamble. CS is going to DESTROY this company!
Same message in Commercial.
Indeed it's a terrible time for managers, in part because the rating charade is against the background of squishy and subjective team objectives. No blame, I'm part of the problem - crafting gibberish that seems to align with enterprise goals and sounds good but really says nothing at all. It's a worthless exercise, made doubly worse when asked to scale "performance" against them.
In my group we are told Meets is a perfect rating (like an exceeds) anyone performing under that has to be pushed down. I have never experienced such a push to lower people in my years here. Usually it's having to justify the high ratings!
Nice to know that the team I left has to implement this. Manager favored her buddies in non hub locations and gaslit the others. The rest of us left. Now she's got to rate 20% of her buddies as below meets. Karma.
This place needs a warning & a disclaimer in order to work here.
It means more people will "punch down" and malign coworkers. A terrible way to live if you are just working for an honest paycheck. The innocent people will get fried. The snakes will survive. Lots of trauma at this company that isn't in the onboarding contract.
It’s a really cr-ppy way to treat loyal employees, and arguably unethical, but unfortunately I don’t think think it is illegal in any way.
We’ve all heard of similar or worse practices at other corporations, and even when brought to light in the media it never seems to be much of a headline story or gather a lot of interest for whatever reason.
WF is really shooting itself in the foot with this approach though.
All the while being told it’s not forced ranking but “guided distribution”. Yet when you distribution doesn’t fit the box, you have to change ratings. So yes. It’s forced ranking. Mid year and year ends. Most miserable time of the year for managers.
Wells is a criminal enterprise. Get legal counsel. Not even the best plaintiffs law firms makes them flinch. File complaint with OCC.
It's like the people offing themselves in the office buildings that have been scrubbed too from online. You just need to use the right search words.
Why isn't anyone going to the media about all this stuff? WF staff are a bunch of boiled frogs compared to those at other companies. Seriously, take a stand and rise up!
This is like psychological abuse. More hard working people will become discouraged and leave. It's usually the hard workers with good skillsets too. The bottom feeders will wait it out.
Same in Consumer.
Apparently some are using those who are remote and outside the 40 mile hub radius as a starting point on selecting who to rate as IM since CS has made it clear those employees are not wanted.
Completely disgusting and unethical!